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> Tesla already opened up the NACS connector for others to use. We don't know the detail yet but the license fee is probably minimal if Ford and GM agree to joi

> Tesla already opened up the NACS connector for others to use. We don't know the detail yet but the license fee is probably minimal if Ford and GM agree to join. Any licensing fee paid to a single company is unacceptable for what is described as an "open standard." > the CSS1 connector is monstrous compare to NACS Sure, it's bigger, but how is that a problem? It's not like you carry it with you. Nobody I know has ever had an issue physically working with it, including people 70+ years old. > Tesla has a larger and better charging infrastructure than EA etc. What's wrong with giving infrastructure subsidies to companies who proved they have a superior product? Or do you think that everyone deserves a piece of the pie, regardless of their technical competency? I have a big problem with companies getting infrastructure subsidies that they then use to rent-seek in the market and force other companies to pay them fees for access to publicly-funded infrastructure, yes. I'm not saying subsidies have to be given equally, but subsidies should absolutely not be given to companies that limit the product of that subsidy (charging) based on licensing for profit.

guardiangod 3y ago
Well good news then since Tesla is "The design and specification files are available for download, and we are actively working with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard. Enjoy." https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-standard https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s... I do agree that the connector needs to be a public standard and the licensing fee needs to be kept to a minimal. (I am against free solely to cover the cost of standard validation similar to WiFi. As we see from USB-C, having 1000 companies of various quality developing charging cable is a disaster, but now it's 400V 500Amp connector.)
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > […] with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard. Enjoy." And who is/are the "relevant standards bodies"? SAE? IEC? Other?
  - Moto7451 3y ago
    I’d assume both since SAE is important for North America and IEC for Europe. The Type 2 connector references the Type 1 standard for communication, so cross referencing is also likely here.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Just a cautionary note: Steve Jobs made the same "we're working on a standard" promise for FaceTime when he announced the iPhone 4. We're up to the iPhone 14 and it hasn't happened.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    To be fair he died. Jobs was known for personally seeing things through sometimes but it required ultimately him to make sure it got done
  - remir 3y ago
    That was because they got sued by some patent troll: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114
    - resoluteteeth 3y ago
      Why does that affect their ability to open it up? I assume they changed facetime to not infringe the patent (which was later found invalid anyway) in response so couldn't they just have opened up the changed version? If that lawsuit affected their ability to go forward with facetime, facetime surely wouldn't exist at all so I don't understand why it explains facetime continuing to exist but not being open.
      - gjsman-1000 3y ago
        Actually, the legal battle between Apple and VirnetX is ongoing to this very day, over a decade later. The latest event: https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-wins-reversal-502-mln-virnetx-patent-infringement-verdict-2023-03-31/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-wins-reversal-502-mln-vi... It's since exploded into things beyond just FaceTime. The FaceTime one though, Apple ultimately lost their appeal in 2019 and paid out $440M for FaceTime infringement (so, yes, legally speaking, VirnetX won). It's now over VPN patents which had some patents cancelled. With FaceTime being legally infringing... hard to make an open standard. Plus, why would they now? Not only would it primarily benefit the competition; but it would also undermine FaceTime's security. The beauty of FaceTime is that it is very much tied to physical devices, making it very expensive and difficult to spam call without detection. An open standard would likely lose that ability, causing spam video calls everywhere.
- fnimick 3y ago
  If that is the case, why will the Tesla to CCS adapter work only on Ford and GM vehicles? It's very clear from the press releases that other companies cars are left out until they pay up.
  - pmorici 3y ago
    Are you confusing the charging network with the plug standard?
    - 7e 3y ago
      Who cares if it’s a standard if the network is not open?
      - judge2020 3y ago
