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Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Crucially, the cable swap is a non-issue, because the chargers will all use the CCS communication protocol. NACS uses the J1772 pins for sensing and initiating charging, and CCS adds an extra communication layer which Tesla has built into their cars since mid-2019 or something when Europe switched to CCS Combo 2 as the EU standard.
I'm not personally a promoter of the NACS connector for lots of reasons nobody cares about, but I'm glad we've at least landed on the common communication protocol. If all these chargers started popping up in 2024 with CCS Combo 1 connectors, I wonder how many of these other brands would actually migrate to the NACS wand versus just continuing on with Combo 1 forever. I'm not convinced any of them really care either, and it's just a matter of convenience for customers. Without the necessity to rely on Tesla's charging network, that convenience sort of evaporates. Add in an adapter for NACS to CCS, and I think the whole issue goes away.
Yup, as the year progressed with further press releases it became a non-issue. However, for several months it was a question mark if most DCFC vendors would support this.
As far as NACS, effectively every carmaker has switched from CCS and the major DCFC vendors announced support for it (two major ones being ABB and Signet).
I guess if a bespoke dcfc manufacturer/operator kept going with CCS, they can, but it’d be a waste of money as we go from ~65% of EVs sold today use NACS to ~98% sold in 2025 (making the silly stretch assumption that sales ratio between carmakers remains relatively the same)
They haven't switched yet, though. And that's one of the points I'm making. They have said they're switching in 2025. To me, that sounded a lot like they were waiting to see what happened with chargers in US and Canada. Announcing charger support for it is also not a meaningful announcement since you really only need to change the cable end. It's like saying I now support winter boots. I didn't change my feet, so it's not a meaningful statement.
The number of EVs sold isn't an argument that's going to sway me. As I've said, I have technical reasons I don't like the NACS connector. If everyone sticks to the current announced plan, then we get DCFC with both connectors and nobody really cares. But if the charger manufacturers and EV manufacturers decide to drop NACS as a whole, I don't think anybody will know or care in 3-4 years time outside of Tesla owners that need an adapter to access other brands chargers.
I think that viewpoint is naively optimistic for CCS-1. Nearly everyone's media announcement explicitly states that they are definitively adopting NACS as their charging connector for their fleet starting in 2025. If CCS-1 connector isn't dead, it's shaping up to be like CHAdeMO.
If you don't believe me: Ford, GM, Hyundai, Kia, Polestar, Volvo, Rivian, Mercedes, BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce, Honda, and Fisker
The only announcements that weren't fully definitive in bringing this to every vehicle are from Toyota, Subaru, and Nissan. Toyota's announcement (and is comparable to Subaru) is left at:
And Nissan is for sure doing it on their Ariya but left the rest ambiguous.
I clearly said they all announced it was happening in 2025, so obviously linking to their announcements isn't really going to change anything.
The thing they are doing is trying to equip their cars with the port for the chargers that their customer will use. What I'm saying is if the NACS adoption doesn't take off my charger manufacturers, then auto manufacturers have no incentive to adopt it either. That's the remaining question mark. Regardless, Combo 1 connectors are going to be on those chargers because that's what every other brand has on their cars.
I'm wanting to understand what you're trying to say but I'm... confused.
My understanding of your statement (specifically the bolded section) sounded like you were skeptical that carmakers will commit to their NACS plans.
I guess if it was just Ford and Ford alone, I could see one company backing out, but not several entities.
Secondly,
Each announcement has explicitly said they're doing this to gain access to the Supercharger network.
In less than a year we're going to see NACS connectors on 2025 models. The ink has dried on contracts. Engineers are likely nearly finished with changes needed to integrate and are testing if not already.
Going back to CCS would be incredibly unlikely. There is no question about it anymore unless they want to figure out a way to justify to car buyers and investors about their decision to switch connectors then un-switch.
Consider why these companies have decided to transition to an NACS port. Because they want their customers to gain access to chargers that exist, and those chargers are operated by Tesla. Now, imagine that in 2024 we start seeing NEVI funded chargers installed around the country, and those chargers have fewer NACS connectors than CCS Combo, or they have no NACS connectors. What do you think the auto manufacturers would do? They haven't signed any kind of contract requiring they use NACS, they've simply announced that they plan to in 2025.
In other words, if there's no convenience improvement to deploying NACS ports because new charger sites don't have a majority of NACS connectors, then they wouldn't do it. They'd simply keep equipping vehicles with Combo 1 ports.
Yes. Because today that network is by far the largest in the US, and almost certainly in Canada. But the US is funding deployment of new chargers every 50 miles, so you can see where brands other than Tesla might outnumber Tesla over the next few years.
Buying new plastic bits from an injection molding company doesn't require an insane lead time, and the existence of contracts really isn't meaningful in any way. There is almost guaranteed to be language in supplier contracts that allows both parties to back out as long as they keep a dollar spend level or pay a small penalty. This kind of thing happens all the time during qualification and testing.
