[wilg]

I think it's a good strategy given how people are standardizing on CCS1 in NA. They're embracing CCS1 to a large degree, offering adapters for plugging your car into a CCS charger and allowing CCS cars to charge at Superchargers.

But the connector is definitely better, so they may as well open it up in the hopes that people adopt the nicer plug and then they won't have to change it after all. Basically no reason not to given how things are going with CCS1. I certainly think from a usability perspective it would be preferable if "NACS" was the winner. CCS is not a great design.

[maxsilver]

> But the (Tesla) connector is definitely better,

I'm not convinced of that. Tesla's connector is thinner and lighter yes absolutely. But Tesla is also weaker and less reliable \ less fault tolerant than standard EV charger cables (See the dreaded EP307 / lock error, something that can't even happen with a normal EV CCS charger)

I definitely think it's preferable for CCS win, as it's the safest, most durable, most compatible, while also being the lowest cost option.

[rnk]

The tesla plug has a decade of successful heavy use behind it, and it doesn't have a history of failing despite being the most used ev charging system and plug in the world (comparing to the ccs standards around the us and the world). You'll need to provide some references to point to tesla problems. On the other hand I have a brand new us ccs car and every time I go to a public charger it's an open question whether it will work (and yes there are a variety of problems). CCS charging is less reliable, it's a common thing for people to complain about ccs charging problems. With due respect, I think you are wrong.

[londons_explore]

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the vast majority of 'faulty' chargers are in fact issues with software. Ie. Network connection down. Car not registered. Card terminal broken. Etc.

[rnk]

I think you are probably right that most problems are hardware, but there are a lot of broken chargers (display out, not fixed). People just report them all the time. look at reddit.com/r/electricvehicles.

But yeah, it's probably a lot of software issues. Strangely I do not hear from Europe that there are problems like here. I don't hear about 'charger is broken or won't charge' in Europe when people use tesla chargers (which are on the euro-ccs standard just like tesla cars there). Can anyone chime in? I'm in the US.

[gpt5]

>it's preferable for CCS win, as it's the safest, most durable, most compatible, while also being the lowest cost option.

Can you share a link to back these claims?

[gibolt]

Not sure where any of these suggestions come from. Superchargers have the highest utilization and uptime in the industry.

Thinner means more accessible/easier to use. CCS is wholly unreliable if it is even slightly at the wrong angle, which is common due to the bulk of the plug and cable.

[akozak]

Doesn't really matter even if it's slightly technically better. We are WAY too late in the game here (US is already deploying federal funds!), and they should have engaged with open standards a decade ago.

[kelnos]

Yup, I don't think it matters which one is technically better. They both get the job done, and one is an actual standard that many car makers have agreed upon -- "many" meaning "every single one except Tesla".

If Tesla wanted theirs to be standard, they should have made this move years ago. They missed the boat, and are now scrambling to avoid having to change their own sockets.

[politician]

Looks at Apple.

[akozak]

It's an apt comparison, and obviously there has been movement (eg the EU) to push them onto usb, but I think cars are a slightly different context than laptops/phones where there us much more of a social incentive to standardize early, given the high cost, low turnover, lower availability of fuel/energy during transport with competing plugs, etc.

[robin_reala]

EU managed to get Tesla to standardise onto a common plug (CCS2) too, but unlike with USB-C it Tesla are happy to not roll it out globally.

[gibolt]

This implies they didn't, which is false.

CCS was released slightly before the Model S (first to use Tesla's connector). Both were developed at the same time. At the time, there was no viable alternative for Tesla. Now, there is no reason to revert to a significantly subpar option.

[akozak]

Yes there is - because their proprietary (until today) plug is not the industry standard.

[nomel]

What "game" are they too late for? The number of ports is the game, and the reason my next EV will be a Tesla.

It's very difficult to find charge stations that aren't Tesla, and when you do, they're often used for general parking.

[margalabargala]

Out of curiosity, where in the US are you?

Where I am (Oregon), public CCS charger locations outnumber Tesla chargers several times over. There are huge areas of the state that have CCS chargers, but no Tesla charging capacity.

My next EV will certainly not be a Tesla, for that reason.

