Why switch adapters now?

[JZinger]

With Tesla’s abrupt decision to lay off its electric-vehicle charging team and reduce its investments in public charging, why would Ford and others continue with their move to NACS adapters? This is an honest question as I'm not an electrical engineer and don't know the benefits of NACS over CCS other than the current inventory of Tesla Superchargers. Many of us, myself included, installed the FCSP at home. If the change to NACS over CCS is implemented we will be required to by an additional adapter if we were to purchase another EV of PHEV a few years from now. If Tesla has been the gold standard for the implementation of public charging then it would make sense for Ford and other legacy automakers to snatch up these recently fired employees and become the new standard bearer in public charging infrastructure.

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[Maineiac12]

The NACS plug is now an SAE standard design so that is safe.

The real concern is Tesla supercharger reliability going down the drain or Tesla backing out of existing agreements.

I don’t have a preference on plug design but I think all car makers should standardize on one design. It’ll only help EV adoption going forward.

 

[carys98]

With Tesla’s abrupt decision to lay off its electric-vehicle charging team and reduce its investments in public charging, why would Ford and others continue with their move to NACS adapters? This is an honest question as I'm not an electrical engineer and don't know the benefits of NACS over CCS other than the current inventory of Tesla Superchargers. Many of us, myself included, installed the FCSP at home. If the change to NACS over CCS is implemented we will be required to by an additional adapter if we were to purchase another EV of PHEV a few years from now. If Tesla has been the gold standard for the implementation of public charging then it would make sense for Ford and other legacy automakers to snatch up these recently fired employees and become the new standard bearer in public charging infrastructure.

The only advantage that the Tesla connector has is its size. It is easier to handle which could help with EV adoption. There is also a slight advantage in the way it locks since the moving parts of the lock mechanism are part of the vehicle, not the handle. This can help prevent broken connectors on the charging stations. The disadvantage is that the Tesla connector is lacking pins. Since it shares the high power pins for both AC and DC charging there isn’t an easy way to do vehicle to grid like the Home Integration System. It also means you need two adapters to be able to use a CCS vehicle with both J3400 AC and DC chargers. The current J3400 does not cover two way charging it is promised (like a lot of other Tesla promises) but so far has not been implemented. While the HIS was a terrible implementation the concept is going to be important for EVs going forward so the CCS connector has a big advantage there. No matter what happens there are going to be two cable standards in the US for probably at least another decade and now that there are adapters to go both ways I really don’t give a damn what connector I have.

 

[VTbuckeye]

Personally I would rather keep j1772 so that I don't need adapters at home. I have a robust collection of J1772 EVSEs (240x 16, 20, 30,30, 80) though we only use the two 30amp EVSEs due to discounted charging prices when using their supplied evse from our utility (I will likely remove the other EVSEs if we sell the house so that a new owner doesn't have the option to overload the electric capacity of the house). I really don't care if I need an adapter for public charging.

 

[Sedawk]

NACS is such a better design all around - lets just rip off the CCS band-aid and get it over with.

 

[RickLightning]

No company should make decisions over a CEO having gas. They wait and see what happens. All sorts of speculation, no facts beyond the layoff and emails not being returned by people who don't work their any longer.

I'm doing a video with Elon's mother getting her take.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

No company should make decisions over a CEO having gas. They wait and see what happens. All sorts of speculation, no facts beyond the layoff and emails not being returned by people who don't work their any longer.

I'm doing a video with Elon's mother getting her take.

I spoke to her, she doesn’t know anything. Said Elon has always been fickle. His brother, however; went to school with a former roommate of mine who works with the in laws of her uncle twice removed who once caught a glimpse of Elon, and they said definitively that the deal is still on.

 

[Ffxdude]

I spoke to her, she doesn’t know anything. Said Elon has always been fickle. His brother, however; went to school with a former roommate of mine who works with the in laws of her uncle twice removed who once caught a glimpse of Elon, and they said definitively that the deal is still on.

