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As a Ford EV owner I’m conflicted about this. I don’t like that this is reopening the “charger wars” when CCS seemed settled on (by all non-Tesla brands), even

by MBCook 3y ago

As a Ford EV owner I’m conflicted about this. I don’t like that this is reopening the “charger wars” when CCS seemed settled on (by all non-Tesla brands), even if it’s kind of cumbersome. also having less cars at CCS chargers means less incentive to provide/fix them. At the same time I understand why they’re doing it. I’m very curious to see how they do this in the new vehicles. Do they go 100% to the Tesla connector? Or will there be two ports: one Tesla and one CCS. Would those be side-by-side or in different locations? Maybe CCS by the driver (where they have it today) and the tesla port on the passenger front bumper or rear driver side bumper similar to a Tesla so cable length isn’t an issue? I am glad there will be an adapter. However I am also a little worried that I may end I with some kind of “non-Tesla tax” where are Tesla chargers cost me more than they would a Tesla even though Ford is partnering.

turtlebits 3y ago
I blame it on the fact that essentially all non-Tesla DC fast charging stations are wholly unreliable. (L2 chargers are generally fine.) Electrify America fast chargers are the most common in my area, yet fail often and are commonly out of commission for weeks at a time. I've also had poor experience with EVgo fast charging as well.
- cptskippy 3y ago
  My neighbor got the new i7 and the first time he tried to DC fast charge at an Electrify America station it threw a bunch of codes on screen and put his car in Limp mode. The dealership had to clear the codes and ended up flashing the firmware and erasing all of his settings and reverting the car to how it was configured at delivery. It's probably BMW being overly cautious and not that the charger could actually harm the car, but I can say I have never had a Supercharger disable my Tesla requiring a tow. I have only ever successful DC fast charged my Leaf about five times, I have however tried to DC Fast Charge it at least a dozen but the chargers are broken more often than not.
cptskippy 3y ago
I have been machinating on this for a couple days and I think I've decided this is a good thing. CCS Combo 1 and CCS Combo 2 are not interoperable and removing all the AC bits from both doesn't yield a compatible or smaller connector. So there's no real benefit to universal adoption of CCS if there's still two incompatible standards. NACS however is very capable and a much smaller connector than CCS. It has a robust and hardened charging network. And any competing network supporting NCAS instantly expands it's customer base to every Tesla owner, and Teslas dwarf every other EV combined. I have two EVs, one being a Model 3 and the other a Leaf. I initially wanted two EVSEs and had my home spec'd with two 240v outlets in the garage. One of those outlets remains unused because I found a Tesla to J1772 adapter for $100 that works perfectly to charge the Leaf. To add a J1772 charger to my house would cost me at least $500 for a breaker, outlet, and EVSE. I can stow this adapter in my Leaf's glove box and have access to every Tesla destination charger for free in addition to the J1772 network.
- MBCook 3y ago
  CCS 1 and 2 don’t exist anywhere in the same area, right? I know we have 1 in the US and Europe users 2. I assume it’s based on if electricity is 120v or 240v at normal wall outlets, but that’s a total guess. So I’m not sure if CCS having two connectors matters much. I generally agree with the rest of what you said. I’ve considered buying a Tesla Tap to be able to use those destination chargers, and there is a supercharger station far closer to me than the nearest EA station. I understand Ford’s motivations and the CCS experience (I’ve had it). But it seemed like this was largely settled. Tesla missed their chance at being the standard, their connector is better, and I don’t like the confusion this will cause popping up just as non-Tesla EVs are really hitting it big.
  - cptskippy 3y ago
    > CCS 1 and 2 don’t exist anywhere in the same area, right? I know we have 1 in the US and Europe users 2. That's correct. Combo 2 is European and the top part is a mennekes connector instead of J1772. My point is that as long as you need 2 standards, one for North America and one for Europe, there's no benefit to the North American standard being CCS1 over NACS. Because of the pervasiveness of NACS at this point, it is easier to just adopt it than to force CCS1 on Tesla. There is already confusion with CHAdeMO, J1772, NACS, and CCS. J1772 can easily charge using AC NACS destination chargers for the cost of a $100 adapter. CHAdeMO will be killed off with the last gen Leaf. It's all the new CCS1 EVs that will be problematic.
m463 3y ago
years ago I had a leaf and tried going on a few journeys that required in-route fast charging to arrive. I can just say that range anxiety pales in comparison to charger anxiety. There were only 3 general networks available to me (evgo, chargepoint and blink) and my experience was not great. evgo was expensive but good, although their locations had only 2 L3 chargers available. They could sometimes all be busy. They were usually near a building and were sometimes occupied by ICE cars. chargepoint was generally good, but they seemed to concentrate on L2 chargers and had few if any L3 chargers. Blink sucked. 99% non-functional and broken. Like something out of fallout. Then I switched to tesla and things immediately just worked. Not only was the telsa range practical, but the chargers were plentiful in location and number of stalls. The only hiccups I've ever heard of were from friends traveling during thanksgiving in the first few years, and that was just waiting in line for a supercharger stall. It seems that the non-tesla networks are improving, but I don't think they are dependable enough to treat an EV like a gasoline car. I think driving a tesla you can pretty much do that. as to the adapter, doesn't tesla already have a CCS -> tesla adapter? at a minimum wouldn't this sort of thing be available for ford? (honestly I think two ports in the side of the car would be awesome)
rasz 3y ago
> reopening the “charger wars” when CCS seemed settled on (by all non-Tesla brands) 'All but Tesla' means nothing when Tesla is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Its like saying GPGPU is settled by now on OpenCL by all non-Nvidia brands.
- MBCook 3y ago
  Tesla is the 800 pound gorilla by default. Normal car brands haven’t cared much, the Leaf and the Volt were not well know. It’s only in the last two years that a lot of EVs, especially in popular styles, have appeared on the market. and while those have generally been very hard to get, there haven’t been many an absolute numbers due to appearing at the end of the semiconductor shortage. There is no reason to think that Tesla will continue to maintain the vast majority of EV sales in the US going forward.

