Featured NACS Standardization Under Way

Ford Switch To Tesla Charging Standard Annoys CCS Alliance

Its fairly straightforward to up the NACS to 1000V to satisfy vw group and hyundai. My guess is hardware would be less expensive than CCS1 if standardized to NACS. I am not sure the connectors are up for the 1000A for charin, but I am glad SAE is working on this to democratize and standardize. There are not many 800V CCS1 charging stations yet, so hopefully they will fully form the next standard on NACS.

I did not know that CCS2 was being pushed for 3 phase AC. I am not sure this is really needed as DC seems much better for the higher power levels. DC requires the hardware in the chargers instead of every car.

My tesla was built in 2018 before they put the electronics in the car for ccs1, I believe they will add that hardware and sell me an adapter for about $400. Since NACS seems to have all that hardware in the car already, adapters may drop in price if their are many dc chargers with ccs1 and not NACS. The adapter from NACS to J1772 works fine and is easy.

Since most vehicles that use L3 chargers in north america are NACS, the move makes a lot of sense.

 

Always amusing when operations like CCS Alliance get exposed for the poorly contrived nature of their agenda once the people with the most money & influence decide on what the standard is without them... Pretty much makes the whole alliance irrelevant, doesn't it?

 

I am amused at how many miss the joke. A tiny number of EVs that even claim to use 800 VDC yet insist on having 1000 VDC charging. So these high voltage cry babies either add a DC-to-DC boost power supply, Hyundai, or divide the pack into a pair of series-or-parallel battery circuits, GM.

<SMILES>

Bob Wilson

 

Europe was installing 'Level 3' AC chargers before CCS was set, and even now you can get EVs with faster than US Level 2 AC there. Though push might be too strong a word. Homes in much of the continent get 3 phase service. EV charging making use of it is just practical, and CCS2 is just and expansion of the 3 phase j1772 plug Europe had always used.

The SAE doesn't recognize a Level 3 for cars. They use separate Level 1 & 2 for DC and AC. I accept Level 3 in colloquial use, but we might see technical Level 3's in the future for commercial trucks.

 

Correct but the Munro YouTubes showed there was an area ready to populate for three phase. Speculation is the EU Teslas have three phase capability.

Bob Wilson

 

It will be interesting to see how many of the 2024 new models from legacy manufacturers come with what charge ports and the firmware/software/hardware to support them. I just happened to browse over to a Chevrolet web site and was looking at their coming EVs and see a 5 pronged port. Just think of the supply chain chaos as all manufacturers move to the standard at roughly the same time.

Maybe Elon should just sell charging services and skip the car making.

 

None of them will come with the NACS port in 2024.
The Ford, GM, Rivian & Volvo announcements have all stated that in 2024 there will be adapters available for existing cars.
New cars in 2025 will be outfitted with the NACS port.

 

Compared to Tesla's volume, the EV makers are about 1/3d of the EVSE and EV market. The larger demand will be for charger hoses. Fortunately, Tesla has published detailed technical specs and drawings so anyone can make them. Hummm, the makers of CCS-1 equipment might see their 'survival' in opening NACS hardware.

Bob Wilson

 

NACS v4 goes to 1000 VDC. The reason for the push is larger packs like in the cyber truck or faster charging as hyundai does.

This one talks about MW - 1KV x 1KA for v4 but doesn't know if the plugs are compatable. They look very different.
Tesla Semi Will Charge At 1+ MW Using New V4 Charging Cable

Other articles about v4 are 1KV x 650 A with max power of 600 KW. If you are rolling out thirstier in terms of charging power vehicles in the near future NACS needed to increase voltage or the wire size for the current would be too large. Maybe the 600 KW version doesn't need that liquid cooled cable on the charger or in the car.

CharIN talks about 1250V x 3000 amps but that amperage would surely need a different socket on the car or truck. My guess is if v4 goes to 600 KW it is plenty for light vehicles, but trucks and busses may need different charger ports.

