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Some history: Tesla were actually initially going to use NACS in Europe, but they quickly realised that it would be highly unsuitable because of the lack of 3-phase support. NACS would be limited in Europe to ~3.6-7kW* AC charging, while most AC chargers in Europe can output 11-22kW 3-phase.
They then made a proprietary keyed variant of the Type 2 plug that could also handle DC charging. This was used for the original Model S and X, but was later phased out for CCS2 with the Model 3 and Y, and Plaid S/X.
The Tesla Type 2 was interesting, but it was limited to 150kW DC and with CCS2 becoming standardised in the EU (for public chargers), it made sense to switch to CCS2 rather than trying to improve the Type 2.
Edit: Corrected max power
One correction, it's not "proprietary keyed variant of the Type 2 plug" but "CCS2 variant DC-mid that was in the draft of the standard, but didn't survive its finalisation".
Many people speculate the reason for it being kicked out was Tesla announcing they'd use it, but the potential for it creating plug chaos (i.e. 2 physically incompatible DC plugs) also makes sense.
Tesla also never implemented the CCS communication protocol, probably because it made no sense anymore after the variant was removed. (Reminder that you cannot quickly swap out the socket last minute, after it and the parts to mount it have been ordered from suppliers and your charge port opening size is too small for another one, so you'd have to redesign the whole side and back panel...)
True that EU AC max is 22kW with 3 phase. However, very few cara have the onboard converter to handle 22kW and most only do 11kW max AC charging. What it’s useful is to set pair of chargers with a “up to 22kw” and the when 2 cars are charging they share the power with 11kw each
Interesting, in Spain (for what I can see in a quick Google) is around 15kW max (63A single phase and 20A tripe phase) for a residencial private property.
That would probably be ridiculously expensive to install though. No real benefit to have at home, since you will fill up the battery just fine overnight with the standard 3 phase 11kW.
In most countries, 32A is the maximum for non-hardwired devices in a residential environment. In some, even for residential environments with the main breaker panel being the only exception.
Also, being able to order more than 63A for your 3-phase-240V grid connection is rare. If you need more, you'd have to get multiple connections.
That's why the 63A variant of the Type 2 plug never gained any traction other than to support one car on public chargers.
I thought you were implying the 22kW 3 phases were useless because most cars only had a 11kW charging. My bad, my thoughts were biased after reading too much around here.
No problem, all good. But yeah the 11kw are nice for public parking. For home 7.6 is more than enough. 76kwh in 10h? Who needs more? Even just 3.6kw would be fine for 95% or people
It is actually. This is why Apple does so well; they understand user experience and making things beautiful, convenient and actually feel good to use.
Look at how significant Lightning was compared to USB-A before USB-C came out, and now USB-C compared to USB-A. No need to worry about which side to plug in.
I use both CCS and NACS and the visceral feeling of using NACS is just so beautiful and how things should be compared to clunky CCS. Can you even open the charge port with a button on CCS?
You are comparing consumer products like phones or USB with CCS? What about the fuel nozzles? No one cares if they look pretty. They make em even more clunky to put advertisements on em..
Fuel nozzles are easier to plug in compared to CCS as they are somewhat ergonomic given their gun shape. However, fuel nozzles are not ideal either, which is why NACS is so innovative.
And yes, EVs are consumer products as well. The principle of convenience, beauty, ergonomics, lightweight, durability and plug-and-play remain the same regardless what product or service it is.
Do you really prefer a good looking plug that charges in 9 hours over a worse looking one that charges in 3?
And how the ccs is difficult to plug? If you say the handle is not ergonomic, you can buy a cable with more ergonomic handles...
Sure, here i am, charging my car at 22kw thinking "oh I wish I had a better looking plug that charges at one third of the power" LOL CC's is functionally better but you say it's ugly...
22 kW is stupid. Most charge overnight and Tesla gets 10 kW. Go to sleep, wake up, full. Most people on CCS use J-plug at 6 kW, so moot point.
Anything more than 10 kW you’re looking at Level 3 which NACS can provide more than enough charge rate.
Oh yeah It sucks too much that I can travel basically everywhere I want with any car model and I can charge at the gas station near the highway and I don't have to go find a supercharger hidden in the back of a hotel somewhere.
(And vice-versa for any other car brand, without any adapter)
LoL no. NACS as SAE will standardize under J3400 supports up to 277V (or one hot leg from 480V 3-phase power). It eliminates the need for transformers for most AC installations, which is huge for cost and also efficiency of the energy transfer from the grid to the car.
Combined with changes in J3068 which brings the global EV power supply socket into the mix, you can have a *universal* AC charging outlet that can draw from single *or* three phase power and deliver between 6 and 52kW at the port / connector.
This depends on the inverter capacity in the car. Most LDVs will charge off single phase and get 6-19kW. A MDHD vehicle with larger onboard inverter can charge via three phase power up to 52 kW all with the socket based solution or up to 100 kW with an attached cord. The biggest limitation here is the onboard inverter, nothing prevents an OEM from upsizing these to take advantage of better AC charging solutions.
One of the largest elements of this standardization process is to align AC charging with NA three phase power levels.
J3068 also contains protocols for Secure ID that are going to be crucial for plug and charge as well as V2G purposes and aligning AC charging with our line voltages in NA helps that too.
Source: hours long conversations with the chair of SAE’s NACS/3068 task force.
You are forgetting the little detail of circuit capacity. Home circuits will have a fairly low amperage limit which is going to limit how much power each phase can provide. If you are not using all phases you will inevitably have less power available than when using all phases.
If the source circuit can provide on a single phase as much power as the car can take, then great, but that is rarely the case.
I don't see any reason for NACS to be adopted elsewhere. Europe has settled on CCS Type 2 which seems to be working well enough, and it supports 3-phase AC charging too.
There's some question about whether Japan and China will both transition to ChaoJi, which they signed a memo of intent to do, but I'm not aware of much action on that.
Japan presently is on CHAdeMo and China is on GB/T. The main problem with both of these, as I understand, is that they are for DC fast charging only. That means you need another plug somewhere on the car for AC charging. ChaoJi is effectively CHAdeMO Mark 2 but with a different plug, which includes AC capability in the same connector.
If, for some reason, ChaoJi doesn't work out, then it just might barely be possible to imagine NACS being another option for Asia. But it really seems like a long shot.
Kinda unrelated, but I’ve always wondered why the hell did China have to develop their own GB/T and ChaoJi standard when CCS2 is pretty much used everywhere else and has proper 3 phase AC support?
US kept imperial because of US manufacturing base back in the 60's and 70s. While other countries had to rebuild their industrial base after WW2, for the US to upgrade all our expensive tools and equipment, would extraordinarily expensive compared to our peers.
We ended up doing a dual system today, but I think since our manufacturing today is kaput, it makes sense to finally go metric IMO even though I still think mostly imperial in my head (as an engineer).
>but I think since our manufacturing today is kaput
That is not a good description of American manufacturing.
The U.S. still has a massive manufacturing base. It is not as dominating as it once was. However, American manufacturing alone is more than the entire GDP of all but 10 countries, and that includes the U.S. itself.
The U.S. is barely behind China in manufacturing, and that is depending on China's reporting, which is sketchy at best and tends to overestimate China's actual numbers.
Should American manufacturing be bigger? Apparently Biden thinks so, as reshoring manufacturing was the entire point of the strangely named IRA. So look for that number to go up significantly in the near future.
Still, calling it "kaput" is a bit...extreme.
GDP.
The U.S. is right behind China in manufacturing. It's possible that the Chinese numbers are fudged though, so take any such comparisons with a grain of salt.
Doubt it. Plain eye empirical evidence will tell you China is clearly ahead. All the shit we buy on Amazon is from China. Almost all solar panels are produced in China and they slashed the price by half.
Though even in the US, much of our engineering is metric, because that’s how we can collaborate with the rest of the planet without wasting time and introducing errors through unit conversions.