[chroma]

Tesla Superchargers outnumber all other HVDC chargers in every state, usually by a factor of 2. Maybe you're thinking of the chargers that use the J1772 connector?[1] Those charge via AC, and every Tesla comes with an adapter for them. Tesla also sells a CCS adapter in case you want to use other high voltage chargers such as Electrify America.[2] Though honestly, other charging networks are a shitshow. A friend of mine has an Audi e-tron and he won't drive it farther than Tahoe. Electrify America is too unreliable to trust for road trips.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

2. https://shop.tesla.com/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter

[margalabargala]

No, I'm not thinking of J1772 chargers. I'm thinking of CCS chargers.

We're talking about two different things.

You are talking about the count of chargers. Tesla has a higher quantity of chargers, yes. However, their chargers are concentrated; a single charging location has 30+ chargers. This drives their high charger count numbers.

CCS chargers are more geographically widespread. There are more locations with CCS chargers than with Tesla chargers. There are fewer CCS plugs in total, but you're more likely to be close to one.

It's more useful to have one fast-charging location with 3 plugs every 50 miles, than to have 500 fast-chargers next to one another in a single location and then nothing in a 200-mile radius.

If you go to plugshare.com and zoom in to Oregon, you can toggle back and forth between Tesla and CCS. There are very visibly way more discrete places in Oregon that have a CCS charger.

[chroma]

The supercharger network is now dense enough that you can drive anywhere in the US without worry. The largest gap in the nation is between Coeur d'Alene, ID and Superior, MT, and that's 100 miles. I've gone to rural Montana and Idaho in the winter and I've never had to worry about charging.

Also while Plugshare may show more dots on a map, that doesn't correspond to useful charging. Non-Tesla charging stations are notoriously inconvenient, unreliable, and slow to charge. That's why my friend with the e-tron rents a gas car if he wants to go more than a few hundred miles. This is borne out again and again in tests. When MKBHD tested a Tesla and a Mustang Mach-E, the Mach-E itself was fine but the charging infrastructure was unreliable.[1] The Mustang was delayed over 6 hours due to bad charging.

I've put almost 30,000 miles on my car and I've never had an issue with a supercharger. You just plug in and it charges. You don't need to install any apps or enter your credit card info. And if for some crazy reason I can't use a supercharger, I have adapters for the other connectors.

If you want the electric vehicle that can charge in the most places, get a Tesla.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXzuFprlyrw

[gibolt]

While there is value to distribution, having only 3 plugs where any number could be full or non-functional upon arrival easily ruins a whole trip.

[nomel]

California, near a city of over a million people. It's maybe 4 (Tesla) to 1 where I am, physically, with most non-tesla ports being 240V. I've even run into 120V. Available port wise, it's much much worse. Until these other companies implement a fee/reporting system, for sitting in the charge spot all day, it's going to remain very painful.

A family friend returned her EV after realizing how dumb the situation is here. Perhaps it's a regional problem.

[mertd]

> and allowing CCS cars to charge at Superchargers.

I'm reading the announcement differently. They are saying future non Teslas who adopt NACS can use the Tesla chargers. It doesn't say anything about current CCS cars being able to use Tesla charging.

[matthewdgreen]

Tesla announced a plan to open superchargers to non-Tesla EVs earlier this year; Musk announced that they would be adding CCS to US superchargers back in May. Unfortunately Musk is both the official Press contact for Tesla and also a guy who says a lot of random half-baked things, so it's impossible to determine if this was an official policy or just an idea he had one morning. [1]

Even after this move I don't see any way that the Tesla standard gains enough momentum to take over from CCS in the non-Tesla US EV market. If Tesla had done this in 2015 there's a chance it might have caught on globally. With the non-Tesla US EV market locked into CCS and growing rapidly (and Tesla itself already committed to CCS in Europe), it feels like the Tesla standard is doomed. (In fact today's move is actually sort of bad news, since it indicates that maybe Tesla hasn't quite accepted this reality.)

[1] https://electrek.co/2022/05/10/tesla-add-ccs-connectors-supe...

[AlanSE]

My thoughts as well, this is their business advantage to lose.

> 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.

Yet, in your link it's complained about that the Supercharging network capacity is already strained. Bottom line is that the vast majority of the charging stations that will exist 10 years from now are still yet to be built.

Tesla may still be hoping for a regional break, as their standard wins in some geographies but not for others. This would be a loss for all of us all collectively.

Certainly feels like they should have known better. Past greed will leave them (and their customers) with a massive writeoff in the future if your prediction comes to pass.