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I'm not an EV user, so I need some clarification. Is NACS actually a better connector? Or is it just more abundant at the moment? Technology Connections did a d

I'm not an EV user, so I need some clarification. Is NACS actually a better connector? Or is it just more abundant at the moment? Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. The argument for NACS I've seen is that it's a little sleeker (does this really matter all that much?) and it's already on Tesla's supercharger network.

hindsightbias 3y ago
See Sandy Munro's rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBCpAHvOpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBCpAHvOpQ
pornel 3y ago
The physical shape of Tesla/NACS is way better: it's more compact, and easier to plug in. The CCS connector OTOH is a lazy retrofit of a design-by-committee plug. The wire protocol of CCS is a bit overengineered, but it's a standard, and it's a sunk cost (all cars, including current Teslas, are already compatible with it). So physical NACS + CCS protocol seems like the best of both. It's also worth pointing out that the US uses CCS1, while Europe standardized on a slightly improved CCS2. So the US is alone in its (non)standard connector either way.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Not all Tesla's can speak CCS. Older Teslas need a $400 retrofit to be able to use the Tesla CCS1 adapter. https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Not much of a practical problem until some other charging network builds out enough NACS chargers that a Tesla driver would try using anything other than a Supercharger. Looks like the cutoff for this is vehicles before May 1, 2019.
    - tannedNerd 3y ago
      It’s more like may 2020. I don’t know anyone who got a car delivered in 2019 ( mine included) that has support for ccs
      - ihattendorf 3y ago
        Were these vehicles _built_ after May 1, 2019 or just delivered after that date?
    - drewg123 3y ago
      Once you have the retrofit, you can use existing CCS fast charger with an adapter. So it is useful in that sense..
  - laweijfmvo 3y ago
    I had the retrofit done on my 2018 MS. Have never once successfully charged at a non-Tesla charger. I'm not sure if it's me or the charging stations, which are somewhat known to be less reliable in general than Tesla's.
    - ajross 3y ago
      I bought the adapter off the gray market when it was only being sold in Korea, and promptly ran to my local EA station to try it out. Of the four plugs, only two worked, and one of those was loose and would glitch out if I didn't hold it against the car by hand. I haven't charged via CCS since. It lives in the car as an emergency backup, but frankly I wouldn't plan a road trip stop at a CCS station if you paid me.
      - agloe_dreams 3y ago
        FWIIW that is the experience of using an EA station with a car that came with a CCS plug.
    - cduzz 3y ago
      I got the $450 adapter for my 2016; There's one charger I really wanted to use and otherwise I think it'll waste space in my trunk. I still haven't used it at that charger but I did test it at a CCS1 charger; it worked though it was a terrible experience - the CCS1 plug is silly huge, the payment processing was terrible, and it charged pretty slowly. I think they're retrofitting the existing supercharger network to speak both "NACS" (really CCS1) and the OG supercharger protocol. My car, with the retrofit, will be able to (HA! good luck believing it'll actually work) charge at an EA or other DC Fast charger setup, possibly. Non-updated OG S/X cars will just get an error (probably I will also, because these other DC Fast chargers simply don't have skin in the game -- they're malicious compliance). L2 will be nice -- I'll not have to use the dongle to charge at public chargers.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    Yeah, only ~80% of Teslas in the US support it without modification.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- philistine 3y ago
  Fast-charging CCS is the Micro-USB 3.0 of car chargers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  CCS uses different wires for AC charging than for DC charging. This is why the CCS connector is so big. Tesla lets a single pair do double duty. That's why the NACS connector is sleeker.
outlace 3y ago
I don't know if there are any studies on this but the perception amongst EV users that I'm aware of is that NACS is a very reliable system (low rate of charging stall breakdowns) compared to CCS chargers that seem to break down quite frequently. However, it is unclear if this is due to the technology difference between CCS and NACS or if it's just due to the poor implementation of CCS charger infrastructure.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  It's both. The latch on CCS1 is particularly prone to breaking, but is responsible for only a small fraction of the CCS1 downtime.
  - shmoe 3y ago
    Also as they age you have to hold the top up for the J1772 communication pins to initiate the charge and then you can let go.
- amluto 3y ago
