Tesla opens up their EV connector design to the world (North American Standard)

[JayGT4]

Tesla is opening up their proprietary charging solution. I hope this will improve the CCS standard or Tesla will get more companies to to adapt to their standard.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-standard

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[masmole]

got blue checkmark. seems legit!

 

[whitex]

Actual specs here:
https://www.tesla.com/support/charging-product-guides#technical-specification

 

[kort]

does anyone know when can we expect the hardware to be available?

 

[daveo4EV]

Tesla's connector is smaller, more reliable, and is both a L1/L2 AC connector and alternately can handle FastDC charging as well - it's a superior design to the North American CCS plug which is too large and unwieldy to be managed by most humans

I hope someone chooses to adopt it and that adapters are made so we can transition existing CCS vehicles to this

this I believe portends a CCS adapter for Tesla Superchargers and means Tesla isn't going to add CCS to their superchargers, but rather CCS cars will have a CCS to Tesla adapter (Tesla Tap for CCS if you will)…

I'm excited to see how this all plays out.

Tesla's design here is simpler and better ergonomics for a charging cord…I'd really like to see this get adopted.

 

[daveo4EV]

this is why their connector is smaller/easier to handle than CCS - the design "shares" the high voltage pins for AC/DC depending on what type of charging they are actually plugged into

J-1772 and CCS require separate AC and DC connectors even though there will never be both in use at once…

https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/IPBML2_North_American_Charging_Standard_AC_DC_Pin_Sharing_Appendix_O3AG95.pdf?xseo=&response-content-disposition=inline;filename="North-American-Charging-Standard-AC-DC-Pin-Sharing-Appendix.pdf"

regardless of how you feel about Tesla the company - there are elements of their tech that would be excellent as industry standard and have nothing to do with how you feel about their cars - their charging reputation is excellent and their connector design is functional, elegant, flexible, and superior ergonomically…

 

[daveo4EV]

I hope this works - ultimately its' the best of both worlds…the CCS plug should die a horrible death and we should transition to this or the Europlug in North America - the CCS plug is problematic, complex, too big to handle

With more than a decade of use and 20 billion EV charging miles to its name, the Tesla charging connector is the most proven in North America, offering AC charging and up to 1 MW DC charging in one slim package. It has no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful as Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors.

In pursuit of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, today we are opening our EV connector design to the world. We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port, now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), on their equipment and vehicles. NACS is the most common charging standard in North America: NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla's Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined.

Network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers, so Tesla owners can look forward to charging at other networks without adapters. Similarly, we look forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla’s North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks.

As a purely electrical and mechanical interface agnostic to use case and communication protocol, NACS is straightforward to adopt. 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.

yep…

Photo Comparision of CCS vs. NCAS (NCAS) is Tesla's design - it's much smaller (easier to handle) and just as capable…

 

[masmole]

Interesting. I don’t know any of this really works in the technical sense, but does anyone know if Tesla’s current connectors, that allow ”sharing” of the AC and DC pins in order to maintain such a compact design, are able to be adapted to 800V charging architecture should Tesla decide to go that route for future luxury-focused or just larger models like their Cybertruck. Or would that likely present such a technical challenge that would require a connector redesign? Tesla has already suggested that their current supercharger network would be extremely costly to upgrade to 800V, so I wonder if this is one of those challenges. But it might be dictated by that too, especially since there’s already a growing consensus in the industry the the future of luxury EVs point towards 800V. Lucid already doing 900V.