Shhhhh I told you not to say anything. But seriously his Dr’s will adjust the ketamine dosage and in a few weeks this will all be a blip on our way to supercharger nirvana….

 

[wighty]

Since it shares the high power pins for both AC and DC charging there isn’t an easy way to do vehicle to grid like the Home Integration System

Can you explain what you mean/why this would be the case? I can't think of an issue with doing this off the top of my head.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

Can you explain what you mean/why this would be the case? I can't think of an issue with doing this off the top of my head.

**Someone check my memory…

The HIS pulls from the DC pins direclt from the battery and relies on the inverter to convert to AC for distribution. It knows to initiate the DC pull when it senses an outage on the AC distribution pins, and knows to stop pulling DC when the AC returns

If the pins are shared for AC and DC it wouldn’t be able to pull directly from the battery since it won’t be able to make the determination of whether AC is available or not. It will need to be redesigned to handle the logic. Additionally, it will no longer be able to rely on dedicated pins, meaning it will need to communicate with the car, the car will have to switch over from AC to DC - ensure the charger has also switched - before supplying power back.

It’s technically feasible, but complex and relies on enough switching that it probably wouldn’t be an instant backup and would involve some sort of delay.

 

[wighty]

It will need to be redesigned to handle the logic.

So I agree with what you are saying but, not being an engineer, I don't think you've stated anything that I think would be impossible to rectify/design around... including redesigning the whole HIS (with a very obvious solution to the delay being include another battery for the instantaneous power while the vehicle switches to DC pins for V2H).

 

[ChrisInVegas]

Having both a Lightning and a Tesla, I can say the NACS plug is much easier to use and handle. Most people liken the reliability of the Tesla network to the plug but I suspect a big part of the reliability is on the maintenance teams. My understanding (based on the internets so you can trust that) is that most of the folks who were let go were part of getting new sites up and going. I believe the maintenance teams were largely left in place.

Also... even if we never got access to another new Tesla site, just having access to what has already been granted is huge.

I suspect things will get worked out and new NACS sites will get rolling again... at least that is what I am hoping for.

Also... one other commenter said we will have dual plugs for at least another decade. I agree. But if we don't continue to switch to NACS, we will have dual plugs forever.

 

[Newton]

The Cybertruck has the ability to back up the house using V2H like the Lightning, using a new version of the Tesla home charger. At least that is what Tesla claims, I don't know if it is one of those features that will be coming any day now unless the people who were in charge of it got laid off.

Anything "coming soon" from Tesla is possibly now rescheduled to "coming never." I have been through layoffs and they are not conducive to getting work done, you discover just how much work even the slackers do when it now becomes your additional responsibility.

 

[hturnerfamily]

I have used both NACS Supercharger cables and certainly CCS cables and would never want my daughter, niece, wife, or daughter-in-law to have to 'struggle' to manage huge, heavy, and unwieldy CCS cables - they are just not designed for easy usage. They continue to put a lot of pressure on your Charge Port inlet, and many times create issues just because of the 'twist'/torque and weight of the cable and huge handle, itself.

Especially with Supercharger stations, you just plug in and start the charge - no screen or reason to interact with the station, itself.....this is not always the case with CCS stations and differing brands and plug-n-charge integrations, although we can certainly hope that ALL stations will eventually be PnC compatible.

It's a novel thought that we should never 'have' to deal with adapters, but, honestly, as long as there are EVs traveling, there will be times when there is NOT a NACS available, or sometimes a CCS available - you'll have an adapter, regardless.

My congratulations will be for the day when EA and CHARGEPOINT and EVgo and all the other CCS-legacy stations retrofit every unit with a NACS cable.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

So I agree with what you are saying but, not being an engineer, I don't think you've stated anything that I think would be impossible to rectify/design around... including redesigning the whole HIS (with a very obvious solution to the delay being include another battery for the instantaneous power while the vehicle switches to DC pins for V2H).

Not impossible - I don’t think - just not easy and far more expensive to an already expensive solution. The delay would require a UPS.

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