  I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regularity — they’re not indestructible. But they get fixed, and there are always more than one or two chargers at a site.) The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations.
  - shmoe 3y ago
    Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).
    - Robotbeat 3y ago
      Right, and Tesla is speedy to fix broken ones usually. And an occasional bad charger isn’t a huge deal (I talked to an electrician who was servicing one of them). Gas stations regularly have non-working pumps, and I suspect those are more expensive to fix. The Tesla approach is really another level for charging compared to everyone else. And even the mobile chargers & Level 2 destination chargers are better.
apearson 3y ago
I believe NACS can do everything CCS can do (same number of pins) but in a smaller and easier to handle format. As an EV users I much prefer the NACS connector over the CCS connector especially in the winter when the cables are much stiffer.
IceHegel 3y ago
It's not just the connector. It's the whole charging experience. NACS + Supercharger network is 10x better than the alternatives both in speed of charging and ease of use.
Fordec 3y ago
My perception is that CCS2 is better egineering than NACS but both are improvements over CCS1 so any alternate adoption is a market improvement. Having the pure "best design" is very rarely the deciding factor to market adoption.
- cyberax 3y ago
  CCS2 is... ok. It's not better engineered than NACS, but it's adequate. In particular, it doesn't have the mechanical latch on top and has slightly larger DC conductors.
option 3y ago
yes. just look up photos (to scale) of different connectors on the web. All others are UX abominations
snuxoll 3y ago
AFAICT NACS (read, the "standard" and not Tesla's original release) speaks the same protocol as CCS, it just combines the AC and DC pins into, yes, a sleeker connector. So no real "benefit", and it actually adds complexity into the car itself. But theoretically one could also make a NACS -> CCS adapter, so it wouldn't end up as a CHAdeMO situation. EDIT: I forgot, the NACS connector is more or less self-aligning if you get it in the right general orientation, whereas CCS is pretty particular.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  NACS and CCS currently use different protocols. Older Tesla's require a retrofit to support CCS1. (https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter). However, I suspect a big part of the reason why this flurry of announcements is happening now is that Tesla is upgrading their superchargers to be able to speak the CCS protocol over NACS.
  - mavhc 3y ago
    NACS uses CCS protocols, see Page 11 of https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/HXVNIC_North_American_Charging_Standard_Technical_Specification_TS-0023666_HFTPKZ.pdf?xseo=&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22North-American-Charging-Standard-Technical-Specification-TS-0023666.pdf%22 https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/HXVNIC_North_American_Cha... For DC charging, communication between the EV and EVSE shall be power line communication over the control pilot line as depicted in DIN 70121.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      Hmmm, we need a good name for the older Tesla plugs that aren't NACS compliant. When I said "current NACS", that's what I was referring to. I should have been more explicit. Tesla vehicles built before ~2020 do not and can not speak CCS without a retrofit.
satrday 3y ago
Having used both, NACS is more compact, so both the port on the car and the end of the cable are significantly smaller than CCS. The cable itself is also lighter and more "usable" than CCS. At least at the newest V3 superchargers, the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Munro Live took both connectors apart and did an overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  v4 are the new Superchargers, but they're mostly being installed in Europe where everything has been CCS for ages and Tesla needs the longer cable to support cars with ports in random corners. Unless all these other manufacturers move their charging ports around in addition to switching connectors, the short cables on all the v3 Supercharger infrastructure is going to be an issue here for a while. If your port is in the wrong spot there's no way to reach without blocking two spaces.
  - sunflowerfly 3y ago
    Note that the CCS in Europe is different than the CCS in the US. We were already on our own unique standard.
- vel0city 3y ago
  > the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Nothing stops CCS from using smaller cables. Tesla tends to have cables which aren't rated for as long of lives with the plans on replacing them more often. Most CCS dispenser manufacturers chose beefier cables which were supposedly rated for longer lives, but environmental factors and people (ab)using the cables seems to lead to those cables not having anywhere near their rated lives. I've seen some 50kW CCS chargers with downright flimsy cables, much smaller and thinner than most Tesla cables.