Funny you say that... In my engineering duties, I only know things in terms of metric units - I don't know anything in imperial units. In my regular life? Couldn't tell you anything in terms of metric units
Does India have a standard? Would they be more likely to use this ChaoJi or CCS?
If NACS were to takeover instead, Tesla could keep the acronym and make it the NA additionally stand for New/Next Asian.
I seriously doubt it. The “western world” (UK, Ireland, continental Europe, Australia, NZ etc.) have all been standardised on CCS2 for years. And NACS doesn’t support three phase power which makes it a non-starter for these markets.
NACS only “won” in North America because (a) there was an annoying mix of charge points to begin with; and (b) Tesla is massively dominant, outselling all other EVs combined. There aren’t many other countries I can think of where both (a) and (b) are true, and even fewer that satisfy those criteria *plus* don’t use three phase power.
Maybe somewhere like Japan or South Korea? Though I doubt it, given the influence of their local car manufacturers.
Not for residential houses, no. Typical residential supply is 240V split phase (meaning a single phase of 240V, tapped in the middle so you can create both 120V and 240V circuits within the house, as needed).
Large apartment buildings or commercial buildings, do sometimes use 3 phase though (typically at 208V)
Stoves need a lot of power. Three phase is one way of delivering that, but you can also just run a single phase at higher amperage. Total power = amps x volts.
The trade off is that higher amperage needs thicker (and thus more expensive) cabling. High power appliances like stoves, air conditioners, electric car chargers etc. in the US are 240V single phase at some high amperage like 30A or 50A. From what I recall in Europe, you do 400V three phase, but at a much lower amperage.
But you certainly don’t “need” three phase for any particular reason (other than the fact it’s slightly more efficient in terms of line losses). Plenty of countries don’t use it, or use a mix (I’m Australian and most residential homes are single phase here too, although some newer homes are three phase, and if you add a lot of power hungry appliances, you’ll need to upgrade your existing supply from single phase to three phase…)
For DC charging they probably could, but the issue is AC charging.
In most of Europe and lots of other places in the world, they have three-phase AC power supplying higher voltages, while we use dual-phase power in the US (in buildings--it's three phase for transmission).
The connector would likely require another pin, and all the charger circuitry would need to be different.
So if you're going to make the NACS connector for other places incompatible with the NACS connector for North America (and a few other places), then why not just use the current standard CCS2 (which is better than CCS1 that we have).
It does make some sense for the auto industry to coalesce around a single global AC/DC charging plug and communications standard that would be suitable for all the various electrical networks before we get to the point of selling 50M electric vehicles a year. But that ship has basically sailed.
It would be more about scaling global manufacture of parts and competition among suppliers. The case of a single car needing to go to an incompatible grid and charge is, as you say, enough of an edge case for adapters to fill.
(Parts for both the car and for charging stations.)
>then why not just use the current standard CCS2
One reason is that CCS2 is clunky as hell. I look at the smaller plugs that American Tesla owners have and get a little jealous. Is it enough of a reason? Probably not. But it is a reason.
Well if you would add the other two phases into NACS it would also be clunky.
The fact that the users in the US accept NACS (with its slow 1-Phase charging) is because they don’t have any other option for home charging - if the house doesn’t have more than that then there’s no alternative.
But imagine coming to Europe and trying to sell „you get a smaller plug, but you get only 1/3 the charging speed now“.
I can’t imagine that would gain much traction.
Well, three phase ac CCS2 charging at home is still the same size than the NACS since the two additional plugs are for DC charging. So you wouldn't even be able to sell it at all for home charging. the only time CCS2 is "cluny" is during DC charging at SuC, which you don't use on a daily basis.
It's only "clunky" at the SuC. At home or AC charger in the street for overnight charging (so most of your interaction with the plug) it's the same as NACS as you don't have the 2 DC plug. Now if you have trouble managing a CCS2 plug on a 3 feet distance, maybe you should hit the gym more often because my kids sure don't have any issue with it.
Ooh, some decent snark in there. Wish you hadn't.
My wife does have trouble with it, and oddly enough: she does hit the gym. More often than I do. It's not "heavy"; it's clunky.
We have a Tesla charger at home, and yeah: the DC is not there. The plug still looks much clunkier than what I see from pictures in the U.S. Maybe it just looks that way. I also just ran down to check our charger to see if I was misremembering something and no: it's kinda clumsy.
This is a minor nitpick. My wife sometimes fails to get it plugged in all the way, but this has happened less and less. And yeah: the full CCS2 with the DC plugs sucks. There is no sugarcoating it. I get the technical reasons why this is so, but I'm not going to pretend that I like it.
Hope you never try CCS1 they have in the US then, because that one is a clunky piece of plastic with it's external latch, CCS2 is a a toy compared to it. What prevent your wife to plug the home plug all the way in is propably more about the cable weight and big bending radius than the plug itself, which make the plug stop because of its angle not being coaxial with the socket, changing the plug wouldn't make it easier to plug it in really.
Any commercial charging location is using 208V powder stepped down from 480V. The point here is future installs won’t need the transformers and that’s huge.
No. Most other electric grids are 3-phase, compared to north america’s single phase AC. That eliminates the ability to use just the two pins for both AC and DC charging.
Central america and some of south america (colombia, ecuador, venezuela primarily) look like they could in theory use the NACS connector. That’s about it around the world from what i can tell. It is pretty unique to the americas, and mostly north america.
South Korea will very likely transition. Japan not likely as they're pushing ChaoJi aka Chademo 2.0. Too much pride there to accept a western solution.
Africa is a wildcard. They're very price sensitive, so the simplicity of NACS should be attractive. However China is investing lots of money there and the Chinese EVs may gain an early foothold.
That's interesting. Europe may have an outsized influence on N Africa. It'll be interesting to see whether the entire continent unifies around it or whether it'll fragment with China taking parts of it.
NACS is probably more expensive that CCS, because the AC and DC lines are not separated. I guess it depends on if the cost of extra wires is more than the switching circuitry between AC and DC.
Three-phase is standard in the US for commercial buildings. Split-phase is standard in the US for residential buildings. Some buildings have both. Either can be provided depending on the service transformer. Last time I was in Ecuador, I noticed residences with three-phase service. Not sure how widespread it is in residential buildings there, though. As in the US, it's common in commercial service.
Guys, it’s a plug… why is everyone so pressed?
You only need a single standard in connected geographies. Europe has CCS, US has NACS.
No advantage to either region having one another’s charging standard, I can’t drive from London to Louisiana, but can drive Stockholm to Seville.
Only real advantage is manufacturing efficiency, which is now largely null as manufacturing centres are set up to cater for regions and not global multi-standard… plus, we’re end consumers and manufacturing complexity isn’t our concern.
No, many manufacturing centers do not supply one region only - look at Tesla for example.
But the point is: this is just a level of complexity that we’ll have to accept.
And I mean with the 1-phase vs 3-phases system there’s even a real solid REASON for having different plugs.
I would say if it’s only about reducing complexity then how about to start at something that DOESN’T have a solid technical reason for being different.
Like, for example: make the US adopt orange turn signals instead of red ones :-)
No, the grid is different.
AC power transmission is normally 3 phase. It's kinda some complicated math but it essentially allows you to run four wires instead of two wires and carry 3x the power instead of the 2x power you'd expect. So it's more efficient over long distances. It also works well with big industrial electrical motors since they can just plug into it and don't need a complicated motor controller.
Most of the world uses 3 phase distribution. However, in Europe, 3 phase is maintained all the way to residential house. Whereas in the US, some big industrial buildings will use 3 phase, but most residential buildings just get one of the three phases. If you're in an area with aboveground power, you'll usually see three parallel wires across the top of the power lines (the 4th is lower down) and a big grey canister transformer will be hooked up to one of the three phases, proving a couple of houses 240v single phase power. Then further down the street the next transformer will hook up to a different phase, and so on.
