BREAKING: Electrify America to adopt Tesla NACS connector by 2025

[cvalue13]

with that in mind why in the world would i want my car to sit at a destination charger for hours.. when for under 15 bucks i can get it compleatly charged up while watching a netflix episode and be about my way...

the same reason you don’t have L3 at your home

at a destination, you spend the 3 seconds plugging in and then you go do life stuff, and when you return you spend the 3 seconds unplugging

I’ve only been to a fast charger 3 times in 1 year, because my truck charges at home while I sleep

If workplaces, shopping malls, schools, the house of the friend you’re visiting for the weekend, hotels, airports, etc, all had L2, the need for L3 reduces to very little for most, the majority of the time

and given the lower expense and increased convenience of L2 vs L3 infrastructure and usage, I’d think inertia should drift toward L2 into the future

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[Almost Mars]

yeahh but i am VERY self-centered and am NOT agnostic to charge speed.... ALL i care about is level 3/4 chargers; and all i REALLY care about is are there enough ports so i am never more than 100 miles from a charging station where i can recharge.. and yeahh tesla is pretty close to that now.

CCS has to acomodate for cars that have VERY limited range.. almost all tesla's now have 250+ range.. so if you put a lot of ports every 70-80 miles no one really has to wait.

I don't think very many drivers CARE if you have 15 ports at one location in a 20 square mile area or if the same area has 5 locations with 3 ports each.

The odds of finding an available charger increases with the number at any given location. Having them bunched near a highway is the perfect solution.

 

[Cyberman]

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

 

[cvalue13]

No doubt.

My initial reaction was excited and surely overstated, esp for any near term effects for Tesla owners

To your point, if all the network companies do with this is add L2 NACS connectors to their pumps, it amounts to replacing the charge adaptors people carry in their cars

The big question instead is whether the companies, through the purported CapEx efficiencies of NACS, are able to expand L3 charging into locations that were previously cost prohibitive for CCS.

My visibility limited on that likelihood if this is left to pure market conditions.

Except that my original post opened with the conjecture that: if this entire shift does manage to “implode” the current IRA limitations on charge infra funds, towards a change that also requires the network companies to provide L3 NACS at any eligible station.

If that occurs, it’s the key basis for my initial excitement and optimism.

Add billions in network buildout incentives conditioned NACS availability on 150kw minimum charge rate etc, then [see first post’s optimism]

That said, I don’t think the current IRA incentive conditions will be changed soon or easily.

It’s just that all the dominos are falling towards putting the IRA in an increasingly awkward position.

It’s looking more and more like a rule requiring cars to yield right-of-way to horses carriages.

Once that becomes too awkward to bare, NACS will get a more direct line to billions in chargers buildout.

 

[ÆCIII]

This post has a few thoughts and touched on a lot of areas, so be warned it's a little long.​

I think EA is adopting NACS to throw themselves a lifeline for the rest of the decade. As others mentioned, I also think they should've started it much sooner to get revenue from the Tesla customers already on the road in the U.S.

But, with EA now saying they're adding NACS, I don't see why VW shouldn't adopt NACS ASAP for their US marketed cars.

Right now it's less likely that a Tesla will stop at an EA charging location, unless they're one of very few that have a CCS port (possibly China made imports driving into the U.S. from Canada), or one that has a CCS adapter onboard, or a ChadeMO adapter (which are expensive and also slow to use). I'm not sure how many CCS adapters are even out there among Tesla owners, because many earlier Teslas are not even compatible with the CCS adapter they were offering, pending a future 'retrofit' or 'modification' of some kind notified in the Tesla app.

There are perceptions expressed in this thread, that non-Tesla charging networks are somehow like an 'apples-to-apples' comparison to Tesla Supercharging networks. I think that is somewhat distant from reality.

As mentioned, most of the other networks are predominately Level II, which takes a small fraction of the cost per location to setup, compared to a Tesla supercharger location. So other companies haven't really been that committed from a serious cost and infrastructure perspective. Meanwhile, Tesla has been reducing their supercharger deployment costs while prefabricating transformer and charging stall connector sets to reduce the time it takes to bring a new supercharging location on line.

Yes, there are a lot of non-Tesla Level II charging locations out there, but with them having been much cheaper with a fraction of the cost to establish in the first place, that's not really saying much. Tesla has actually established more real momentum of charging access, when you look at Level III and the sheer number of locations they've deployed. Tesla's broad success in that is why everyone is starting to adopt the NACS.

Of course EA has some 350kW chargers. But realistically that might be a miss in some aspects too, because the number of cars using that capability of EA to really take any advantage of it, are likely fewer. Again, they'd need a fast onboard charger, a battery that can take the 350kW charge rate without compromise or damage, and a CCS port. How many cars going to EA charger locations in the US are equipped to actually yield significant benefits from 350kW? Most EV batteries are only able to draw that much power for short periods of only few minutes in the charging cycle curve. Sure it does make the overall charging go maybe a little faster (for a few cars), but from a practical perspective it looks more like bragging rights at this point.