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    Tesla has thin cables at some superchargers. These are liquid cooled so they can get away with smaller wires. No idea if CCS1 chargers are using liquid cooling.
throw0101c 3y ago
> Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. He did a video on this Connextras channel about this news: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU While he thinks the Tesla physical connector is probably better, the CCS communications standard is better (AIUI). So once Telsa adopts that, it will probably be a good system. Also: he's talking about CCS1, and not CCS2, which can do things like handle three-phase power.
- erinnh 3y ago
  Wait. CCS1 cant handle three-phase power? I just read about it and no wonder its not that popular. You can charge 7.4kw maximum in the US at home with CCS1. In Europe you can charge up to 22kw without going DC.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    Level 2 can charge up to 19kW (240V at 80A) but 12kW (50A) is more common. NACS also can't do three-phase power. Three-phase power is rare in the US, it is only found in commercial locations that need it.
    - erinnh 3y ago
      How does the US get to 240v if you guys don’t have multiple phases at home? Not an electrician, but here In Europe we get to 400v by combining the three 240v phases we get.
      - pests 3y ago
        We don't have three phase but power coming into most panels in the United States has two 120V lines that are 180 degrees out of phase so that's enough to construct the 240.
      - rzimmerman 3y ago
        US power is really 240V with a neutral. It’s wired to most outlets and circuits as one 120V leg (against the neutral). But you can absolutely wire a 240V circuit using both legs and major appliances (air conditioners/heat pumps, electric driers) use 240V. My Tesla charger is on a 240V 60A circuit.
shmoe 3y ago
So much better. Not to mention, same connector for AC (home) charging and DC fast charging (on the road at the super chargers). Whereas now with CCS you have a little cover over the fast charging pins you remove from your usual AC port to plug in the DC fast charging combo. So much nicer.
zlsa 3y ago
CCS1 (the variant of CCS used in the US; basically J1772 + HVDC pins) has a lot of flaws that can't easily fixed in a backwards-compatible way: 1. It's gigantic, making it a lot harder to handle and plug in [0] 2. CCS1 has a mechanical latch on the handle side (as opposed to NACS, which puts an electronic latch in the vehicle side). This results in a few problems: a. The CCS1 latch is is exposed and easily broken, allowing the vehicle to begin charging without being physically latched in (meaning it can be unplugged without pressing the lever to unlatch, while still carrying HVDC at hundreds of amps – there is protection against this but it's not great practice to rely on the control/ground pins being unplugged first, rather than making a latch that isn't so easily circumvented) b. The latch is long and requires a lot of force to unlatch (this may just be my bad experiences speaking, but I've always needed to wiggle the connector a bit to relieve the friction.) Unrelated to the physical connector, Tesla's charging network in the US is far larger and more reliable than everyone else's CCS1 networks combined, and the only way to use the network is NACS (at the moment, anyway. Magic Dock[1] is being added to some superchargers and will most likely be rolled out wider in the near future.) 0: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/h_874,w_2032,c_fit,f_auto,q_auto:best/NACS-Blog-Image-02 https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... 1: https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock-for-non-tesla-electric-cars-spotted-us/ https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock...
- kotaKat 3y ago
  I have had a colleague describe to me the lingering smell of ozone when he was able to unplug CCS1 while charging. The charger and car dutifully stopped charging and the charger nagged to Not Do That but it certainly left that ozone wafting...
conk 3y ago
CCS current spec/design can deliver up to 350kW (although few if any cars can take advantage of that today). NACS claims it can provide up to 1MW (1000A @ 1000V). I think it will be a while before we see cars able to charge anywhere near this, but there is a trend right now of big EV pickups with massive batteries. Higher power chargers means faster charge times. The only downside I see with NACS is you can’t level 2 charge using 3-phase power. This isn’t really an issue in North America because it’s super rare to see 3 phase power at someone’s home. In most of Europe homes do have 3-phase power and large loads like an EV are required to use it. This is one reason why Tesla uses CCS2 in Europe. The NACS connect doesn’t have the space for a 3rd power pin.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  CCS1 already doesn't support 3-phase power, so it's not like switching from CCS1 to NACS in the US is losing anything there. It wouldn't work as-is for Europe because of that, but they're so far into CCS2 adoption that they wouldn't consider it regardless.
  - sebazzz 3y ago