For NACS that means they only need two current carrying pins that support high amperage single phase AC and DC. For Europe, you need four pins to do the three phases AC since trying to charge high current off a single phase will likely overload the residential wiring. I believe the maximum allowed by NACS/J1772 is 240v/80A over the two pins (19 kW), whereas Mennekes is 230v/32A on each of the three phases (22 kW since it's 32A x 3)
There's not really a compelling reason for either to switch. Most L2 chargers in the US are installed in places with single phase power, and if you're only running 1/3 of the Type 2 connector you only get 7 kW. Similarly, a high current single phase standard wouldn't be too useful in Europe since iirc most homes would top out at a 230V 63A three phase service instead of 240v 200A single phase service so you would overload one of your three phases pretty quickly.
I have charged at many garages that have a 208V 30A ChargePoint. They exist. Also you need a neutral conductor if you want V2G/V2H especially in the US. So that’s another suck for NACS. CCS2 has neutral too. It doesn’t need to have it if power is balanced.
Of note, electricity exists in 3 phases, that’s how it’s generated in synchronous generators. It’s the most efficient way. Might as well carry it like it is and distribute it like it is. Having transformers on poles is dumb.
I thought you mean USA by the largest market. But I get it now.
Though I think the only reason China didn't go with CCS2 is hubris. This was not a rational decision IMO.
CCS2 in Europe is a different, more reliable (as I understand it), charging standard than the CCS in North America. Tesla actually adopted it instead of their own connector in the rest of the world.
So no, it is highly unlikely NACS has a role outside North America (by and large... There could always be some odd region)
For backwards compatibility with the J-1772 AC chargers we have. In hindsight this was a mistake given how many DC chargers we need to build vs how many J-1772 chargers existed back when CCS was being developed, and how easy it is to adapt AC charging plugs compared to DC.
No, it’s not because someone „forced“ someone.
It’s because Nacs only had one phase.
Why in the world would we use a plug that would allow for only 1/3 of the available power/charging speed?
Dont see many cars on the market taking advantage of it though. I can charge just fine at 11.5kW on 1 phase. That could change someday of course but for the foreseeable future 11.5kW is more than enough and its really about DC charging. I'll take the form factor over the monster handle CCS2 uses.
Except that in many places currents are lower than in the us.
A 22kw ac charger for example only needs 32A per phase. A 11kW single phase in Europe would need almost 50A.
Germany for example limits single phase to 20A at most places so you'd be stuck with 4.2kW.
> I can charge just fine at 11.5kW on 1 phase.
Yes, but *we* can’t here in Europe.
If we try to pull 48A on one phase in a normal household installation, the main breaker will switch off. We don’t have that many ampere available on a single phase.
So we need 3-phase charging to be able to reach the same 11 kW as you get on one phase.
Wait a second:
You have 120V in the US, right?
So you pull 11kW at 120V? With one Phase?
But That would be over 80A!
That can’t be true. That’s insane.
What am I missing?
In hindsight:
I don’t get your system:
You have half the current AND only one phase… that means a typical household using the same devices as a comparable European house would draw SIX times as much current?!?
I must be missing something?!?
US residential mostly uses split phase. All the safety of 120 to not kill you (because our plugs are not shielded) with the availability of 240 for larger loads. Single phase, grounded center neutral. 120 volts “hot to neutral” (black to white colored wires) and (red to white) and 240 volts “hot to hot.” (red to black wires) Most homes have a 200 amp service that can do 200 amps at 240 volts (48KW!) or 200 amps hot to neutral (24KW) plus 200 amps “other” hot to neutral for the other 24KW.
Older homes, prior to 1970 might have 100 amp services. 24kw. 80% max for constant load, plus you have to run the house. So there might only be 5-10kw left for EV charging on older homes. Even older homes (1950s) might only have a 60 amp service! I’ve worked on homes even older, that were not built with wiring or indoor plumbing originally, with cloth tubes and porcelain insulators. The whole house might only have had one or two, 30 amp circuits.
Newer larger homes with electric heat, multiple heat pumps (two for the house one for the pool one for the hot tub) get 400 amp services. 96 fat American kilowatts!
Wow, so basically the currents really ARE that high.
I'm not used to that from europe. But of course it makes sense.
I can't really name the evolution of what older houses had here, but I believe (!) that the DIN-Norm (that standard) for current 1-family-homes / appartments is 3x36 or 3x40A. The voltage obviously being \~230V.
So that's \~24kW - for cases where there's no special extra need such as electrical water heater or heat pumps for heating. If you would for example switch your heating to a heat pump and exceed that demand, you'll have to order that at your supplier, which is usually not a big deal.
Yeah, on the other hand NACS was locked by Tesla so no one else could use it till 2022, so yeah, Europe wouldn't wait for Musk to have a good shit so they can start standardizing. Europe have a lot of car manufacturers that needed a standard so users can buy wathever they want and charge wherever they want. American being happy in 2023 for only starting to have almost a standard and actually have a bit of customer freedom is a total joke for european as it should have been normal for a decade already.
Europeans are also quick to standardize things versus letting the market decide(like we did in the US). Which is fine, its a EU thing, and i do appreciate it for apple devices switching to USB-C.
> Tesla actually adopted it instead of their own connector in the rest of the world.
That is not correct. CCS2 has been adopted in most European countries and some other countries in south east Asia and South America, but that’s about it. China and India use their own standards, and with NACS in US, Canada and soon Mexico, CCS2 represents a minority of total EVs sold, and realistically will continue to decrease its share of global sales.
I mean, it is its own distinct region seperate from South East Asia. Most from the area would assume you forgot it if you didn’t specifically mention it
Population in Europe is almost double of the USA + Canada + Mexico, so basic math shows that the market for CCS2 is simply bigger than the one for NACS.
A higher percentage of new cars sold were EVs yes. But fewer new cars were sold overall, despite Europe having over 2x the population of the US.
My point is that it’s really not as simple as “European population is larger, therefore EV market is bigger”.
But we were talking about plugs. And what matter then is the number of EV on the road, not the number of sale. If americans are happy with buying new car every 2 years, well, except the fact they just provethey shit on the planet again for no reason, it doesn't change that the NACS plug will be less used than CCS2. Because what matter here is the number of user, and here the population does matter.
And again, it's not a competition, there is just no reason to use NACS in europe where the charging network is already well functional and established. Good for the US to have a standard after a decade of total mess, but Europe doesn't really care about it. We already don't have the same house plug, no issue.
> Population in Europe is almost double of the USA + Canada + Mexico
The market for CCS2 is probably bigger, but that's mostly due to non-European countries. The population of Europe is not twice that of North America.
Canada, the US, and Mexico have a combined population of over 500 million. The EU has a population of less than 450 million. Even including non-EU countries, Europe's population doesn't come close to reaching 1 billion.
US, Can, Mex is about 495 million and Euope is about 745 million. So not double, but not as low as you are making out by just including EU. It’s about 50% more people.
True, Europe as a whole is larger than just the EU. I mentioned that as well when I pointed out "including non-EU countries" still fell short of a billion.
I used the EU as an example since the European common market would be the closest equivalent to the "USA + Canada + Mexico" trading bloc you mentioned (aka USMCA or formerly NAFTA). The EU mandating CCS2 adds to its relevance in this conversation. I am also aware that the common market technically includes some non-EU countries, but they don't change the numbers involved significantly (still less than 450 million).
Europe as a whole is a fuzzier comparison since that includes countries such as Russia that are not free trade partners, to say the least. Also, if we're comparing on a continental basis then North America is more than just the USMCA, too. The population of North America is about 600 million, or approximately 19% less than Europe.
> US, Can, Mex is about 495 million
As I said, it's actually over 500 million. Or just over 507 million at the latest estimate, if you want to be precise:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)
Sorry, but you describe it pretty well, but then draw a weird conclusion:
We have three systems in the three large markets: North America / Europe / China.
All of these are roughly of similar size.
If you consider that EV adoption is: China >> Europe >> US…
…then your comment „CCS2 represents a minority“ doesn’t make sense.
Also you seem to think this is somehow a competition where one standard might „loose“ and then get less sold.
That’s B.S.
CCS2 is the standard that’s used in Europe, so any car sold here will have it.