        Because the OP here was actually mistaking things. For all we know there won't be a Tesla to CCS adapter that works on existing Ford/GM vehicles, it could be that only Ford/GM vehicles with the NACS connector will get to use all superchargers. And Tesla has already opened up charging to all EVs on some superchargers via the Magic Dock, but the situation isn't amazing, especially with many new cars using an 800 volt architecture and thus not charging super fast on Tesla's 400 volt superchargers. https://youtu.be/pUYqDNCIFD8 https://youtu.be/pUYqDNCIFD8 Combine this with how many charge port doors aren't on the back left or front right, and you have a really messy charging situation with blocked spots and slow charging cars. The partnership most likely means: - The cars will be 400 volt architecture (or otherwise 800v and upcoming V4 superchargers will support up to 1000 volts) - The charging port door will be either on the front right quarter of the car, or back left quarter.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        In the Ford announcement, they promised an adapter.
        judge2020 3y ago
- vel0city 3y ago
  I can download a Windows ISO, doesn't make it free and open for me to start shipping products. Just because they've got some files on a website doesn't make it an actually open standard.
cbm-vic-20 3y ago
> companies getting infrastructure subsidies that they then use to rent-seek in the market and force other companies to pay them fees for access to publicly-funded infrastructure See also: HD Radio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio#United_States
- dylan604 3y ago
  I was thinking AT&T as a more relatable example. Pretty much everyone uses AT&T infrastructure of some type. Whether it's the actual cables strung by the phone company, or other companies needing to string cables on the poles installed by the phone company. AT&T was so entrenched, that it's easy to overlook just how vested into them we were. HD Radio on the other hand is just something of little interest to me personally. By the time I had a tuner with that feature, it also came with bluetooth which meant my device was doing the work and the radio was just a legacy thing that came with the device.
Tuna-Fish 3y ago
> Any licensing fee paid to a single company is unacceptable for what is described as an "open standard." ... do you understand how out of touch this is? Every single recent "public standard" will absolutely require paying license fees to some company, or often a whole pool of companies. This is simply how things are done, designing things cost money and that money is recouped through licensing. The key part is that the licenses are FRAND, or Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminating.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > ... do you understand how out of touch this is? Every single recent "public standard" will absolutely require paying license fees to some company, or often a whole pool of companies. If the fee is to one company, it is usually an industry non-profit (HDMI, Bluetooth) that doesn't itself have a stake in the outcome. If it's a pool of companies they also have to hash things out amongst themselves and no one company will have control over another. Neither of these situations apply to Tesla and 'NACS'. If Tesla wants to give up control of 'NACS' to SAE or IEC, then we can talk.
  - ajdude 3y ago
    You might be sad to hear that the latest standard of over the air (antenna) TV utilizes ATSC 3 audio, requiring tuners to pay 70 licensing fees so you'll have sound with your TV. I don't get audio when I use my DVR on Plex because of that.
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      > utilizes ATSC 3 audio There is no such thing as ATSC 3 audio. ATSC is the transmission standard, either ATSC 1 (basically everywhere, 1080p) or ATSC 3 in some cities ("Next-Gen TV", 4K). ATSC 1 uses Dolby Digital AC-3, ATSC 3 uses Dolby AC-4 which is otherwise quite rare. Also, that's a very light example. Look into the patent situation for H.264 / AVC, H.265 / HEVC. They are Open Standards (you can download the documentation right now), but they are patent minefields to implement, with dozens of companies and hundreds, if not thousands of patents. Also, to reply to the comment above you: > If the fee is to one company, it is usually an industry non-profit (HDMI, Bluetooth) that doesn't itself have a stake in the outcome. If it's a pool of companies they also have to hash things out amongst themselves and no one company will have control over another. What? HDMI is not an open standard - you need to pay to get the documentation, pass certification, and pay a royalty fee per device (about 5-15 cents per connector). You also need to license the logo because HDMI is actually a brand. Sure, anyone can get HDMI, but it sure ain't open. And if it's a TV or a monitor, better license HDCP separately. Also, as for Bluetooth... that was a patent minefield for decades.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
FWIW, this video changed my mind: https://youtu.be/zsNiupN1X7s https://youtu.be/zsNiupN1X7s Part of what makes Tesla so successful is that they can make EVs cheaply. Using NACS instead of CCS seems to be one factor in keeping costs down: because the charge door is smaller, they can make it part of the trim instead of having to match it to the body The plumbing from the charge door to the battery also seems more cost effective Watt for watt, dropping weight makes a small but real improvement in EV range The latch setup also seems better, on Plugshare I see a decent # of chargers that are out of commissions because of how CCS puts the latch on the EVSE
