Home Technology The EV charging format war is being won by Tesla.

The EV charging format war is being won by Tesla.

In the early 2000s, Sony and Toshiba went head-to-head in a media format war with Blu-ray and HD DVD respectively. Sony, being a production company, persuaded Warner Bros. to drop support for HD DVD, paving the way for Sony’s victory. Today, we see a similar scenario with electric vehicle charging standards. Ford recently announced that it will adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), which previously belonged to Tesla alone. This was followed by General Motors’ announcement that it too will adopt the NACS port. Between them, Ford, Tesla, and GM constitute 72% of the electric vehicle market in the US.

As a result, Tesla may be primed, like Sony in 2008, to emerge victorious in the charging standard war. The existing standard used on non-Tesla EV charging stations in North America is the Combined Charging System (CCS), specifically CCS Type 1 or CCS1, which is the standard ratified by the Society of Automotive Engineers. This could spell trouble for CCS, as Ford and GM’s adoption of NACS may put it on the sidelines, like Toshiba’s HD DVD.

However, one big hope for CCS remains: the US government. Federal funding for EV charging is restricted to CCS chargers under current law. White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson has stated that minimum standards for EV chargers to get public funding exist, but they need to be interoperable to promote competition. This leaves the door open for adoption of NACS, but only where CCS is present as well.

Tesla previously had more EV charging stations in North America compared to those using CCS ports. This is thanks to the company’s early push to install EV stations not only in the US but worldwide. Up until the recent announcements by Ford and GM, both Tesla and other EV standards were coexisting in an odd parity. Tesla owners would need to use an adapter to use other EV charging stations, whereas, for everyone else, the ubiquitous J1772 plug was the norm.

Tesla’s NACS design offers the added benefit of combining both AC and DC fast charging in a single port. In comparison, CCS1 is a bulky connector that merges J1772 and DC power pins and takes up more space on the EV body. Substituting Tesla’s NACS in place of the CCS port is relatively inconsequential for Ford and GM, but broader industry issues may arise, especially with bidirectional charging features like the Ford F-150 Lightning and some Hyundai and Kia EVs.

Tesla’s Superchargers had been exclusively for Tesla owners. Still, Ford and GM plan to add Tesla’s NACS natively to their future vehicles. The two legacy automakers will be distributing adapters to their EV customers soon, but Tesla’s Supercharger stations will be made interoperable with other non-Tesla EVs via a “Magic Dock” CCS adapter.

Standardization is crucial for EVs to take off, and consumers should not have to deal with a host of plug options when using fast-charging stations. Although both NACS and CCS have their advantages, in the end, the ultimate loser must be prevented from turning customers off from making the switch to EVs.

 

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