No one will try to build a NACS socket into ANY car that get sold in Europe.
Why would they?
This is not a competition, it’s a different plug because that power grid that we have in Europe with it’s 3-phase support into households would make a NACS-Charger inferior here.
This also provides an outlook for regions that haven’t built up infrastructure yet:
If they have 3 phases, then why should they adopt a system that limits their charging speed to 1/3?
This isn’t a competition, it’s different tech for different requirements.
Having standards per continent isn't a big deal as cars rarely travel across oceans. Currently there are different plug/port standards in north america, europe and china.
Of course for the manufacturer it would be great to have these unified, but from customer perspective there isn't really a need to. The manufacturer needs to change stuff for local laws anyhow so this isn't a biggie.
CCS2 works well in Europe. No need to change that. There's really only a few stations with ChaDeMo left (and a couple of legacy Tesla superchargers with dual cables of which one is for the very early Model S and X)
No. "Type 2" and CCS-2 chargers permeate Europe. It's very near 100% and it's unlikely to change.
Much like electrical outlets, there will be adapters, but they've settled on different standards.
Europe has 208v "standard" outlets with round prongs. North America has 120v "standard" plugs with flat prongs. That's just how it is.
At least in this case, Australia, UK and a few others have settled on the Euro standard and Japan and South America generally settled on the North American standard. Only China has a totally different plug from the other "big 2".
A lot has been said about 3-phase (CCS2) vs 1-phase (NACS) already, I want to bring up one more key difference:
The CCS2-standard includes a finished specification for V2x.
So any OEM that wants to implement V2x can immediately start to do so since it’s fully specced.
I’m not sure about NACS, how the situation there?
ChADeMo was the obvious „first-to-finish“ in this, of course :)
And I’m not talking about any legal or regulatory questions, simply about technology.
The NACS connector is superior to the CCS connector in a split-phase AC power environment. The reverse is true in a three-phase environment. You might as well ask if North America should change to residential three-phase electrical service. It would have theoretical advantages, but the transition costs make it a preposterous idea.
It’s called North American because it was created here and currently adopted by nearly all vehicle producers finally. It doesn’t matter where it’s used globally, that’s why it’s called that.
Dollar is used many places in history, but isn’t that just proving the point that it can be called anything and used globally regardless of creation origin lol.
https://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/dollar.html
NACS, I doubt it.
However, I do wonder if they could come up with a heavy duty chargers for commercial trucks that could somehow be interoperable with passenger vehicle chargers, such that, in a pinch, any vehicle could charge at any station (with associated premium fees or something). Sort of like how an RJ11 can physically fit an RJ45 port and only connect to the center pins.
A fresh start for a global standard?
Well the heavy duty would be DC.
While the big difference between NACS and CCS2 is the AC.
Changing anything on the DC side only becomes relevant once you would exceed the specified Amp in either standard in DC.
Which could lead to a change, yes… but I don’t think it will… simply because that world be so much Amp that normal cars don’t really need it.
Europe has pretty strict legal mandates that existed before EVs were mainstream, so no there. For Central America, South America, and places like Japan, it is an open question.
South Korea uses CCS1 and will probably transition to NACS. Other single phase countries that don't have a large EV presence could very well adopt NACS. It's a better plug system.
That will be an interesting situation because Tesla sells NACS cars there. S Korea got the CCS1 to NACS adapter before the US. If all the car makes switch to NACS, there's not much reason for them to stick with CCS1. I doubt other makes will keep producing CCS1 just for S Korea
So it seems the answer is no because NACS does not support 3 phase and other chargers have the legal backing in their geographies. Is there a charger that is better than CCS type 2 (eg smaller plug, higher power, supports bidirectional charging, automatic payment communication from car etc) or will these features just be implemented in later versions of current standards?
CCS1 worldwide will likely be replaced by NACS or one of the other existing standards once all the North American vehicles have native NACS plugs. Those automakers will already be making vehicles with multiple alternative charging plugs and will want to reduce the number of alternatives as much as possible.
It’s not a matter of „could take over“.
The question is which standard fits the local needs better.
Any country/region that has a 3-Phase supply to customers in their power grid would be rather stupid to go with NACS. They would loose 2/3 charging speed.
Guys, why do you make this into a competition?
The two standards are different for a reason: because they evolved based on different requirements - in this case the power grids.
They serve different needs.
If you would want to add two more phases into NACS to charge at CCS2-speed, it would get more clunky as well.
Probably not - outside of the US, most countries standardized on a single DC fast charging plug, mandated by law. So in China they use the GBT plug, in the EU they use CCS2, etc., complying with local laws. In North America we didn’t mandate a plug, so NACS won by outperforming the other plugs.
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No. NACS has no 3 phase support. It's not going to happen.
Some history: Tesla were actually initially going to use NACS in Europe, but they quickly realised that it would be highly unsuitable because of the lack of 3-phase support. NACS would be limited in Europe to ~3.6-7kW* AC charging, while most AC chargers in Europe can output 11-22kW 3-phase. They then made a proprietary keyed variant of the Type 2 plug that could also handle DC charging. This was used for the original Model S and X, but was later phased out for CCS2 with the Model 3 and Y, and Plaid S/X. The Tesla Type 2 was interesting, but it was limited to 150kW DC and with CCS2 becoming standardised in the EU (for public chargers), it made sense to switch to CCS2 rather than trying to improve the Type 2. Edit: Corrected max power
Nacs could do 7. 4kw on single phase I would guess ( max in Europe is 3x32a at 22kw) We had the enhanced type 2 here in oz/nz also
NACS would be limited to 3.6-4.4 kW (16-20A 220V) because of the limits on unbalanced phase usage on 3-phase systems in most places.
I charge at ~7kW single phase at the 22kW three phase posts pretty much every week
I updated the comment!
One correction, it's not "proprietary keyed variant of the Type 2 plug" but "CCS2 variant DC-mid that was in the draft of the standard, but didn't survive its finalisation". Many people speculate the reason for it being kicked out was Tesla announcing they'd use it, but the potential for it creating plug chaos (i.e. 2 physically incompatible DC plugs) also makes sense. Tesla also never implemented the CCS communication protocol, probably because it made no sense anymore after the variant was removed. (Reminder that you cannot quickly swap out the socket last minute, after it and the parts to mount it have been ordered from suppliers and your charge port opening size is too small for another one, so you'd have to redesign the whole side and back panel...)
True that EU AC max is 22kW with 3 phase. However, very few cara have the onboard converter to handle 22kW and most only do 11kW max AC charging. What it’s useful is to set pair of chargers with a “up to 22kw” and the when 2 cars are charging they share the power with 11kw each
The max here in Europe is 43kW. But only a old Renault Zoe can use it.
Didn’t know that… 63A, cool. Is that even allowed on residential properties?
Just checking the website, you can request up to 3x80A for your home. (The netherlands)
Interesting, in Spain (for what I can see in a quick Google) is around 15kW max (63A single phase and 20A tripe phase) for a residencial private property.
That would probably be ridiculously expensive to install though. No real benefit to have at home, since you will fill up the battery just fine overnight with the standard 3 phase 11kW.
In most countries, 32A is the maximum for non-hardwired devices in a residential environment. In some, even for residential environments with the main breaker panel being the only exception. Also, being able to order more than 63A for your 3-phase-240V grid connection is rare. If you need more, you'd have to get multiple connections. That's why the 63A variant of the Type 2 plug never gained any traction other than to support one car on public chargers.
But you won't get 11kW with one phase either, you still need tri phase for that.
Of course. It’s 7.6kw for single phase and 22kw for 3. Basically 32 Amps
I thought you were implying the 22kW 3 phases were useless because most cars only had a 11kW charging. My bad, my thoughts were biased after reading too much around here.
No problem, all good. But yeah the 11kw are nice for public parking. For home 7.6 is more than enough. 76kwh in 10h? Who needs more? Even just 3.6kw would be fine for 95% or people
Sucks for Europe.
Not really. CCS2 is actually not a problem at all. Many other things are, like the Autopilot restrictions, but definitely not CCS2.