    To clarify: 3-phase power is irrelevant when it comes to CCS. The point of the Combined Charging System is the "combined". It is the signalling pins in the upper part of the Mennekes or J1772 connector and the large DC connectors in the bottom part. For slow charging, 3-phase power is relevant (the IEC Type 2 / Mennekes connector in this case).
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      He was saying that CCS1 in the US uses J1772 which does not support 3-phase power.
      - sebazzz 3y ago
        And referring to Europe
- 3y ago
GuB-42 3y ago
Most people consider NACS to be a better connector, there are even CCS1 fans who admit that. But in reality, they are all fine and it doesn't matter that much. What really matters is that there is a standard, whatever it is. And it seems like NACS chargers will speak the CCS protocol, so those with CCS cars will just need a passive adapter to charge with NACS. This is for North America, Europe is fine with CCS2, and NACS doesn't intent to change that. And compatibility is not that much of a problem since cars usually don't travel between Europe and North America, plus, for these rare cases, there are adapters.
sp332 3y ago
NACS doesn't have a standard for vehicle-to-home (or vehicle-to-grid) charging. When they opened up the standard, Tesla said that it was allowed, but they didn't specify any standard way to do it. So it might happen, but there's potential for incompatibilities between car manufacturers and charging systems.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Adopting NACS won't prevent Ford from supporting vehicle-to-grid, since they build both the truck and the charger, and the connector itself doesn't care what direction the electrons are flowing. But it would be really nice if it was standardized for interoperability reasons.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    The Ford F150 Lightning does V2L through the 9.6kW of on-board inverters. Fairly sure it's not capable of sending that back through J1772 / CCS2 unless I'm mistaken?
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  Chademo supports bidirectional charging. But bidirectional charging means you basically need a DC fast charger, and those are like $10k. (Hard to find an actual number online besides Alibaba… it’s always an “inquire for price” email quote button… which tells you it’s gonna be like $10k.) By far the easiest way to pull power from an EV is from the 12V subsystem. The DC-DC converter for EVs usually is like 2kW, so it’s substantial power. …although older Teslas make it hard to access this much as I think they were worried about people abusing free Supercharging… there’s a 12 Amp fuse for the cigarette lighter port and a 50 Amp fuse for the jump posts accessible in the front, even 12V and 12A is enough to power a fridge for weeks if you buffer it through one of those “solar generator” things. That’s what I did during a recent power outage for my 2013 Model S. My 2013 Nissan Leaf has a 12V battery that’s easier to access, and I could pull about 1.2kW from that (have to keep the car on so the high voltage battery is connected to the DC-DC converter, keeping the 12V subsystem charged) using a couple inverters.
gibolt 3y ago
NACS can be plugged in one handed by a child. CCS1 needs perfect alignment which can be a struggle for a large man using 2 hands in optimal conditions. NACS cables are lighter and thinner, which really matters when it is cold and the cables harden. This article shows some visual comparisons: https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-opens-charging-connector-inlet-design-standards-nacs/amp/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-opens-charging-connect...
pseudosavant 3y ago
If I compare it to USB-based connectors where USB-C never came along. NACS is like a Lightning plug. From a practical/pragmatic perspective, it was clearly the best plug at the time it was created. It solved real user problems. CCS a micro-USB 3.0 plug. Maybe you've never seen one[0], but they are a real thing. Let's take an awful plug (micro USB / J1772) and clumsily add a few more wires on to it to make it both more capable and even worse. It does what you need it to do, but nobody has ever thought it was good at it. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Connector_USB_3_IMGP6033_wp.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Connecto...
- pathartl 3y ago
  IMO then let's standardize on what the replacement to NACS/CCS should be. Personally, I don't see the big deal behind a larger connector, especially if it's a bit more future proof without requiring extremely clever engineering. I mean we've dealt with huge gasoline/diesel pump handles for nearly a century.
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    NACS is perfectly fine. It’s open now, unlike Lightning
    - simondotau 3y ago
      And for ultra-high performance applications (e.g. semi trucks, farm equipment, light aircraft) there is MCS. It has the support of Tesla, Scania, Volvo among others, making it near-certain to be a industry standard in Europe and North America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megawatt_Charging_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megawatt_Charging_System