- vel0city 3y ago
  The difference between my car with a minutely smaller charging door is like maybe an ounce or two in weight. We're not even talking pounds. On a vehicle that weighs a few thousand pounds and will vary several hundred based on how many passengers are in it. Shaving a few ounces isn't going to make a difference in range. With EVs, even adding a hundred pounds or two isn't changing the range that much. You get a ton of it back in regen so the vast majority of energy usage is rolling resistance (which a few pounds isn't changing) and aero drag (no weight difference at all).
  - numpad0 3y ago
    I don’t necessarily agree to the parent comment, but I believe the point is that it eliminates need to attach, remove, and keep the fuel door by use of a temporary fixture during painting. All doors and bumpers on a car is attached to the body during the paint process, then the whole thing is painted, disassembled, and re-mated later to the same chassis, for better color matching.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    The door itself and the plastic bit are a minor part of the weight savings, I think most of it would come from what's just on the other side of the connector: With NACS you can throw everything onto the 2 aluminum bus bars in the vid, whereas CCS has a whole octopus of copper (relatively heavy and expensive) cables coming out of it
sbierwagen 3y ago
>Any licensing fee paid to a single company is unacceptable for what is described as an "open standard." I've got bad news for you regarding USB, DisplayPort and HDMI. All those connectors require paying license fees to their respective companies.
steveBK123 3y ago
Not sure if you've driven EVs, but I have had a Tesla and non-Tesla .. the charging situation is night & day. I say this as someone who left Tesla in spite of the CCS networks. The plug is huge, the cables are heavy.. there is a poorly implemented locking mechanism that frequently breaks.. some people end up propping up the cable to support it so it doesn't trip that failure mode. The CCS network companies in US are a joke, they are more than 5 year behind Tesla and building out slower than Tesla's current expansion. On the east coast they are in less convenient locations, with fewer overall stations, with fewer stalls per station, with way higher failure rates, with much longer repair times.. and if you do happen to use it, the interface to activate charging is slower, error prone, and sometimes requires calling them. I can go on and on. CCS in US, lead by EA, has truly and utterly failed. I am less happy with them continuing to be propped up by government subsidies and carmaker bulk purchases, than I am to see Tesla get a little more money to support their incredible charging network. I am an EV proponent and would never pressure any family member to buy a non-Tesla because I do not want to be responsible for their CCS experience. I say this, again, as a non-Tesla EV owner who is happier with my car than with my old Tesla. There is no successful EV transition in the US in which we rely on the likes of the Electrify America, EVGo and Chargepoint.
- kanbara 3y ago
  utterly failed? we’ve just started mass consumer adoption. this reads like the typical “only elon can save the world” shtick. i have a non tesla ev and it’s totally fine.
  - hedora 3y ago
    I have a non-tesla EV, and ea and evgo are unacceptably bad. There’s at least a 25% chance they will fail to process my credit card or their stupid apps will break. For EA, there’s also a 10% chance it’ll flip my car’s “oh my god you are trying to make me explode with bad voltage, abort! abort!” alarm/circuit breaker. At home, there is no problem. For a given evgo charger, there is no problem (so I know it isn’t my car). Also, the flaky data connection stuff from above is documented in the ea UI (and only seems to apply to them… they really suck). I’ll begrudgingly admit that chargepoint generally works, but screw them for having an app (and they’re mostly only level 2 anyway). Also, there are a half dozen smaller networks, each of which is also a fractal snowflake of bullshit like this.
scarface_74 3y ago
There are plenty of standards that require you to pay into a patent pool - including cell phones.
stetrain 3y ago
> Sure, it's bigger, but how is that a problem? It actually does cause reliability issues. A common troubleshooting tip for a CCS (Type 1) charge failing to start is to lift up and push in on the handle while the charge is starting to make sure the data pins make good contact for the initial handshake. I'm sure Ford and GM have some real world reliability metrics around this at this point. My understanding is this is unique to CCS Type 1 used in North America, which uses an external lever at the top of the connector to latch it to the vehicle. CCS Type 2 used in Europe and elsewhere uses internal latch points where the vehicle locks the connector to the port during charging and doesn't seem to have the same issue.