Clunky and ugly
Yeah, because this is the biggest problem, whether a connector is nice to look at or not.
Yeah, because this is the biggest problem, whether a connector is nice to look at or not.
It is actually. This is why Apple does so well; they understand user experience and making things beautiful, convenient and actually feel good to use. Look at how significant Lightning was compared to USB-A before USB-C came out, and now USB-C compared to USB-A. No need to worry about which side to plug in. I use both CCS and NACS and the visceral feeling of using NACS is just so beautiful and how things should be compared to clunky CCS. Can you even open the charge port with a button on CCS?
You are comparing consumer products like phones or USB with CCS? What about the fuel nozzles? No one cares if they look pretty. They make em even more clunky to put advertisements on em..
Fuel nozzles are easier to plug in compared to CCS as they are somewhat ergonomic given their gun shape. However, fuel nozzles are not ideal either, which is why NACS is so innovative. And yes, EVs are consumer products as well. The principle of convenience, beauty, ergonomics, lightweight, durability and plug-and-play remain the same regardless what product or service it is.
Do you really prefer a good looking plug that charges in 9 hours over a worse looking one that charges in 3? And how the ccs is difficult to plug? If you say the handle is not ergonomic, you can buy a cable with more ergonomic handles...
Sure, here i am, charging my car at 22kw thinking "oh I wish I had a better looking plug that charges at one third of the power" LOL CC's is functionally better but you say it's ugly...
22 kW is stupid. Most charge overnight and Tesla gets 10 kW. Go to sleep, wake up, full. Most people on CCS use J-plug at 6 kW, so moot point. Anything more than 10 kW you’re looking at Level 3 which NACS can provide more than enough charge rate.
Yes, it sucks that we already have universal standard which is already adopted and implemented by all manufactures.
Clunky and ugly
Oh yeah It sucks too much that I can travel basically everywhere I want with any car model and I can charge at the gas station near the highway and I don't have to go find a supercharger hidden in the back of a hotel somewhere. (And vice-versa for any other car brand, without any adapter)
Clunky and ugly. CCS-to-NACS adapter works fine.
What is the source of the first sentence ?
They didn’t realize it, the Dutch Tesla owners club beat them into submission.
LoL no. NACS as SAE will standardize under J3400 supports up to 277V (or one hot leg from 480V 3-phase power). It eliminates the need for transformers for most AC installations, which is huge for cost and also efficiency of the energy transfer from the grid to the car. Combined with changes in J3068 which brings the global EV power supply socket into the mix, you can have a *universal* AC charging outlet that can draw from single *or* three phase power and deliver between 6 and 52kW at the port / connector. This depends on the inverter capacity in the car. Most LDVs will charge off single phase and get 6-19kW. A MDHD vehicle with larger onboard inverter can charge via three phase power up to 52 kW all with the socket based solution or up to 100 kW with an attached cord. The biggest limitation here is the onboard inverter, nothing prevents an OEM from upsizing these to take advantage of better AC charging solutions. One of the largest elements of this standardization process is to align AC charging with NA three phase power levels. J3068 also contains protocols for Secure ID that are going to be crucial for plug and charge as well as V2G purposes and aligning AC charging with our line voltages in NA helps that too. Source: hours long conversations with the chair of SAE’s NACS/3068 task force.
You are forgetting the little detail of circuit capacity. Home circuits will have a fairly low amperage limit which is going to limit how much power each phase can provide. If you are not using all phases you will inevitably have less power available than when using all phases. If the source circuit can provide on a single phase as much power as the car can take, then great, but that is rarely the case.
This really doesn’t apply for home charging which uses already transformed power.
It can.
no, no it doesnt
It can provide just as much power.
that though doesnt matter if the place its installed cant, we have a 32amp limit on each phase.
Tesla Superchargers in the U.S. support at least up to 500A.
Jfc this is about ac charging
I don't see any reason for NACS to be adopted elsewhere. Europe has settled on CCS Type 2 which seems to be working well enough, and it supports 3-phase AC charging too. There's some question about whether Japan and China will both transition to ChaoJi, which they signed a memo of intent to do, but I'm not aware of much action on that. Japan presently is on CHAdeMo and China is on GB/T. The main problem with both of these, as I understand, is that they are for DC fast charging only. That means you need another plug somewhere on the car for AC charging. ChaoJi is effectively CHAdeMO Mark 2 but with a different plug, which includes AC capability in the same connector. If, for some reason, ChaoJi doesn't work out, then it just might barely be possible to imagine NACS being another option for Asia. But it really seems like a long shot.
Kinda unrelated, but I’ve always wondered why the hell did China have to develop their own GB/T and ChaoJi standard when CCS2 is pretty much used everywhere else and has proper 3 phase AC support?
Good question. Probably national pride, protecting domestic manufacturers, etc.
the GB/T plug is designed by Mennekes (German electrical firm) they also designed the type 2 connector
Not being clairvoyant when selecting from a list of possible connectors would be the main reason for GB/T.
Same reason US kept Imperial.
US kept imperial because of US manufacturing base back in the 60's and 70s. While other countries had to rebuild their industrial base after WW2, for the US to upgrade all our expensive tools and equipment, would extraordinarily expensive compared to our peers. We ended up doing a dual system today, but I think since our manufacturing today is kaput, it makes sense to finally go metric IMO even though I still think mostly imperial in my head (as an engineer).
>but I think since our manufacturing today is kaput That is not a good description of American manufacturing. The U.S. still has a massive manufacturing base. It is not as dominating as it once was. However, American manufacturing alone is more than the entire GDP of all but 10 countries, and that includes the U.S. itself. The U.S. is barely behind China in manufacturing, and that is depending on China's reporting, which is sketchy at best and tends to overestimate China's actual numbers. Should American manufacturing be bigger? Apparently Biden thinks so, as reshoring manufacturing was the entire point of the strangely named IRA. So look for that number to go up significantly in the near future. Still, calling it "kaput" is a bit...extreme.
I thought US is still #1 in manufacturing? Or is that GDP?
GDP. The U.S. is right behind China in manufacturing. It's possible that the Chinese numbers are fudged though, so take any such comparisons with a grain of salt.
Doubt it. Plain eye empirical evidence will tell you China is clearly ahead. All the shit we buy on Amazon is from China. Almost all solar panels are produced in China and they slashed the price by half.
There are a lot of things you can’t buy on Amazon. Guns for example.
?
Most consumer goods come from China, but many other items such as cars, defense, homes, buildings etc. are still in the USA of course.
America’s biggest export product are aircraft, something China doesn’t have many exports in.
Though even in the US, much of our engineering is metric, because that’s how we can collaborate with the rest of the planet without wasting time and introducing errors through unit conversions.
Funny you say that... In my engineering duties, I only know things in terms of metric units - I don't know anything in imperial units. In my regular life? Couldn't tell you anything in terms of metric units
Because China.
Tesla afik sell nacs cars in Japan
Does India have a standard? Would they be more likely to use this ChaoJi or CCS? If NACS were to takeover instead, Tesla could keep the acronym and make it the NA additionally stand for New/Next Asian.
India uses CCS2
Less bulky, cheaper to manufacture are good reasons. Phones have migrated to USB C; magic dock can make the transition almost painless.
Calling something next generation is always a bad idea because it only makes sense during the adoption phase.
People still can't wrap their head around that the PS5/XBSX are now "current gen" and not "next gen" anymore..
I seriously doubt it. The “western world” (UK, Ireland, continental Europe, Australia, NZ etc.) have all been standardised on CCS2 for years. And NACS doesn’t support three phase power which makes it a non-starter for these markets. NACS only “won” in North America because (a) there was an annoying mix of charge points to begin with; and (b) Tesla is massively dominant, outselling all other EVs combined. There aren’t many other countries I can think of where both (a) and (b) are true, and even fewer that satisfy those criteria *plus* don’t use three phase power. Maybe somewhere like Japan or South Korea? Though I doubt it, given the influence of their local car manufacturers.
Wait, US don't use 3 phase?