hindsightbias 3y ago

See Sandy Munro's rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBCpAHvOpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VBCpAHvOpQ

pornel 3y ago

The physical shape of Tesla/NACS is way better: it's more compact, and easier to plug in. The CCS connector OTOH is a lazy retrofit of a design-by-committee plug. The wire protocol of CCS is a bit overengineered, but it's a standard, and it's a sunk cost (all cars, including current Teslas, are already compatible with it). So physical NACS + CCS protocol seems like the best of both. It's also worth pointing out that the US uses CCS1, while Europe standardized on a slightly improved CCS2. So the US is alone in its (non)standard connector either way.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Not all Tesla's can speak CCS. Older Teslas need a $400 retrofit to be able to use the Tesla CCS1 adapter. https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Not much of a practical problem until some other charging network builds out enough NACS chargers that a Tesla driver would try using anything other than a Supercharger. Looks like the cutoff for this is vehicles before May 1, 2019.
  - tannedNerd 3y ago
    It’s more like may 2020. I don’t know anyone who got a car delivered in 2019 ( mine included) that has support for ccs
    - ihattendorf 3y ago
      Were these vehicles _built_ after May 1, 2019 or just delivered after that date?
  - drewg123 3y ago
    Once you have the retrofit, you can use existing CCS fast charger with an adapter. So it is useful in that sense..
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
  I had the retrofit done on my 2018 MS. Have never once successfully charged at a non-Tesla charger. I'm not sure if it's me or the charging stations, which are somewhat known to be less reliable in general than Tesla's.
  - ajross 3y ago
    I bought the adapter off the gray market when it was only being sold in Korea, and promptly ran to my local EA station to try it out. Of the four plugs, only two worked, and one of those was loose and would glitch out if I didn't hold it against the car by hand. I haven't charged via CCS since. It lives in the car as an emergency backup, but frankly I wouldn't plan a road trip stop at a CCS station if you paid me.
    - agloe_dreams 3y ago
      FWIIW that is the experience of using an EA station with a car that came with a CCS plug.
  - cduzz 3y ago
    I got the $450 adapter for my 2016; There's one charger I really wanted to use and otherwise I think it'll waste space in my trunk. I still haven't used it at that charger but I did test it at a CCS1 charger; it worked though it was a terrible experience - the CCS1 plug is silly huge, the payment processing was terrible, and it charged pretty slowly. I think they're retrofitting the existing supercharger network to speak both "NACS" (really CCS1) and the OG supercharger protocol. My car, with the retrofit, will be able to (HA! good luck believing it'll actually work) charge at an EA or other DC Fast charger setup, possibly. Non-updated OG S/X cars will just get an error (probably I will also, because these other DC Fast chargers simply don't have skin in the game -- they're malicious compliance). L2 will be nice -- I'll not have to use the dongle to charge at public chargers.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Yeah, only ~80% of Teslas in the US support it without modification.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
philistine 3y ago
Fast-charging CCS is the Micro-USB 3.0 of car chargers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors
dreamcompiler 3y ago
CCS uses different wires for AC charging than for DC charging. This is why the CCS connector is so big. Tesla lets a single pair do double duty. That's why the NACS connector is sleeker.

outlace 3y ago

I don't know if there are any studies on this but the perception amongst EV users that I'm aware of is that NACS is a very reliable system (low rate of charging stall breakdowns) compared to CCS chargers that seem to break down quite frequently. However, it is unclear if this is due to the technology difference between CCS and NACS or if it's just due to the poor implementation of CCS charger infrastructure.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
It's both. The latch on CCS1 is particularly prone to breaking, but is responsible for only a small fraction of the CCS1 downtime.
- shmoe 3y ago
  Also as they age you have to hold the top up for the J1772 communication pins to initiate the charge and then you can let go.
amluto 3y ago
I think it’s incentives. If Tesla chargers break and stay broken, then Tesla owners get mad. (And Tesla chargers seem to break or malfunction with some regularity — they’re not indestructible. But they get fixed, and there are always more than one or two chargers at a site.) The third party chargers don’t seem to act like they have a reputation to uphold. Also, I’m not convinced they’re even really motivated to have people use their stations.
- shmoe 3y ago
  Like you said, the law of numbers.. if a Tesla stall is out theres usually 7 others to choose from. Any other network may have one or no alternatives (they're all broken sometimes).
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    Right, and Tesla is speedy to fix broken ones usually. And an occasional bad charger isn’t a huge deal (I talked to an electrician who was servicing one of them). Gas stations regularly have non-working pumps, and I suspect those are more expensive to fix. The Tesla approach is really another level for charging compared to everyone else. And even the mobile chargers & Level 2 destination chargers are better.