Tesla seems to be in touch with what is most optimally compatible in the whole driving and charging experience. I think this is because they're so vertically integrated and know their battery chemistry, longevity, and are keen to actuate metrics that are practical for scaling.

Why deploy a bunch of 350kW Chargers out there before there's a lot of batteries that would gain significant benefit from that throughput? That would incur increased cost without much benefit, and those chargers could become outdated or worn out before their ideal battery usage becomes mainstream. Of course with V4 there are specifications of higher throughput, but their projected deployment timelines are also in line with newer and larger batteries too, like those projected for the Semi and Cybertruck.

And has anyone integrated charging stop planning and navigation natively in their car's software as seamless as Tesla has? I've looked at plugshare.com a couple times over the last four years, to see if there were Level II chargers in a couple areas I was traveling that were sparse in Tesla superchargers at the time. Since then, the supercharger locations coverage in the U.S. has increased dramatically by over 4X. The data and charts on supercharge.info clearly tell the story. Of course I heard there's 'A Better Route Planner' out there, but I've never had to even look at using it because the Tesla interface to charging location planning works so well.

Once EA starts including NACS cables, I'll still avoid them because their electricity rates are atrocious. For me, EA will only be a consideration if I had some rare unforeseen range expenditure (or supercharger crowding) forcing me to go to one of their locations instead of a Tesla supercharger. Even then, I'd probably just take on about 10 or 20 kWH or just enough to get to a Tesla supercharger and finish topping off there. When it comes to predatory pricing tactics by any company, I'm just stubborn that way, which is why I also don't like most car dealers. Look at what gasoline buyers have been doing to be frugal over the past 40 years and today - driving 5 or more miles out of their way just to save a few cents on each gallon of gas ... I'll do the same with supercharging to avoid giving up my savings to someone else.

- ÆCIII

 

[papajamaliciousness]

Why so fast? 2025 is only 2 years away. Obviously it would be absurd to become nacs compliant in the time it would take to retool plus hire some consultants and engineers to redesign the chargers you are building, like 2 months or 4 months. But if you're going to wait two years why not just say five years? What is the urgency?

:/

 

[Crissa]

As mentioned, most of the other networks are predominately Level II, which takes a small fraction of the cost per location to setup, compared to a Tesla supercharger location. So other companies haven't really been that committed...

There are probably more Destination charge stalls out there than Superchargers.

Yes, Tesla is bigger than any one other DC network... but that's because as the monopoly supplier they had to be to give the same level of service. The CCS networks have each other to 'fill in the gaps'. Tesla has had to compete with the entire market, not just EA or EVGO.

-Crissa

 

[CYBRSMTH]

And who owns Electrify America? VW. It’s just a matter of time before everyone adopts NACS in North America. It’s a superior piece of engineering compared to CCS 1.0. Hard to believe it’s over 10 years old.

 

[SparkChaser]

VW built Electrify America in settlement for the Diesel vehicle fraud they perpetrated for years.

 

[cvalue13]

And VW has to fully discharge the the $2 billion into EA by the end of 2026.

wonder what the running tally is so far

Siemen’s just put $450M into EA, so there must be some view toward post 2026 legitimacy

 

[jerhenderson]

nacs and ccs are standards for charger ports.. they are both open sourced... what monopoly are you talking about?? You can't develop a monopoly for an open sourced standard plug?!

if you mean tesla will have a monopoly of the charging LOCATIONS... nonsense they neither want to do that or are likely to achieve it. will they have a monopoly on chargers used by Tesla users well YEAHH we like FAST charging and superchargers.

Remember tesla ONLY built a charging network out of desperation.. they do NOT want to be the only charging network out there.. they just don't want to compromise a GREAT design and use a bad one. that is why they renamed their standard to be NACS and open sourced it.

tesla didn't build their stations out of desperation; they knew they had to provide consumers with a means to charge their cars, so to help adoption of the technology, so they built them as a part of the plan

 

[jerhenderson]

So vw group next domino to fall?

they seem to be in big trouble. it's almost like Diess predicted it.

 

[Greshnab]

tesla didn't build their stations out of desperation; they knew they had to provide consumers with a means to charge their cars, so to help adoption of the technology, so they built them as a part of the plan

I believe his exact statement was..

"We built the Supercharger network out of desperation, since no one else was doing it," Musk said on June 14.

 

[Cyberman]

I believe his exact statement was..

"We built the Supercharger network out of desperation, since no one else was doing it," Musk said on June 14.

Somebody had to do it first, and first usually dominates. Might as well be Elon, right? He was the only one to fully commit to EV's, as I see it.

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