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Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

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Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volkswagen owns Electrify America the only competitor at scale to Tesla's supercharging network. they uses CCS and VW is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. i think they can stand on their own. time will tell though.

Go check out some car forums for folks that depend on EA (like Lucid). I've never had an issue with EA, but the general consensus seems to be that EA reliability is abysmal, with stations frequently being down (though reviews seem to be on an uptrend starting in 2023, so perhaps it was a pandemic related issue). As another commenter stated, though, Volkswagen was forced to create EA as part of their Dieselgate settle…

EA is pretty bad. The fact that no one can decide what side the connector should be on also leads to chaos (cars splayed out everywhere around the chargers).

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#692
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Japan and China don’t exist in your world.

Incorrect. But, to be fair, the Chinese were still watching movies on CD-I well into the 2000s. So I admit to marginalizing their choice on anything.

The Chinese charging standard (GB/T?) is by far the most popular, if only because the Chinese are adopting EVs very aggressively.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#693
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NACS doesn't have a standard for vehicle-to-home (or vehicle-to-grid) charging. When they opened up the standard, Tesla said that it was allowed, but they didn't specify any standard way to do it. So it might happen, but there's potential for incompatibilities between car manufacturers and charging systems.

Chademo supports bidirectional charging. But bidirectional charging means you basically need a DC fast charger, and those are like $10k. (Hard to find an actual number online besides Alibaba… it’s always an “inquire for price” email quote button… which tells you it’s gonna be like $10k.) By far the easiest way to pull power from an EV is from the 12V subsystem. The DC-DC converter for EVs usually is like 2kW, so it’s…

As Tesla moves to replace the 12 volt subsystem with 48 volts, it would seem even more plausible to do V2L by routing outgoing power through the 48 volt system.

The Ford F150 Lightning does V2L through the 9.6kW of on-board inverters. Fairly sure it's not capable of sending that back through J1772 / CCS2 unless I'm mistaken?

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#694
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NACS doesn't have a standard for vehicle-to-home (or vehicle-to-grid) charging. When they opened up the standard, Tesla said that it was allowed, but they didn't specify any standard way to do it. So it might happen, but there's potential for incompatibilities between car manufacturers and charging systems.

Adopting NACS won't prevent Ford from supporting vehicle-to-grid, since they build both the truck and the charger, and the connector itself doesn't care what direction the electrons are flowing. But it would be really nice if it was standardized for interoperability reasons.

The Ford F150 Lightning does V2L through the 9.6kW of on-board inverters. Fairly sure it's not capable of sending that back through J1772 / CCS2 unless I'm mistaken?

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#695
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a huge subset of people who just desperately want to “prove” that the popular company is bad. Apple bad, Tesla bad, etc.

Because fanboys are too verbose for hype

Fanboys sometimes talk about a favoured corporation with rose coloured glasses. Hateboys (or whatever you might call an inverse fanboy) often talk in reductive and/or derogatory terms about both corporations and anyone who defends them. Both groups are occasionally a bit sad and naive, but it's usually only the latter which become corrosive and openly hateful.

Unfortunately the bulk of the internet seems incapable of recognising this and all too often gives hateboys a free pass.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has only ever used J1772/CCS, can you explain a bit more? I mean, it's just a plug that I stick into my car - I find the newer US home AC electric outlets with the automatic "safety shutters" harder to plug into than a CCS connector, so I don't really understand what friction you're referring to.

One concrete thing that is better about the Tesla connector is that there are no moving parts that user needs to manipulate. Tesla/NACs connector is just stick it in and it works... the car holds onto it until it is done or you tell it to let go. I don't think I've ever seen a public J1772 connector that had a functional spring in the little thumbpress/lock/turn on thing which means if you don't know you need to stic…

> I don't think I've ever seen a public J1772 connector that had a functional spring in the little thumbpress/lock/turn on thing which means if you don't know you need to stick a key or pen cap, or squeeze really hard to pry the little fucking plastic tab up to the lock position, it just won't work.