apearson 3y ago

I believe NACS can do everything CCS can do (same number of pins) but in a smaller and easier to handle format. As an EV users I much prefer the NACS connector over the CCS connector especially in the winter when the cables are much stiffer.

IceHegel 3y ago

It's not just the connector. It's the whole charging experience. NACS + Supercharger network is 10x better than the alternatives both in speed of charging and ease of use.

Fordec 3y ago

My perception is that CCS2 is better egineering than NACS but both are improvements over CCS1 so any alternate adoption is a market improvement. Having the pure "best design" is very rarely the deciding factor to market adoption.

cyberax 3y ago
CCS2 is... ok. It's not better engineered than NACS, but it's adequate. In particular, it doesn't have the mechanical latch on top and has slightly larger DC conductors.

option 3y ago

yes. just look up photos (to scale) of different connectors on the web. All others are UX abominations

snuxoll 3y ago

AFAICT NACS (read, the "standard" and not Tesla's original release) speaks the same protocol as CCS, it just combines the AC and DC pins into, yes, a sleeker connector. So no real "benefit", and it actually adds complexity into the car itself. But theoretically one could also make a NACS -> CCS adapter, so it wouldn't end up as a CHAdeMO situation. EDIT: I forgot, the NACS connector is more or less self-aligning if you get it in the right general orientation, whereas CCS is pretty particular.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
NACS and CCS currently use different protocols. Older Tesla's require a retrofit to support CCS1. (https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter). However, I suspect a big part of the reason why this flurry of announcements is happening now is that Tesla is upgrading their superchargers to be able to speak the CCS protocol over NACS.
- mavhc 3y ago
  NACS uses CCS protocols, see Page 11 of https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/HXVNIC_North_American_Charging_Standard_Technical_Specification_TS-0023666_HFTPKZ.pdf?xseo=&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22North-American-Charging-Standard-Technical-Specification-TS-0023666.pdf%22 https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/HXVNIC_North_American_Cha... For DC charging, communication between the EV and EVSE shall be power line communication over the control pilot line as depicted in DIN 70121.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    Hmmm, we need a good name for the older Tesla plugs that aren't NACS compliant. When I said "current NACS", that's what I was referring to. I should have been more explicit. Tesla vehicles built before ~2020 do not and can not speak CCS without a retrofit.

satrday 3y ago

Having used both, NACS is more compact, so both the port on the car and the end of the cable are significantly smaller than CCS. The cable itself is also lighter and more "usable" than CCS. At least at the newest V3 superchargers, the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Munro Live took both connectors apart and did an overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU

wlesieutre 3y ago
v4 are the new Superchargers, but they're mostly being installed in Europe where everything has been CCS for ages and Tesla needs the longer cable to support cars with ports in random corners. Unless all these other manufacturers move their charging ports around in addition to switching connectors, the short cables on all the v3 Supercharger infrastructure is going to be an issue here for a while. If your port is in the wrong spot there's no way to reach without blocking two spaces.
- sunflowerfly 3y ago
  Note that the CCS in Europe is different than the CCS in the US. We were already on our own unique standard.
vel0city 3y ago
> the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Nothing stops CCS from using smaller cables. Tesla tends to have cables which aren't rated for as long of lives with the plans on replacing them more often. Most CCS dispenser manufacturers chose beefier cables which were supposedly rated for longer lives, but environmental factors and people (ab)using the cables seems to lead to those cables not having anywhere near their rated lives. I've seen some 50kW CCS chargers with downright flimsy cables, much smaller and thinner than most Tesla cables.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  Tesla has thin cables at some superchargers. These are liquid cooled so they can get away with smaller wires. No idea if CCS1 chargers are using liquid cooling.