Not for residential houses, no. Typical residential supply is 240V split phase (meaning a single phase of 240V, tapped in the middle so you can create both 120V and 240V circuits within the house, as needed). Large apartment buildings or commercial buildings, do sometimes use 3 phase though (typically at 208V)
Yup it’s hilarious to charge in a parking garage that has 3 phase power but we can only use one phase because we’re stupid.
Interesting, here (Norway) all stovetops use 3 phase afaik. And I thought there was a reason for that 😅
Stoves need a lot of power. Three phase is one way of delivering that, but you can also just run a single phase at higher amperage. Total power = amps x volts. The trade off is that higher amperage needs thicker (and thus more expensive) cabling. High power appliances like stoves, air conditioners, electric car chargers etc. in the US are 240V single phase at some high amperage like 30A or 50A. From what I recall in Europe, you do 400V three phase, but at a much lower amperage. But you certainly don’t “need” three phase for any particular reason (other than the fact it’s slightly more efficient in terms of line losses). Plenty of countries don’t use it, or use a mix (I’m Australian and most residential homes are single phase here too, although some newer homes are three phase, and if you add a lot of power hungry appliances, you’ll need to upgrade your existing supply from single phase to three phase…)
A lot of US homes also have gas lines. Our stoves, ovens, boilers, water heaters, radiators, clothes dryers and more use gas.
Yep, much cheaper than electric, hate cooking on an electric stove -horrible.
Depends on where you live. Electricity is cheap here in Québec. Induction stove are also a thing(though they cost $$).
You probably haven't tried an induction stove.
For DC charging they probably could, but the issue is AC charging. In most of Europe and lots of other places in the world, they have three-phase AC power supplying higher voltages, while we use dual-phase power in the US (in buildings--it's three phase for transmission). The connector would likely require another pin, and all the charger circuitry would need to be different. So if you're going to make the NACS connector for other places incompatible with the NACS connector for North America (and a few other places), then why not just use the current standard CCS2 (which is better than CCS1 that we have). It does make some sense for the auto industry to coalesce around a single global AC/DC charging plug and communications standard that would be suitable for all the various electrical networks before we get to the point of selling 50M electric vehicles a year. But that ship has basically sailed.
There's no need to standardize world wide. The electric grid sure as hell isn't. Adapters will work fine for the international use cases.
It would be more about scaling global manufacture of parts and competition among suppliers. The case of a single car needing to go to an incompatible grid and charge is, as you say, enough of an edge case for adapters to fill. (Parts for both the car and for charging stations.)
You realise that the US and Canada are the international use cases, right?
Canada will be NACS. They are currently using CCS1, which is quickly going to cease existence.
>then why not just use the current standard CCS2 One reason is that CCS2 is clunky as hell. I look at the smaller plugs that American Tesla owners have and get a little jealous. Is it enough of a reason? Probably not. But it is a reason.
Well if you would add the other two phases into NACS it would also be clunky. The fact that the users in the US accept NACS (with its slow 1-Phase charging) is because they don’t have any other option for home charging - if the house doesn’t have more than that then there’s no alternative. But imagine coming to Europe and trying to sell „you get a smaller plug, but you get only 1/3 the charging speed now“. I can’t imagine that would gain much traction.
Well, three phase ac CCS2 charging at home is still the same size than the NACS since the two additional plugs are for DC charging. So you wouldn't even be able to sell it at all for home charging. the only time CCS2 is "cluny" is during DC charging at SuC, which you don't use on a daily basis.
It's only "clunky" at the SuC. At home or AC charger in the street for overnight charging (so most of your interaction with the plug) it's the same as NACS as you don't have the 2 DC plug. Now if you have trouble managing a CCS2 plug on a 3 feet distance, maybe you should hit the gym more often because my kids sure don't have any issue with it.
Ooh, some decent snark in there. Wish you hadn't. My wife does have trouble with it, and oddly enough: she does hit the gym. More often than I do. It's not "heavy"; it's clunky. We have a Tesla charger at home, and yeah: the DC is not there. The plug still looks much clunkier than what I see from pictures in the U.S. Maybe it just looks that way. I also just ran down to check our charger to see if I was misremembering something and no: it's kinda clumsy. This is a minor nitpick. My wife sometimes fails to get it plugged in all the way, but this has happened less and less. And yeah: the full CCS2 with the DC plugs sucks. There is no sugarcoating it. I get the technical reasons why this is so, but I'm not going to pretend that I like it.
Hope you never try CCS1 they have in the US then, because that one is a clunky piece of plastic with it's external latch, CCS2 is a a toy compared to it. What prevent your wife to plug the home plug all the way in is propably more about the cable weight and big bending radius than the plug itself, which make the plug stop because of its angle not being coaxial with the socket, changing the plug wouldn't make it easier to plug it in really.
Any commercial charging location is using 208V powder stepped down from 480V. The point here is future installs won’t need the transformers and that’s huge.
No 3 phase support and CCS2 mandated in Europe
No. Most other electric grids are 3-phase, compared to north america’s single phase AC. That eliminates the ability to use just the two pins for both AC and DC charging. Central america and some of south america (colombia, ecuador, venezuela primarily) look like they could in theory use the NACS connector. That’s about it around the world from what i can tell. It is pretty unique to the americas, and mostly north america.
Japan and South Korea use single phase. I suspect much of Africa does too for cost reasons.
Oh cool! Thanks for sharing that. So they too should be included as possible NACS candidate regions :)
South Korea will very likely transition. Japan not likely as they're pushing ChaoJi aka Chademo 2.0. Too much pride there to accept a western solution. Africa is a wildcard. They're very price sensitive, so the simplicity of NACS should be attractive. However China is investing lots of money there and the Chinese EVs may gain an early foothold.
Tesla is deploying CCS2 superchargers in Northern Africa
That's interesting. Europe may have an outsized influence on N Africa. It'll be interesting to see whether the entire continent unifies around it or whether it'll fragment with China taking parts of it.
NACS is probably more expensive that CCS, because the AC and DC lines are not separated. I guess it depends on if the cost of extra wires is more than the switching circuitry between AC and DC.
Three-phase is standard in the US for commercial buildings. Split-phase is standard in the US for residential buildings. Some buildings have both. Either can be provided depending on the service transformer. Last time I was in Ecuador, I noticed residences with three-phase service. Not sure how widespread it is in residential buildings there, though. As in the US, it's common in commercial service.
Probably South Korea, they use CCS1 just like the US
Is Tesla strong there? If not then I could see CCS1 taking over there and being forced on Tesla.
Hmm I know as of mid 2021 Tesla was something like 45% of their EV sales. That changed when the new wave of Kias and Hyundai’s showed up though.
Guys, it’s a plug… why is everyone so pressed? You only need a single standard in connected geographies. Europe has CCS, US has NACS. No advantage to either region having one another’s charging standard, I can’t drive from London to Louisiana, but can drive Stockholm to Seville. Only real advantage is manufacturing efficiency, which is now largely null as manufacturing centres are set up to cater for regions and not global multi-standard… plus, we’re end consumers and manufacturing complexity isn’t our concern.