Why? If there was a compelling reason to not use NACS, why would anybody continue charging ahead?
Agreed. I don't think this was a technical decision at all, it was strictly to get access to the Supercharger network.
Tesla is basically dropping 1.5 sites a day at their current pace, and it's been gradually increasing over time. They'll be out-pacing the collective NEVI deployment for a while. Plus, each Supercharger site has 8+ (and now, more commonly, 12/16+, with a few 20-30+) stalls. Tesla's Supercharger network is so far ahead, nobody else has to matter. NEVI only requires 4-stall sites, I'd bet almost anything that's what we're going to see for a while.
Yeah, there's probably no contract but why wait for others to catch up when they can get immediate results by swapping a plug and reworking a bit of the electrical system?
I seriously doubt this will happen in the next 2-4 years at the clip Tesla has been dropping chargers. Go look at the Under Construction list of Tesla chargers: https://supercharge.info/map. There's practically a full-multiple-states-worth of NEVI deployments coming online from Tesla just in the next few months alone.
Sure but we're 8-9 months from cars rolling off the assembly line, and Farley and Barra have been very vocal about their move to NACS, including relying on it in investor calls w/r/t charging.
There is no compelling reason. Car makers gain access to a network that's at least as large as everyone else combined, with much higher stall-count per site, at a much greater reliability, and greater number of higher power charging stalls. Tesla's Supercharger network isn't a hypothetical "this could get better", they've been in the "they are better" camp. NACS+Supercharger is a guaranteed "win" and CCS is, at best, a story of optimism.
Realistically, most people just don't care about the CCS/NACS debate. Ford/GM/etc. get the PR hall-pass to claim CCS was the reason everything was bad, people then see Superchargers "just work", take that statement at face value, and move on.
I'm with you on that it really sucks a single company can steamroll the industry like this. It sets a scary precedent and puts charging in a very vulnerable spot for a while. IMO anyone who doesn't see that there's a pretty substantial risk to this isn't thinking critically.
Though, if Tesla tried to pull any funny business I'd bet they wouldn't get very far considering they've explicitly granted anyone using the SAE standard a royalty-free license to the patent.
I disagree. They've added 21 in the past year in the US, so let's call it 2 per month on average for 2023. The plan for several states I'm interested in will outpace that immediately. I don't know where you got 1.5 sites per day, but that's absolutely not the case in any way. It's not even 1.5 stalls per day, instead it's 0.624 stalls per day. Can you tell me where you got that number from, because 1.5 sites per day would be 548 sites per year and with an average of 10 stalls per site they've installed this past year that's 5479 stalls. Back of the envelope math should have sounded wrong to you.
Again, your Tesla number is extremely wrong. You should go back to the supercharge.info site, go to the changes list, and switch to "add". Lots of Tesla sites have been in planning and permitting for years, and to be frank until something Tesla says actually exists in the world it's not worth much.
Maybe.
There's a couple I can think of off the top of my head. Can you not?
You're comparing to existing EA chargers, which we know isn't the real comparison at hand here.
Right, which is why I specifically didn't have it. So let's not start it, because there's no debate to be had. One is superior to the other, and it isn't NACS. That's entirely separate from the conversation being had right now.
Nope. Charger reliability has nothing to do with the connector, stop here. Do not pass go. It was the chargers, not the connectors. The connector decision was one of convenience because Tesla has a reliable network when used with a Tesla.
What I'm suggesting here is that companies are prepared to use the NACS connector, as published by SAE. They announced this because Tesla's network exists now and we didn't know what was going to happen with NEVI funds. Now most of those funds have been allocated (if not all?), and since all of those sites are going to get Combo 1 connectors as well as NACS, it's conceivable to me that they announced NACS to hype things up for a while, and the option to pull out is always there. They have zero requirement to use NACS on either chargers or vehicles, they simply may choose to. There's been quite a swing in perception of supporting a certain CEO in the past 6 months that might not be as appealing to a lot of people, so it may not be the selling point it would have.
Your stance just isn’t grounded in data or evidence, and is at best an emotional appeal for CCS instead of coming to terms that the data simply doesn’t give CCS any true advantage.
Where do you see they only added 21 in the past year? This number aligns closely to magic dock conversions not the total NACS compatible deployments.
Supercharger V3/V4 supports the CCS protocol. This is the number each car maker is citing when they say 12000 (earlier this year). V3 has been deployed for a couple years now.
Anyways, here’s my sources:
Slide 6 of the Q3 investor talk: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q3-2023-Update-3.pdf (so it’s 1.4/day)
supercharger.info: go to the graphs tab and start around Q3 2022 and compare to around Q3 2023. they very closely align to the above document suggesting this third party site can’t be too far off.