throw0101c 3y ago

> Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. He did a video on this Connextras channel about this news: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjny4u5THpU While he thinks the Tesla physical connector is probably better, the CCS communications standard is better (AIUI). So once Telsa adopts that, it will probably be a good system. Also: he's talking about CCS1, and not CCS2, which can do things like handle three-phase power.

erinnh 3y ago
Wait. CCS1 cant handle three-phase power? I just read about it and no wonder its not that popular. You can charge 7.4kw maximum in the US at home with CCS1. In Europe you can charge up to 22kw without going DC.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Level 2 can charge up to 19kW (240V at 80A) but 12kW (50A) is more common. NACS also can't do three-phase power. Three-phase power is rare in the US, it is only found in commercial locations that need it.
  - erinnh 3y ago
    How does the US get to 240v if you guys don’t have multiple phases at home? Not an electrician, but here In Europe we get to 400v by combining the three 240v phases we get.
    - pests 3y ago
      We don't have three phase but power coming into most panels in the United States has two 120V lines that are 180 degrees out of phase so that's enough to construct the 240.
    - rzimmerman 3y ago
      US power is really 240V with a neutral. It’s wired to most outlets and circuits as one 120V leg (against the neutral). But you can absolutely wire a 240V circuit using both legs and major appliances (air conditioners/heat pumps, electric driers) use 240V. My Tesla charger is on a 240V 60A circuit.

shmoe 3y ago

So much better. Not to mention, same connector for AC (home) charging and DC fast charging (on the road at the super chargers). Whereas now with CCS you have a little cover over the fast charging pins you remove from your usual AC port to plug in the DC fast charging combo. So much nicer.

zlsa 3y ago

CCS1 (the variant of CCS used in the US; basically J1772 + HVDC pins) has a lot of flaws that can't easily fixed in a backwards-compatible way: 1. It's gigantic, making it a lot harder to handle and plug in [0] 2. CCS1 has a mechanical latch on the handle side (as opposed to NACS, which puts an electronic latch in the vehicle side). This results in a few problems: a. The CCS1 latch is is exposed and easily broken, allowing the vehicle to begin charging without being physically latched in (meaning it can be unplugged without pressing the lever to unlatch, while still carrying HVDC at hundreds of amps – there is protection against this but it's not great practice to rely on the control/ground pins being unplugged first, rather than making a latch that isn't so easily circumvented) b. The latch is long and requires a lot of force to unlatch (this may just be my bad experiences speaking, but I've always needed to wiggle the connector a bit to relieve the friction.) Unrelated to the physical connector, Tesla's charging network in the US is far larger and more reliable than everyone else's CCS1 networks combined, and the only way to use the network is NACS (at the moment, anyway. Magic Dock[1] is being added to some superchargers and will most likely be rolled out wider in the near future.) 0: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/h_874,w_2032,c_fit,f_auto,q_auto:best/NACS-Blog-Image-02 https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... 1: https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock-for-non-tesla-electric-cars-spotted-us/ https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-supercharger-magic-dock...

kotaKat 3y ago
I have had a colleague describe to me the lingering smell of ozone when he was able to unplug CCS1 while charging. The charger and car dutifully stopped charging and the charger nagged to Not Do That but it certainly left that ozone wafting...

conk 3y ago

CCS current spec/design can deliver up to 350kW (although few if any cars can take advantage of that today). NACS claims it can provide up to 1MW (1000A @ 1000V). I think it will be a while before we see cars able to charge anywhere near this, but there is a trend right now of big EV pickups with massive batteries. Higher power chargers means faster charge times. The only downside I see with NACS is you can’t level 2 charge using 3-phase power. This isn’t really an issue in North America because it’s super rare to see 3 phase power at someone’s home. In most of Europe homes do have 3-phase power and large loads like an EV are required to use it. This is one reason why Tesla uses CCS2 in Europe. The NACS connect doesn’t have the space for a 3rd power pin.