 

[daveo4EV]

Interesting. I don’t know any of this really works in the technical sense, but does anyone know if Tesla’s current connectors, that allow ”sharing” of the AC and DC pins in order to maintain such a compact design, are able to be adapted to 800V charging architecture should Tesla decide to go that route for future luxury-focused or just larger models like their Cybertruck. Or would that likely present such a technical challenge that would require a connector redesign? Tesla has already suggested that their current supercharger network would be extremely costly to upgrade to 800V, so I wonder if this is one of those challenges. But it might be dictated by that too, especially since there’s already a growing consensus in the industry the the future of luxury EVs point towards 800V. Lucid already doing 900V.

yes - the connector can handle 800V - that's not an issue. So the connector could work for 800/900V/1000V designs…

this is the key paragraph - if the wire is properly designed most any high voltage wire can handle any voltage - that is not the limiting factor.

As a purely electrical and mechanical interface agnostic to use case and communication protocol, NACS is straightforward to adopt. 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.

residential wire you buy at home depot can handle from 5V to 600V - even though it only needs to handle 120/240 volts - wire is a passive conductor - it will handle _ANY_ voltage - you just need to make sure it's appropriate gauge to handle the electrical-current load - and that's a combination of Voltage*AMPS…if the wire is appropriate gauge for the power being transfered it will handle any voltage.

wire handles low voltage (5V/12v/48V) for DC loads
same physical wire can handle 120V AC
same physical wire can handle 240V AC/DC
same physical wire can handle 480V AC/DC
same physical wire can handle 960v AC/DC

wire doesn't care if it's DC or AC , and doens't care what the voltage is…it's a passive conductor of from point a to point b…

 

[DerekS]

Here's the thing. By making the standard "open" he now qualifies for Fed money to install chargers.

I do not expect any CCS manufacturer to switch to this connector, though I do think it's better.

 

[daveo4EV]

Here's the thing. By making the standard "open" he now qualifies for Fed money to install chargers.

I do not expect any CCS manufacturer to switch to this connector, though I do think it's better.

they might switch if it break less than the CCS connectors and are easier to maintain - the CCS connector is more fragile vs. this design

and there are more NCAS cars (Tesla's) than CCS vehicles - if a switch is going to happen we're early enough in the adoption curve that CCS could be legacy 1.0, provide adapters, and move future EV's (2025 or later) to NCAS…do adapters both ways, and eventually NCAS could be majority connector

CCS sucks as a design - it's functional but that's about it -it takes no other design criteria into consideration…

 

[DerekS]

CCS sucks as a design - it's functional but that's about it -it takes no other design criteria into consideration…

It's honestly terrible. So much harder to line up and get going than Tesla's...especially with a heavy liquid-cooled cable.

J-1772 is fine though.

 

[daveo4EV]

It's honestly terrible. So much harder to line up and get going than Tesla's...especially with a heavy liquid-cooled cable.

J-1772 is fine though.

I agree - I think the inertia is on CCS's side, but I'd really like to see a transition…it's a long shot but possible

in the end this would be good for North American EV's and make EV charging more accessible/reliable - but it will take some "vision" for the automakers and charging networks to overcome the inertia…

 

[bsclywilly]

Their tech docs showing that their connector has been tested up to 900amps at 1000V. That’s 900kw!

Would be amazing if compatibility became widespread but I worry that if just one other manufacturer adopts NACS that chances of them retrofitting existing SC network with CCS compatible equipment will be less likely since the EV charger funding bill requires compatibility with “more than one vehicle manufacturer ” only.

 

[daveo4EV]

a CCS to NCAS adapter is all we need and could be as simple as a Tesla Tap like thing or the TEsla J-1772 adapter they ship with each Tesla

a NCAS to CCS adapter already exists and is being sold in the US for Tesla Owners - I'm sure it would work for other EV manufacturers if they put NCAS native on their vehicle.

We need a CCS Vehicle (Taycan, ID.4, Mach-E, etc…) to NCAS charging adapter - but this is just a matter of willingness to make it - it's technically feasible - not difficult.

NCAS Vehicle to CCS Adatpter - available today - this enables NCAS vehicles to use CCS chargers of any kinda - it's a passive adapter - so it should work with any FastDC charger the vehicle can recognize and talk to.
https://shop.tesla.com/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter?web=true

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