[matthewdgreen]

Cars can last 10 or more years. If you buy a car today you're making a bet that Tesla and its standard will still be dominant over all other car and charger manufacturers in the year 2032+. That is an extraordinarily foolish bet.

My bet is that within two years Tesla standardizes on CCS for its US cars (thus getting rid of an annoying upgrade/adapter/retrofit problem) and then what'll be left is the sad minority (AKA me) who are stuck with the dying standard and an annoying dongle.

[londons_explore]

I'd bet a garage will be able to do a connector swap within an hour's labour if Tesla will make the necessary firmware changes.

[matthewdgreen]

For legacy cars the likely answer is that people buy the $250 dongle. For new cars this will cost a few hundred bucks in parts and labor (or let's say 1-1.5% of the sales price) and it will be required surgery on your brand-new car.

Who is going to pay for this? If it's Tesla, then the smart move is to put CCS into cars right now (and as a side benefit, standardize their US and European models [edit: nevermind this bit, not the same standards].) If it's the customer, then it's an annoying non-trivial cost you'll have to bear. Yuck.

[wilg]

They don't standardize US and Europe because US is CCS1 and Europe is CCS2.

[matthewdgreen]

Ugh god why. Didn't realize that. Rest of the point stands.

[Symbiote]

3 phase vs 120V.

But it doesn't matter. The number of vehicles taken either way is negligible. In the old days, you had to change the miles/km speedometer to the other one when you took you car with you as you emigrated. Buying a charge adapter is easier.

[vel0city]

Arguing about 120V is a red herring. Just about every US home has 240V service, most cars will charge at 240V not 120V.

Single phase vs three phase is the big reason for a difference between US and EU charger plugs though. Three phase is pretty uncommon in residential areas in the US but is common in many EU countries. Industrial customers in the US will often have three phase but it's pretty rare to see outside of that.

[ip26]

Since good adapters exist, it's not really a deeply committing bet.

[matthewdgreen]

Adapters remove the benefits of having a "superior" charging standard. It may be that the Tesla connector is better than CCS, but Tesla+CCS_adapter is going to be obviously worse. (This is something you're going to use every day, even a slightly worse ergonomic experience adds up.)

[ip26]

My point is you get a Tesla for many reasons, not just the NACS plug, and if CCS wins you still enjoy all those other things.