wlesieutre 3y ago
CCS1 already doesn't support 3-phase power, so it's not like switching from CCS1 to NACS in the US is losing anything there. It wouldn't work as-is for Europe because of that, but they're so far into CCS2 adoption that they wouldn't consider it regardless.
- sebazzz 3y ago
  To clarify: 3-phase power is irrelevant when it comes to CCS. The point of the Combined Charging System is the "combined". It is the signalling pins in the upper part of the Mennekes or J1772 connector and the large DC connectors in the bottom part. For slow charging, 3-phase power is relevant (the IEC Type 2 / Mennekes connector in this case).
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    He was saying that CCS1 in the US uses J1772 which does not support 3-phase power.
    - sebazzz 3y ago
      And referring to Europe
3y ago

GuB-42 3y ago

Most people consider NACS to be a better connector, there are even CCS1 fans who admit that. But in reality, they are all fine and it doesn't matter that much. What really matters is that there is a standard, whatever it is. And it seems like NACS chargers will speak the CCS protocol, so those with CCS cars will just need a passive adapter to charge with NACS. This is for North America, Europe is fine with CCS2, and NACS doesn't intent to change that. And compatibility is not that much of a problem since cars usually don't travel between Europe and North America, plus, for these rare cases, there are adapters.

sp332 3y ago

NACS doesn't have a standard for vehicle-to-home (or vehicle-to-grid) charging. When they opened up the standard, Tesla said that it was allowed, but they didn't specify any standard way to do it. So it might happen, but there's potential for incompatibilities between car manufacturers and charging systems.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Adopting NACS won't prevent Ford from supporting vehicle-to-grid, since they build both the truck and the charger, and the connector itself doesn't care what direction the electrons are flowing. But it would be really nice if it was standardized for interoperability reasons.
- simondotau 3y ago
  The Ford F150 Lightning does V2L through the 9.6kW of on-board inverters. Fairly sure it's not capable of sending that back through J1772 / CCS2 unless I'm mistaken?
Robotbeat 3y ago
Chademo supports bidirectional charging. But bidirectional charging means you basically need a DC fast charger, and those are like $10k. (Hard to find an actual number online besides Alibaba… it’s always an “inquire for price” email quote button… which tells you it’s gonna be like $10k.) By far the easiest way to pull power from an EV is from the 12V subsystem. The DC-DC converter for EVs usually is like 2kW, so it’s substantial power. …although older Teslas make it hard to access this much as I think they were worried about people abusing free Supercharging… there’s a 12 Amp fuse for the cigarette lighter port and a 50 Amp fuse for the jump posts accessible in the front, even 12V and 12A is enough to power a fridge for weeks if you buffer it through one of those “solar generator” things. That’s what I did during a recent power outage for my 2013 Model S. My 2013 Nissan Leaf has a 12V battery that’s easier to access, and I could pull about 1.2kW from that (have to keep the car on so the high voltage battery is connected to the DC-DC converter, keeping the 12V subsystem charged) using a couple inverters.

gibolt 3y ago

NACS can be plugged in one handed by a child. CCS1 needs perfect alignment which can be a struggle for a large man using 2 hands in optimal conditions. NACS cables are lighter and thinner, which really matters when it is cold and the cables harden. This article shows some visual comparisons: https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-opens-charging-connector-inlet-design-standards-nacs/amp/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-opens-charging-connect...

pseudosavant 3y ago

If I compare it to USB-based connectors where USB-C never came along. NACS is like a Lightning plug. From a practical/pragmatic perspective, it was clearly the best plug at the time it was created. It solved real user problems. CCS a micro-USB 3.0 plug. Maybe you've never seen one[0], but they are a real thing. Let's take an awful plug (micro USB / J1772) and clumsily add a few more wires on to it to make it both more capable and even worse. It does what you need it to do, but nobody has ever thought it was good at it. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Connector_USB_3_IMGP6033_wp.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Connecto...

pathartl 3y ago
IMO then let's standardize on what the replacement to NACS/CCS should be. Personally, I don't see the big deal behind a larger connector, especially if it's a bit more future proof without requiring extremely clever engineering. I mean we've dealt with huge gasoline/diesel pump handles for nearly a century.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  NACS is perfectly fine. It’s open now, unlike Lightning
  - simondotau 3y ago
    And for ultra-high performance applications (e.g. semi trucks, farm equipment, light aircraft) there is MCS. It has the support of Tesla, Scania, Volvo among others, making it near-certain to be a industry standard in Europe and North America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megawatt_Charging_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megawatt_Charging_System