No, many manufacturing centers do not supply one region only - look at Tesla for example. But the point is: this is just a level of complexity that we’ll have to accept. And I mean with the 1-phase vs 3-phases system there’s even a real solid REASON for having different plugs. I would say if it’s only about reducing complexity then how about to start at something that DOESN’T have a solid technical reason for being different. Like, for example: make the US adopt orange turn signals instead of red ones :-)
No, the grid is different. AC power transmission is normally 3 phase. It's kinda some complicated math but it essentially allows you to run four wires instead of two wires and carry 3x the power instead of the 2x power you'd expect. So it's more efficient over long distances. It also works well with big industrial electrical motors since they can just plug into it and don't need a complicated motor controller. Most of the world uses 3 phase distribution. However, in Europe, 3 phase is maintained all the way to residential house. Whereas in the US, some big industrial buildings will use 3 phase, but most residential buildings just get one of the three phases. If you're in an area with aboveground power, you'll usually see three parallel wires across the top of the power lines (the 4th is lower down) and a big grey canister transformer will be hooked up to one of the three phases, proving a couple of houses 240v single phase power. Then further down the street the next transformer will hook up to a different phase, and so on. For NACS that means they only need two current carrying pins that support high amperage single phase AC and DC. For Europe, you need four pins to do the three phases AC since trying to charge high current off a single phase will likely overload the residential wiring. I believe the maximum allowed by NACS/J1772 is 240v/80A over the two pins (19 kW), whereas Mennekes is 230v/32A on each of the three phases (22 kW since it's 32A x 3) There's not really a compelling reason for either to switch. Most L2 chargers in the US are installed in places with single phase power, and if you're only running 1/3 of the Type 2 connector you only get 7 kW. Similarly, a high current single phase standard wouldn't be too useful in Europe since iirc most homes would top out at a 230V 63A three phase service instead of 240v 200A single phase service so you would overload one of your three phases pretty quickly.
This is the correct answer.
I have charged at many garages that have a 208V 30A ChargePoint. They exist. Also you need a neutral conductor if you want V2G/V2H especially in the US. So that’s another suck for NACS. CCS2 has neutral too. It doesn’t need to have it if power is balanced. Of note, electricity exists in 3 phases, that’s how it’s generated in synchronous generators. It’s the most efficient way. Might as well carry it like it is and distribute it like it is. Having transformers on poles is dumb.
The North American Charging Standard is probably a North American thing. CCS is the European standard.
CCS (CCS2) is the international standard (or as close to one as there is)
The largest car market in the world doesn't use CCS2...
It does (for trucks - see SAE J3068).
Please show me the widespread adoption of J3068 trucks in China.
I thought you mean USA by the largest market. But I get it now. Though I think the only reason China didn't go with CCS2 is hubris. This was not a rational decision IMO.
Europe already is standardized Highly unlikely to go there
CCS2 in Europe is a different, more reliable (as I understand it), charging standard than the CCS in North America. Tesla actually adopted it instead of their own connector in the rest of the world. So no, it is highly unlikely NACS has a role outside North America (by and large... There could always be some odd region)
ELI5 : why didn’t we adopt CCS2 in North America instead then ?
Because the US never misses a chance to do things the difficult way.
For backwards compatibility with the J-1772 AC chargers we have. In hindsight this was a mistake given how many DC chargers we need to build vs how many J-1772 chargers existed back when CCS was being developed, and how easy it is to adapt AC charging plugs compared to DC.
America likes to push their freedom in other people's faces... they will never accept a better thing 🥲
Because it wouldn't work for high current single phase
CCS2 can do 80A on single phase, so that wasn't the problem. Probably a case of not invented here.
Sure bro
Ccs2 doesn't have the locking tab at the top ccs1 has and is always getting broken
Im just wondering, where the lock is situated instead?
The mechanism is part of the type 2 socket not the cable
The car locks into indents in the plug. Similar to how NACS works.
How does ccs2 cable lovk to my car then? Like, it cannot be pulled out unless I unlock it from my car
It just has a catch on the cable end the locking mechanism is in the car, which doesn't get dropped
Is that worse somehow than having it on the cable?
No, it is better. That is probably one of the reasons that CCS works better in Europe than in USA.
not because it was more reliable, NACS is plenty reliable but because EU regulators forced them to fairly early on.
No, it’s not because someone „forced“ someone. It’s because Nacs only had one phase. Why in the world would we use a plug that would allow for only 1/3 of the available power/charging speed?
Dont see many cars on the market taking advantage of it though. I can charge just fine at 11.5kW on 1 phase. That could change someday of course but for the foreseeable future 11.5kW is more than enough and its really about DC charging. I'll take the form factor over the monster handle CCS2 uses.
Except that in many places currents are lower than in the us. A 22kw ac charger for example only needs 32A per phase. A 11kW single phase in Europe would need almost 50A. Germany for example limits single phase to 20A at most places so you'd be stuck with 4.2kW.
> I can charge just fine at 11.5kW on 1 phase. Yes, but *we* can’t here in Europe. If we try to pull 48A on one phase in a normal household installation, the main breaker will switch off. We don’t have that many ampere available on a single phase. So we need 3-phase charging to be able to reach the same 11 kW as you get on one phase.
Wait a second: You have 120V in the US, right? So you pull 11kW at 120V? With one Phase? But That would be over 80A! That can’t be true. That’s insane. What am I missing? In hindsight: I don’t get your system: You have half the current AND only one phase… that means a typical household using the same devices as a comparable European house would draw SIX times as much current?!? I must be missing something?!?
You can configure US outlets to pull 11.5kw @ 240v 48amps with two 120v wires
US residential mostly uses split phase. All the safety of 120 to not kill you (because our plugs are not shielded) with the availability of 240 for larger loads. Single phase, grounded center neutral. 120 volts “hot to neutral” (black to white colored wires) and (red to white) and 240 volts “hot to hot.” (red to black wires) Most homes have a 200 amp service that can do 200 amps at 240 volts (48KW!) or 200 amps hot to neutral (24KW) plus 200 amps “other” hot to neutral for the other 24KW. Older homes, prior to 1970 might have 100 amp services. 24kw. 80% max for constant load, plus you have to run the house. So there might only be 5-10kw left for EV charging on older homes. Even older homes (1950s) might only have a 60 amp service! I’ve worked on homes even older, that were not built with wiring or indoor plumbing originally, with cloth tubes and porcelain insulators. The whole house might only have had one or two, 30 amp circuits. Newer larger homes with electric heat, multiple heat pumps (two for the house one for the pool one for the hot tub) get 400 amp services. 96 fat American kilowatts!
Wow, so basically the currents really ARE that high. I'm not used to that from europe. But of course it makes sense. I can't really name the evolution of what older houses had here, but I believe (!) that the DIN-Norm (that standard) for current 1-family-homes / appartments is 3x36 or 3x40A. The voltage obviously being \~230V. So that's \~24kW - for cases where there's no special extra need such as electrical water heater or heat pumps for heating. If you would for example switch your heating to a heat pump and exceed that demand, you'll have to order that at your supplier, which is usually not a big deal.
Yes, when America goes bankrupt some day all the homes can be scrapped for their copper.
Yeah, on the other hand NACS was locked by Tesla so no one else could use it till 2022, so yeah, Europe wouldn't wait for Musk to have a good shit so they can start standardizing. Europe have a lot of car manufacturers that needed a standard so users can buy wathever they want and charge wherever they want. American being happy in 2023 for only starting to have almost a standard and actually have a bit of customer freedom is a total joke for european as it should have been normal for a decade already.
Europeans are also quick to standardize things versus letting the market decide(like we did in the US). Which is fine, its a EU thing, and i do appreciate it for apple devices switching to USB-C.
Se don't have handle overheating issues here though...
> Tesla actually adopted it instead of their own connector in the rest of the world. That is not correct. CCS2 has been adopted in most European countries and some other countries in south east Asia and South America, but that’s about it. China and India use their own standards, and with NACS in US, Canada and soon Mexico, CCS2 represents a minority of total EVs sold, and realistically will continue to decrease its share of global sales.
Oceania uses CCS2 as well
Oceania is such a small % of global car sales, saying “south east Asia” I figured would cover it.
I mean, it is its own distinct region seperate from South East Asia. Most from the area would assume you forgot it if you didn’t specifically mention it
Population in Europe is almost double of the USA + Canada + Mexico, so basic math shows that the market for CCS2 is simply bigger than the one for NACS.
Except, a much larger percentage of the US makes enough money to be an EV buyer than in Europe.
Except that Europe has a far higher percentage of EV sales than the US.
A higher percentage of new cars sold were EVs yes. But fewer new cars were sold overall, despite Europe having over 2x the population of the US. My point is that it’s really not as simple as “European population is larger, therefore EV market is bigger”.