I'm still a little baffled that people have all these problems. I've owned an EV for the past 6 years, I charge at public charging stations all the time (primarily ChargePoint and EA), and while I've had tons of problems with the chargers themselves (e.g. the charger just not working) I have never had a problem just sticking the charging plug into the outlet in my car.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like it’s happening without government intervention The federal government has definitely "intervened" by incentivizing interoperability through a $7.5B carrot[1] for interoperable charging networks. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36408329

So why is everyone fleeing the North American standards J1772/CCS1 in favor of Tesla's? What do these car companies stand to gain switching the charging port? They don't own charging networks.

J1772 won't go away. It's only for Level 2 (AC) charging. It doesn't compete in the DCFC space. CCS1 is what will go away. Apples and oranges.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, Tesla will still add CCS compatible adapters to the Supercharger network in the future, since it is a requirement for the EV network funding they're going after by opening up to additional manufacturers. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/new-bi...

That's the plan as of right now, but the clear intent here is to push the government to change the rules to allow NACS-only chargers. If a few more automakers (Hyundai and VW being probably the most relevant) sign deals with Tesla to use NACS, it'd be impossible to argue that there's any reason to do a CCS buildout.

I think this is very much correct. This is the line from the Federal Highway Administration's rule from February (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/28/2023-03...) that talks about the Tesla connector vs. CCS:

> FHWA Response: Commenters overwhelmingly supported the CCS connector standard and verified that the industry is moving to adopt CCS as a market standard; therefore, FHWA requires CCS Type 1 connectors for each DCFC port through this final rule. Although a few commenters preferred Tesla connectors, most of the Tesla products are proprietary and do not address the needs of the majority of EV makes and models available in the domestic market. However, on November 11, 2022, Tesla announced its “North American Charging Standard” (NACS), which makes its existing and previously proprietary Electric Vehicle charging port and connector available for broad and open public use, including to network operators and vehicle manufacturers. In the announcement, Tesla noted that charging providers were planning to offer NACS charging ports at public charging infrastructure. This rulemaking allows permanently attached non-proprietary connectors (such as NACS) to be provided on each charging port so long as each DCFC charging port has at least one permanently attached CCS Type 1 connector and is capable of charging a CCS-compliant vehicle.

Again, the CCS rule came out in February, and when the rule was being made it definitely did look like "the industry is moving to adopt CCS as a market standard", as prior to Nov 2022 there was no "North American Charging Standard", only Tesla's closed, proprietary tech.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#699
post #27

I'm not an EV user, so I need some clarification. Is NACS actually a better connector? Or is it just more abundant at the moment? Technology Connections did a deep dive on CCS and it seems like it's a more flexible connector with a truly open standard. The argument for NACS I've seen is that it's a little sleeker (does this really matter all that much?) and it's already on Tesla's supercharger network.

The physical shape of Tesla/NACS is way better: it's more compact, and easier to plug in. The CCS connector OTOH is a lazy retrofit of a design-by-committee plug. The wire protocol of CCS is a bit overengineered, but it's a standard, and it's a sunk cost (all cars, including current Teslas, are already compatible with it). So physical NACS + CCS protocol seems like the best of both. It's also worth pointing out that…

CCS uses different wires for AC charging than for DC charging. This is why the CCS connector is so big. Tesla lets a single pair do double duty. That's why the NACS connector is sleeker.

Re: Rivian embraces Tesla's charging standard for EVs

#700
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used both, NACS is more compact, so both the port on the car and the end of the cable are significantly smaller than CCS. The cable itself is also lighter and more "usable" than CCS. At least at the newest V3 superchargers, the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Munro Live took both connectors apart and did an overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU

> the NACS cable is so much more flexible and easier to manage. Nothing stops CCS from using smaller cables. Tesla tends to have cables which aren't rated for as long of lives with the plans on replacing them more often. Most CCS dispenser manufacturers chose beefier cables which were supposedly rated for longer lives, but environmental factors and people (ab)using the cables seems to lead to those cables not having…

Tesla has thin cables at some superchargers. These are liquid cooled so they can get away with smaller wires. No idea if CCS1 chargers are using liquid cooling.
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