Major DC charging companies are already adapting NACS plugs because of the potential customers. They say they will keep the CCS1 plugs too, and tesla will support it with adapters. The government is helping to pay for the infrastructure and the bill has wording that you need to support CCS in the US to get the money.

 

Imagine if we had several different kinds of plugs on store bought electrical products within our own countries. What would houses look like?

 

We already have multiple NEMA connectors:




Bob Wilson

 

Yes, but at least those change due to what the device actually does. It makes sense that a phone charger and electric dryer have different plugs.

What wouldn't make sense is if every phone manufacture had a different plug for their phone chargers. But that's the way it is with EV's right now. We have several types of charing ports, at least 4 just here in the USA. Yet they all do basically the same thing for the most part.

 

No, that isn’t the case.
And, up until recently there were different plugs for Apple, and non-Apple phones.

There are two level 2 charging plugs. One for Tesla (NACS), and another (J1772) for all others. The Tesla owners also had an adapter that allowed use of the J1772 standard.
For the DC fast charging you have basically two standards in the USA. The NACS and CCS plugs. This NACS is the same as the NACS Tesla uses for the Level 2 charger.

There is a CaDeMo plug, but that is dying out quickly.

If you want one plug for both types of charging, Tesla has the only answer.

 

I was referring to the other end, the 120V end. Your vacuum cleaner, phone charger, electric piano, refrigerator, etc, all use the same plug.

Yes, there have been a ton of unncessary USB ports. iPhone still uses their Lightning port. But that is beginning to all standardize into USB-C.

My Leaf had a CHaDeMo plug on it.

 

The wall end has a dozen options.
An electric range/stove has a different plug, as does an arc-welder, RV plug, dryer, GFCI outlets, 20 AMP outlets, outlets for AC, and on, and on.

The varIrtysh of outlets an EV can use is a strength in flexibility.

 

True. But most of those things aren't things most people have to plug and unplug every day. And a lot of them are cross-compatible. For an example, 15amp plug with fit into a 20amp outlet.

Maybe things have changed. When I had my Leaf there were a few DC quick charging stations where I still had to find a place to charge at level 2 or even level 1 near where they were because none of them were CHAdeMO. If I got a Bolt, I might be able to find a CCS to CHAdeMO adapter. But would I be able to find a CCS to NASC adapter?

At least with NEMA sockets and plugs there's a reason they are all different. A 30A 240V grounded socket is designed so you can plug in your 30A dryer but not your 50A welder, and for good reason. EV's can take a variety of voltages and amperages, and so the charging stations put out a variety of voltages and amperages depending on what the vehicle is asking for and what the station is capable of. Why make several different connectors that all do the same thing? What is the strength in that? How is that more flexible?

 

ChadeMO had the most fast charger locations until around 2020, but this is now orphaned in North America. They aren't really going to build many more chargers but they will maintain some that are already built. By 2018 NACS outnumbered ChadeMO and CCS in terms of plugs, but there were many fewer locations. Since no more new ChadeMO vehicles will be built for north America after 2025, there isn't much reason to support the japanese standard

There are 3 dominant plugs in north america J1772, CCS1, and NACS (tesla). J1772 is AC and plugs directly into a CCS1 socket, or with an included adapter into a NACS socket.

Tesla has an adapter that will allow tesla plugs to connect to CCS1 sockets. I don't know if these are being sold to the public yet. There is also an adapter to go from CCS1 to NACS that they charge for. New tesla's can use this directly, but older ones like my 2018 need an electronics upgrade to use the adapter.

The benefit of NACS or J1772 plugs versus CCS1 is less expensive and lighter plugs. The benefit of CCS1 over NACS could be dedicated dc and ac connections while NACS puts ac or dc on the same plug so the car must communicate to do this properly, still this has been working for a long time. CCS1 socket was compromised by needing to accept J1772 for AC then building on. Still its not that bulky, it just is cheaper building NACS infrastructure, and much has been built for long distance travel already.