guardiangod 3y ago

Well good news then since Tesla is "The design and specification files are available for download, and we are actively working with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard. Enjoy." https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-standard https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s... I do agree that the connector needs to be a public standard and the licensing fee needs to be kept to a minimal. (I am against free solely to cover the cost of standard validation similar to WiFi. As we see from USB-C, having 1000 companies of various quality developing charging cable is a disaster, but now it's 400V 500Amp connector.)

throw0101b 3y ago
> […] with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard. Enjoy." And who is/are the "relevant standards bodies"? SAE? IEC? Other?
- Moto7451 3y ago
  I’d assume both since SAE is important for North America and IEC for Europe. The Type 2 connector references the Type 1 standard for communication, so cross referencing is also likely here.
ceejayoz 3y ago
Just a cautionary note: Steve Jobs made the same "we're working on a standard" promise for FaceTime when he announced the iPhone 4. We're up to the iPhone 14 and it hasn't happened.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  To be fair he died. Jobs was known for personally seeing things through sometimes but it required ultimately him to make sure it got done
- remir 3y ago
  That was because they got sued by some patent troll: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114
  - resoluteteeth 3y ago
    Why does that affect their ability to open it up? I assume they changed facetime to not infringe the patent (which was later found invalid anyway) in response so couldn't they just have opened up the changed version? If that lawsuit affected their ability to go forward with facetime, facetime surely wouldn't exist at all so I don't understand why it explains facetime continuing to exist but not being open.
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      Actually, the legal battle between Apple and VirnetX is ongoing to this very day, over a decade later. The latest event: https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-wins-reversal-502-mln-virnetx-patent-infringement-verdict-2023-03-31/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-wins-reversal-502-mln-vi... It's since exploded into things beyond just FaceTime. The FaceTime one though, Apple ultimately lost their appeal in 2019 and paid out $440M for FaceTime infringement (so, yes, legally speaking, VirnetX won). It's now over VPN patents which had some patents cancelled. With FaceTime being legally infringing... hard to make an open standard. Plus, why would they now? Not only would it primarily benefit the competition; but it would also undermine FaceTime's security. The beauty of FaceTime is that it is very much tied to physical devices, making it very expensive and difficult to spam call without detection. An open standard would likely lose that ability, causing spam video calls everywhere.
fnimick 3y ago
If that is the case, why will the Tesla to CCS adapter work only on Ford and GM vehicles? It's very clear from the press releases that other companies cars are left out until they pay up.
- pmorici 3y ago
  Are you confusing the charging network with the plug standard?
  - 7e 3y ago
    Who cares if it’s a standard if the network is not open?
    - judge2020 3y ago
      Because the OP here was actually mistaking things. For all we know there won't be a Tesla to CCS adapter that works on existing Ford/GM vehicles, it could be that only Ford/GM vehicles with the NACS connector will get to use all superchargers. And Tesla has already opened up charging to all EVs on some superchargers via the Magic Dock, but the situation isn't amazing, especially with many new cars using an 800 volt architecture and thus not charging super fast on Tesla's 400 volt superchargers. https://youtu.be/pUYqDNCIFD8 https://youtu.be/pUYqDNCIFD8 Combine this with how many charge port doors aren't on the back left or front right, and you have a really messy charging situation with blocked spots and slow charging cars. The partnership most likely means: - The cars will be 400 volt architecture (or otherwise 800v and upcoming V4 superchargers will support up to 1000 volts) - The charging port door will be either on the front right quarter of the car, or back left quarter.
      - _ea1k 3y ago
        In the Ford announcement, they promised an adapter.
        judge2020 3y ago
vel0city 3y ago
I can download a Windows ISO, doesn't make it free and open for me to start shipping products. Just because they've got some files on a website doesn't make it an actually open standard.