by MBCook 3y ago

turtlebits 3y ago

I blame it on the fact that essentially all non-Tesla DC fast charging stations are wholly unreliable. (L2 chargers are generally fine.) Electrify America fast chargers are the most common in my area, yet fail often and are commonly out of commission for weeks at a time. I've also had poor experience with EVgo fast charging as well.

cptskippy 3y ago
My neighbor got the new i7 and the first time he tried to DC fast charge at an Electrify America station it threw a bunch of codes on screen and put his car in Limp mode. The dealership had to clear the codes and ended up flashing the firmware and erasing all of his settings and reverting the car to how it was configured at delivery. It's probably BMW being overly cautious and not that the charger could actually harm the car, but I can say I have never had a Supercharger disable my Tesla requiring a tow. I have only ever successful DC fast charged my Leaf about five times, I have however tried to DC Fast Charge it at least a dozen but the chargers are broken more often than not.

cptskippy 3y ago

I have been machinating on this for a couple days and I think I've decided this is a good thing. CCS Combo 1 and CCS Combo 2 are not interoperable and removing all the AC bits from both doesn't yield a compatible or smaller connector. So there's no real benefit to universal adoption of CCS if there's still two incompatible standards. NACS however is very capable and a much smaller connector than CCS. It has a robust and hardened charging network. And any competing network supporting NCAS instantly expands it's customer base to every Tesla owner, and Teslas dwarf every other EV combined. I have two EVs, one being a Model 3 and the other a Leaf. I initially wanted two EVSEs and had my home spec'd with two 240v outlets in the garage. One of those outlets remains unused because I found a Tesla to J1772 adapter for $100 that works perfectly to charge the Leaf. To add a J1772 charger to my house would cost me at least $500 for a breaker, outlet, and EVSE. I can stow this adapter in my Leaf's glove box and have access to every Tesla destination charger for free in addition to the J1772 network.

MBCook 3y ago
CCS 1 and 2 don’t exist anywhere in the same area, right? I know we have 1 in the US and Europe users 2. I assume it’s based on if electricity is 120v or 240v at normal wall outlets, but that’s a total guess. So I’m not sure if CCS having two connectors matters much. I generally agree with the rest of what you said. I’ve considered buying a Tesla Tap to be able to use those destination chargers, and there is a supercharger station far closer to me than the nearest EA station. I understand Ford’s motivations and the CCS experience (I’ve had it). But it seemed like this was largely settled. Tesla missed their chance at being the standard, their connector is better, and I don’t like the confusion this will cause popping up just as non-Tesla EVs are really hitting it big.
- cptskippy 3y ago
  > CCS 1 and 2 don’t exist anywhere in the same area, right? I know we have 1 in the US and Europe users 2. That's correct. Combo 2 is European and the top part is a mennekes connector instead of J1772. My point is that as long as you need 2 standards, one for North America and one for Europe, there's no benefit to the North American standard being CCS1 over NACS. Because of the pervasiveness of NACS at this point, it is easier to just adopt it than to force CCS1 on Tesla. There is already confusion with CHAdeMO, J1772, NACS, and CCS. J1772 can easily charge using AC NACS destination chargers for the cost of a $100 adapter. CHAdeMO will be killed off with the last gen Leaf. It's all the new CCS1 EVs that will be problematic.

m463 3y ago

years ago I had a leaf and tried going on a few journeys that required in-route fast charging to arrive. I can just say that range anxiety pales in comparison to charger anxiety. There were only 3 general networks available to me (evgo, chargepoint and blink) and my experience was not great. evgo was expensive but good, although their locations had only 2 L3 chargers available. They could sometimes all be busy. They were usually near a building and were sometimes occupied by ICE cars. chargepoint was generally good, but they seemed to concentrate on L2 chargers and had few if any L3 chargers. Blink sucked. 99% non-functional and broken. Like something out of fallout. Then I switched to tesla and things immediately just worked. Not only was the telsa range practical, but the chargers were plentiful in location and number of stalls. The only hiccups I've ever heard of were from friends traveling during thanksgiving in the first few years, and that was just waiting in line for a supercharger stall. It seems that the non-tesla networks are improving, but I don't think they are dependable enough to treat an EV like a gasoline car. I think driving a tesla you can pretty much do that. as to the adapter, doesn't tesla already have a CCS -> tesla adapter? at a minimum wouldn't this sort of thing be available for ford? (honestly I think two ports in the side of the car would be awesome)

rasz 3y ago

> reopening the “charger wars” when CCS seemed settled on (by all non-Tesla brands) 'All but Tesla' means nothing when Tesla is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Its like saying GPGPU is settled by now on OpenCL by all non-Nvidia brands.

MBCook 3y ago
Tesla is the 800 pound gorilla by default. Normal car brands haven’t cared much, the Leaf and the Volt were not well know. It’s only in the last two years that a lot of EVs, especially in popular styles, have appeared on the market. and while those have generally been very hard to get, there haven’t been many an absolute numbers due to appearing at the end of the semiconductor shortage. There is no reason to think that Tesla will continue to maintain the vast majority of EV sales in the US going forward.