My thoughts on GM and Ford's move to abandon the CCS connector in favor of 'NACS'

The title says all. More than anything my ego's taking a hit - I really didn't see this happening. But, so long as it happens as it seems like it will, there's really nothing to be all that mad about. A single plug standard is what we really need, and while I'm not 100% confident that this will lead us there, at least with adapters we're functionally there.

[spartenz]

"from home" implies the set isn't just a room in your home and now I'm questioning everything

[RiffZifnab]

Cat time codes:
4:38 wakes up for a minute
20:32 wakes up again, looks out window, curls back up

[nemo]

"I am personally annoyed for ego reasons"

I appreciate this extremely tactful honesty. ❤

[sigstackfault]

the best part about standards is that there's so many to choose from!

[compscijedi]

"No one will have backed the wrong horse"

Just sitting here in the corner with the other Leaf owners...

[joshualewis]

“I’m not bothered” - proceeds to make an in-depth 40 minute video explaining why. Love it!

[GiddeonFox]

Heard about this on the radio earlier and was like "Technology Connections will have a video about this within 24 hours" and yep lol

[stuckaduck]

I went for my first road trip with an EV recently, and I have to agree that the most annoying part about the charging process was that so many charging stations require you to have an app to pay. Especially Electrify America, because they require you to pre-pay on their app, and as soon as you go under $10 then it recharges you, so you can never get the money out of your account.

[kennethwhitmer]

For those that don't know when the change over to unleaded fuel happened we changed the diameter of the fuel nozzle to prevent leaded gas from going into unleaded cars as it would destroy catalytic converters. they made adapters so older gas jugs and for people who had on site fuel (Farmers for example) could use their leaded nozzles. Or if you had Hopped up your car and converted it to leaded for the higher octane. Note leaded fuel for road cars wasn't officially phased out till 1996.

[celeron]

It's weird listening to this stuff happening in the US. In Europe Tesla has been happily using CCS2 for their cars for years - the model 3 debuted with CCS2 in Europe - and now most supercharger sites allow other cars to charge too, and it works beautifully. I do believe Tesla is using their proprietary protocol for their cars and additionally support PLC for others, but it doesn't really matter in the end. The reason why this is specific to Europe because in Europe we have 3 phase AC everywhere, often up to 22kW, and the NACS doesn't support 3 phase AC.

[WarpedFlayme]

With Tesla adding the magic dock, announcing CCS super chargers, and releasing a J1772 home charger, I was convinced that they were going to switch to CCS within the next five years or so. Now I don't know what's going on.

[zoppp]

Nacs used to not be open sourced but it is now available on the website and they have the implementation guides, functional specs, connector drawings, connector CAD and written standards freely available to download. They also have revised the connector to support 1000V not 1000A, the new revision and old connector are completely interchangable but only the 1000v connector will support the higher charging rates. Additionally, unlike CCS, NACS only specifies a maximum terminal/cable temperature so they can charge at any current as long as the cable and charge port temps stay within spec.

[wesleyhale]

Hot take- charging being dependent on internet connection to some central server is a national security threat

[compubabble]

The reason Tesla is deciding to open it up, is because the US Government is offering grants/subsidies for companies to set up charge stations, with the caveat that it needs to be open to all EVs. Tesla already has the network, so they basically get free money by opening up their chargers to everyone.

[gdprd]

The whole needing an app to pay reminds me of when non-permit parking at my university switched to an app; it forced me to get a new phone!

[Suction_]

The second I saw that news I was just thinking how long until a rant about this from you lol

[CafeElectric]

Little known fact: Tesla Superchargers and cars actually do not need web connectivity to charge. When the web goes down, the car charges anyway, records the billing locally and reports it to Tesla when communication is restored.
This is one reason why they are more reliable than the current standard CCS systems. I do hope Tesla retains their reliable communication and billing for Tesla cars, even as they adopt DIN 70121 for communication and ISO-15118 for "plug and charge."

[carlbenz]

The biggest problem I see with having to use an app from the car maker is what happens when they no longer support the app? This could happen because the manufacturer goes out of business, is bought out by another company which wants everything to move to its app, or the original company changes the app to "upgrade it" breaking compatibility with older models or they just decide to stop supporting it. Look at how many people bought into smart home systems that were bricked when the company stopped supporting them.

[Drumox]

Plug and charge is great but i do think that an option to even have tap to pay with a credit card fixes almost all issues bypassing the app. Especially when charging location is in a terrible cell service area

[dmunro]

I bought my Model 3 only after Tesla released their CCS1->NACS adapter in mid 2022 because of the availability of CCS1 chargers in rural BC. When I road trip I use CCS1 when it's convenient, but the Tesla Supercharger network is vastly more reliable.