cbm-vic-20 3y ago

> companies getting infrastructure subsidies that they then use to rent-seek in the market and force other companies to pay them fees for access to publicly-funded infrastructure See also: HD Radio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio#United_States

dylan604 3y ago
I was thinking AT&T as a more relatable example. Pretty much everyone uses AT&T infrastructure of some type. Whether it's the actual cables strung by the phone company, or other companies needing to string cables on the poles installed by the phone company. AT&T was so entrenched, that it's easy to overlook just how vested into them we were. HD Radio on the other hand is just something of little interest to me personally. By the time I had a tuner with that feature, it also came with bluetooth which meant my device was doing the work and the radio was just a legacy thing that came with the device.

Tuna-Fish 3y ago

> Any licensing fee paid to a single company is unacceptable for what is described as an "open standard." ... do you understand how out of touch this is? Every single recent "public standard" will absolutely require paying license fees to some company, or often a whole pool of companies. This is simply how things are done, designing things cost money and that money is recouped through licensing. The key part is that the licenses are FRAND, or Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminating.

throw0101b 3y ago
> ... do you understand how out of touch this is? Every single recent "public standard" will absolutely require paying license fees to some company, or often a whole pool of companies. If the fee is to one company, it is usually an industry non-profit (HDMI, Bluetooth) that doesn't itself have a stake in the outcome. If it's a pool of companies they also have to hash things out amongst themselves and no one company will have control over another. Neither of these situations apply to Tesla and 'NACS'. If Tesla wants to give up control of 'NACS' to SAE or IEC, then we can talk.
- ajdude 3y ago
  You might be sad to hear that the latest standard of over the air (antenna) TV utilizes ATSC 3 audio, requiring tuners to pay 70 licensing fees so you'll have sound with your TV. I don't get audio when I use my DVR on Plex because of that.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    > utilizes ATSC 3 audio There is no such thing as ATSC 3 audio. ATSC is the transmission standard, either ATSC 1 (basically everywhere, 1080p) or ATSC 3 in some cities ("Next-Gen TV", 4K). ATSC 1 uses Dolby Digital AC-3, ATSC 3 uses Dolby AC-4 which is otherwise quite rare. Also, that's a very light example. Look into the patent situation for H.264 / AVC, H.265 / HEVC. They are Open Standards (you can download the documentation right now), but they are patent minefields to implement, with dozens of companies and hundreds, if not thousands of patents. Also, to reply to the comment above you: > If the fee is to one company, it is usually an industry non-profit (HDMI, Bluetooth) that doesn't itself have a stake in the outcome. If it's a pool of companies they also have to hash things out amongst themselves and no one company will have control over another. What? HDMI is not an open standard - you need to pay to get the documentation, pass certification, and pay a royalty fee per device (about 5-15 cents per connector). You also need to license the logo because HDMI is actually a brand. Sure, anyone can get HDMI, but it sure ain't open. And if it's a TV or a monitor, better license HDCP separately. Also, as for Bluetooth... that was a patent minefield for decades.

Rebelgecko 3y ago

FWIW, this video changed my mind: https://youtu.be/zsNiupN1X7s https://youtu.be/zsNiupN1X7s Part of what makes Tesla so successful is that they can make EVs cheaply. Using NACS instead of CCS seems to be one factor in keeping costs down: because the charge door is smaller, they can make it part of the trim instead of having to match it to the body The plumbing from the charge door to the battery also seems more cost effective Watt for watt, dropping weight makes a small but real improvement in EV range The latch setup also seems better, on Plugshare I see a decent # of chargers that are out of commissions because of how CCS puts the latch on the EVSE