TMC forums where people post photos of charging sites: (here’s one sorta close to me as an example) https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/supercharger-stafford-va-eustace-rd.305924/
There are literally at least a couple hundred threads of people posting construction updates started this year (and a sanity spot check suggests at least several of these are completed)
And to be very clear, this is 250kW DCFC stations.
And I have my personal experience that suggests a fast deployment: I live outside of DC and have regularly driven from around from Richmond to Baltimore this year. I have seen 7-8 come up alone:
When my car shows a new red blip for a charger, I get curious if I’m in the area.
I am seeing more than 5 other threads with new chargers started and finished this year on TMC.
To clear something up, I never said the connector itself was more reliable. I’m saying the car makers are probably going to claim that for sales to people who probably heard charging is hard or something.
You’re welcome to tag me in 2-3 years if CCS ends up being chosen over NACS again and I’ll happily concede, but I just don’t see it happening.
I told you exactly how to find it on the supercharge.info site in my previous post.
Slide 6 tips your hand, so thank you for commenting about this. You just posted the GLOBAL number, not the US number. NACS is US only, NEVI funds are US only. Pretty important detail, that one.
Tyson's corner has been in planning stages since those shitty 208v destination chargers were installed, so I'm glad they finally did something. Is it actually open now? Took them long enough on that one.
My guy…
“Add” and “Update” are the action Supercharge.info performs on a database record for a charging site.
“Add” is used when they insert a new site into their DB for the first time. Most of the time it’ll be added at Permit or Construction, but sometimes the community misses chargers under construction entirely and they get added as they open.
“Update” is used when Supercharge.info updates the status of a site. For example, when someone finds construction has started on a site previously marked as “Permit”, an Update entry is added as they change the site status to “Construction”.
21 sites on Supercharge were “surprises” that nobody reported a permit for or reported as under construction.
Now that I’ve helped you use the site, go back and add up lol
And no, I’m not talking about the destination chargers. I haven’t counted any destination chargers in my counts for anything. They operate as a completely separate group. These are the 16 or whatever Superchargers behind Bloomingdale’s.
Yes, it turns out you don't need to mansplain CRUD to me, nor owning and using a Tesla, because I'm personally familiar with both.
Since "update" can mean changed status in any direction it's the least reasonable metric to use, because you'll also capture closed, permanently closed, permitted, and under construction status updates.
You also don't have to mansplain the site since I've been using it longer than you've been a Tesla fan. After all, you are the one citing Tesla's Quarterly report's global number.
You keep clearly demonstrating that you aren't reading what I'm writing. And you seem to think you're telling me something even though you've very obviously got things supremely wrong. Again, global figure as one example and now you think I'm talking about Tesla adding destination chargers when what I very clearly said was that the SUPERCHARGER SITE has been planned every since they installed that shitty destination charger.
Do read the entirety of what I've written if you're going to try to argue against it. This is like for fourth or fifth time you've done this.
Here's the thing, I was accused of screwing up my numbers up by a factor of ~20. At that scale, one of our numbers are wildly off. I pointed out how your method is significantly inaccurate and why by explaining how your filter is incorrect. I'm not sure what you want me to do about this.
Given the data on their site doesn't show specifically-US-chargers over time, yes, the numbers I have are rough estimates. If we want exact counts of the current number of Superchargers, there's the
/mapsURL which shows the current total of a given search criteria.Let's compare this to the technically flawed mechanism I used, where I just counted up:
(Count of Transitions to Open) + (Count of entries added as Open).Here's the real count: https://supercharge.info/map, Set Country to USA, status to "Open": 2082 sites
And my inaccurate method's count: https://supercharge.info/changes, Set Country to USA, status to "Open": 2196 sites
That is a difference of 114 across all open chargers, regardless of deployment date. This is an error of 5.2%, I'd say that's pretty darn good for an internet debate. It at least qualifies for a "Mostly True" on Politifact.
Now tell me why it is unreasonable to correlate this number with the total number of North American chargers. There are only ~250 Superchargers in Mexico/Canada. Practically 90% of their North American deployment is in the US.
In the absolute worst case that Tesla deployed all of their Canada/Mexico chargers this year, I'd still be off by... 15%?
With my claim that they've dropped 400-ish chargers, who cares about even a 15% error? My point still stands, Tesla is dropping chargers and charging sites faster than everyone else.
I'm stating that your usage of the site is incorrect and your understanding of how to query the site is fundamentally flawed. Sorry?
OK, you're right. I did respond carelessly to your last statement here. To be completely honest though, I'm having a difficult time taking you seriously. You aren't citing anything nor do you acknowledge your errors as they're called out. You've only responded with baseless accusations that I'm grossly incorrect or denial that Tesla can deploy chargers.
I've showed my method and suggested evidence as to why my number is at least reasonable.
I can't help that you're unwilling to admit errors in an internet forum thread.