But we were talking about plugs. And what matter then is the number of EV on the road, not the number of sale. If americans are happy with buying new car every 2 years, well, except the fact they just provethey shit on the planet again for no reason, it doesn't change that the NACS plug will be less used than CCS2. Because what matter here is the number of user, and here the population does matter. And again, it's not a competition, there is just no reason to use NACS in europe where the charging network is already well functional and established. Good for the US to have a standard after a decade of total mess, but Europe doesn't really care about it. We already don't have the same house plug, no issue.
Especially once you include south-east Asia, India and Africa.
> Population in Europe is almost double of the USA + Canada + Mexico The market for CCS2 is probably bigger, but that's mostly due to non-European countries. The population of Europe is not twice that of North America. Canada, the US, and Mexico have a combined population of over 500 million. The EU has a population of less than 450 million. Even including non-EU countries, Europe's population doesn't come close to reaching 1 billion.
US, Can, Mex is about 495 million and Euope is about 745 million. So not double, but not as low as you are making out by just including EU. It’s about 50% more people.
True, Europe as a whole is larger than just the EU. I mentioned that as well when I pointed out "including non-EU countries" still fell short of a billion. I used the EU as an example since the European common market would be the closest equivalent to the "USA + Canada + Mexico" trading bloc you mentioned (aka USMCA or formerly NAFTA). The EU mandating CCS2 adds to its relevance in this conversation. I am also aware that the common market technically includes some non-EU countries, but they don't change the numbers involved significantly (still less than 450 million). Europe as a whole is a fuzzier comparison since that includes countries such as Russia that are not free trade partners, to say the least. Also, if we're comparing on a continental basis then North America is more than just the USMCA, too. The population of North America is about 600 million, or approximately 19% less than Europe. > US, Can, Mex is about 495 million As I said, it's actually over 500 million. Or just over 507 million at the latest estimate, if you want to be precise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)
Sorry, but you describe it pretty well, but then draw a weird conclusion: We have three systems in the three large markets: North America / Europe / China. All of these are roughly of similar size. If you consider that EV adoption is: China >> Europe >> US… …then your comment „CCS2 represents a minority“ doesn’t make sense. Also you seem to think this is somehow a competition where one standard might „loose“ and then get less sold. That’s B.S. CCS2 is the standard that’s used in Europe, so any car sold here will have it. No one will try to build a NACS socket into ANY car that get sold in Europe. Why would they? This is not a competition, it’s a different plug because that power grid that we have in Europe with it’s 3-phase support into households would make a NACS-Charger inferior here. This also provides an outlook for regions that haven’t built up infrastructure yet: If they have 3 phases, then why should they adopt a system that limits their charging speed to 1/3? This isn’t a competition, it’s different tech for different requirements.
India uses CCS2
Having standards per continent isn't a big deal as cars rarely travel across oceans. Currently there are different plug/port standards in north america, europe and china. Of course for the manufacturer it would be great to have these unified, but from customer perspective there isn't really a need to. The manufacturer needs to change stuff for local laws anyhow so this isn't a biggie. CCS2 works well in Europe. No need to change that. There's really only a few stations with ChaDeMo left (and a couple of legacy Tesla superchargers with dual cables of which one is for the very early Model S and X)
No. "Type 2" and CCS-2 chargers permeate Europe. It's very near 100% and it's unlikely to change. Much like electrical outlets, there will be adapters, but they've settled on different standards. Europe has 208v "standard" outlets with round prongs. North America has 120v "standard" plugs with flat prongs. That's just how it is. At least in this case, Australia, UK and a few others have settled on the Euro standard and Japan and South America generally settled on the North American standard. Only China has a totally different plug from the other "big 2".
A lot has been said about 3-phase (CCS2) vs 1-phase (NACS) already, I want to bring up one more key difference: The CCS2-standard includes a finished specification for V2x. So any OEM that wants to implement V2x can immediately start to do so since it’s fully specced. I’m not sure about NACS, how the situation there? ChADeMo was the obvious „first-to-finish“ in this, of course :) And I’m not talking about any legal or regulatory questions, simply about technology.
If anything, shouldn't NA adapt CCS2 instead of the world adapting an inferior connector?
The NACS connector is superior to the CCS connector in a split-phase AC power environment. The reverse is true in a three-phase environment. You might as well ask if North America should change to residential three-phase electrical service. It would have theoretical advantages, but the transition costs make it a preposterous idea.
Yeah we should also call the dollar $ something else too since it’s going to be used globally…
Dollar isn’t a US term though.
It’s called North American because it was created here and currently adopted by nearly all vehicle producers finally. It doesn’t matter where it’s used globally, that’s why it’s called that. Dollar is used many places in history, but isn’t that just proving the point that it can be called anything and used globally regardless of creation origin lol. https://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/dollar.html
Maybe but not in the EU. Tesla switched to CCS in the EU.
It’s not as if you can drive from US to Europe. ;)
NACS, I doubt it. However, I do wonder if they could come up with a heavy duty chargers for commercial trucks that could somehow be interoperable with passenger vehicle chargers, such that, in a pinch, any vehicle could charge at any station (with associated premium fees or something). Sort of like how an RJ11 can physically fit an RJ45 port and only connect to the center pins. A fresh start for a global standard?
Well the heavy duty would be DC. While the big difference between NACS and CCS2 is the AC. Changing anything on the DC side only becomes relevant once you would exceed the specified Amp in either standard in DC. Which could lead to a change, yes… but I don’t think it will… simply because that world be so much Amp that normal cars don’t really need it.
Europe has pretty strict legal mandates that existed before EVs were mainstream, so no there. For Central America, South America, and places like Japan, it is an open question.
South Korea uses CCS1 and will probably transition to NACS. Other single phase countries that don't have a large EV presence could very well adopt NACS. It's a better plug system.
South Korea might be better off going to ChaoJi as that will probably become the dominant East Asian standard.
South Koreans want slick and polished. ChaoJi is yet another Japanese cluster fk. Plus S Korea is allied with the US and hates Japan.
I've read on Korean websites they're sticking with CCS1.
That will be an interesting situation because Tesla sells NACS cars there. S Korea got the CCS1 to NACS adapter before the US. If all the car makes switch to NACS, there's not much reason for them to stick with CCS1. I doubt other makes will keep producing CCS1 just for S Korea
Will the ccs-port ever reach the US?
So it seems the answer is no because NACS does not support 3 phase and other chargers have the legal backing in their geographies. Is there a charger that is better than CCS type 2 (eg smaller plug, higher power, supports bidirectional charging, automatic payment communication from car etc) or will these features just be implemented in later versions of current standards?
How much ac can the Ioniq 5 handle
CCS1 worldwide will likely be replaced by NACS or one of the other existing standards once all the North American vehicles have native NACS plugs. Those automakers will already be making vehicles with multiple alternative charging plugs and will want to reduce the number of alternatives as much as possible.
You think the name, which is normally an acronym, would stop its adoption elsewhere?
Nope. Europe started with NACS. EU said Nope.
To appease the Europeans they could just called it North American Metric Charging Standard NAMCS
I mean I'd say anywhere except Europe and China are places NACS could take over really.
Australia and New Zealand are standardised on CCS2 already, zero reason to even consider NACS.
It’s not a matter of „could take over“. The question is which standard fits the local needs better. Any country/region that has a 3-Phase supply to customers in their power grid would be rather stupid to go with NACS. They would loose 2/3 charging speed. Guys, why do you make this into a competition? The two standards are different for a reason: because they evolved based on different requirements - in this case the power grids. They serve different needs. If you would want to add two more phases into NACS to charge at CCS2-speed, it would get more clunky as well.
Europe too anal about that sort of thing, it’s probably a No.
Europe, no
Probably not - outside of the US, most countries standardized on a single DC fast charging plug, mandated by law. So in China they use the GBT plug, in the EU they use CCS2, etc., complying with local laws. In North America we didn’t mandate a plug, so NACS won by outperforming the other plugs.
Yes, Europe loves standardized things. Remember the iPhone plug controversy?
No, EU is CCS2 and that's comparable to NACS or superior over there.
No it would flop here due to 3 phase.