vel0city 3y ago
The difference between my car with a minutely smaller charging door is like maybe an ounce or two in weight. We're not even talking pounds. On a vehicle that weighs a few thousand pounds and will vary several hundred based on how many passengers are in it. Shaving a few ounces isn't going to make a difference in range. With EVs, even adding a hundred pounds or two isn't changing the range that much. You get a ton of it back in regen so the vast majority of energy usage is rolling resistance (which a few pounds isn't changing) and aero drag (no weight difference at all).
- numpad0 3y ago
  I don’t necessarily agree to the parent comment, but I believe the point is that it eliminates need to attach, remove, and keep the fuel door by use of a temporary fixture during painting. All doors and bumpers on a car is attached to the body during the paint process, then the whole thing is painted, disassembled, and re-mated later to the same chassis, for better color matching.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  The door itself and the plastic bit are a minor part of the weight savings, I think most of it would come from what's just on the other side of the connector: With NACS you can throw everything onto the 2 aluminum bus bars in the vid, whereas CCS has a whole octopus of copper (relatively heavy and expensive) cables coming out of it

sbierwagen 3y ago

>Any licensing fee paid to a single company is unacceptable for what is described as an "open standard." I've got bad news for you regarding USB, DisplayPort and HDMI. All those connectors require paying license fees to their respective companies.

steveBK123 3y ago

Not sure if you've driven EVs, but I have had a Tesla and non-Tesla .. the charging situation is night & day. I say this as someone who left Tesla in spite of the CCS networks. The plug is huge, the cables are heavy.. there is a poorly implemented locking mechanism that frequently breaks.. some people end up propping up the cable to support it so it doesn't trip that failure mode. The CCS network companies in US are a joke, they are more than 5 year behind Tesla and building out slower than Tesla's current expansion. On the east coast they are in less convenient locations, with fewer overall stations, with fewer stalls per station, with way higher failure rates, with much longer repair times.. and if you do happen to use it, the interface to activate charging is slower, error prone, and sometimes requires calling them. I can go on and on. CCS in US, lead by EA, has truly and utterly failed. I am less happy with them continuing to be propped up by government subsidies and carmaker bulk purchases, than I am to see Tesla get a little more money to support their incredible charging network. I am an EV proponent and would never pressure any family member to buy a non-Tesla because I do not want to be responsible for their CCS experience. I say this, again, as a non-Tesla EV owner who is happier with my car than with my old Tesla. There is no successful EV transition in the US in which we rely on the likes of the Electrify America, EVGo and Chargepoint.

kanbara 3y ago
utterly failed? we’ve just started mass consumer adoption. this reads like the typical “only elon can save the world” shtick. i have a non tesla ev and it’s totally fine.
- hedora 3y ago
  I have a non-tesla EV, and ea and evgo are unacceptably bad. There’s at least a 25% chance they will fail to process my credit card or their stupid apps will break. For EA, there’s also a 10% chance it’ll flip my car’s “oh my god you are trying to make me explode with bad voltage, abort! abort!” alarm/circuit breaker. At home, there is no problem. For a given evgo charger, there is no problem (so I know it isn’t my car). Also, the flaky data connection stuff from above is documented in the ea UI (and only seems to apply to them… they really suck). I’ll begrudgingly admit that chargepoint generally works, but screw them for having an app (and they’re mostly only level 2 anyway). Also, there are a half dozen smaller networks, each of which is also a fractal snowflake of bullshit like this.

scarface_74 3y ago

There are plenty of standards that require you to pay into a patent pool - including cell phones.

stetrain 3y ago

> Sure, it's bigger, but how is that a problem? It actually does cause reliability issues. A common troubleshooting tip for a CCS (Type 1) charge failing to start is to lift up and push in on the handle while the charge is starting to make sure the data pins make good contact for the initial handshake. I'm sure Ford and GM have some real world reliability metrics around this at this point. My understanding is this is unique to CCS Type 1 used in North America, which uses an external lever at the top of the connector to latch it to the vehicle. CCS Type 2 used in Europe and elsewhere uses internal latch points where the vehicle locks the connector to the port during charging and doesn't seem to have the same issue.