Electric vehicle charing plugs have become subject of discussion in US as some prefer that the all the charging stations can be use for EV recharging irrespective of the vehicle plug configuration (Tesla plugs and CCS plugs for other automakers)
Tesla’s charging plug
Tesla has the most extensive and dependable charging network in North America. It uses Tesla’s plug, which is small, moderately durable, and has a huge user base.
Adopting the plug would make a lot of sense, given Tesla’s announcement from last year that it is opening up the standard and calling it the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Everyone can use the Tesla plug because Aptera, another manufacturer, has already declared plans to do so.
Notably, other manufacturers and charging stations have adopted, and been using CCS plugs. At automotive plants, many vehicles, charging stations, and tooling are set up to use CCS; replacing them all would be very expensive.
Additionally, if the manufacturers left the consumers high and dry, non-Tesla EV buyers would probably band together into class action lawsuits against them, so they’d need to take some action to make us whole, too.
Everyone giving up what they were doing and adopting the Tesla method would reflect poorly on them.
North American Charging Standard
A more significant issue is that the Infrastructure Bill forbids the federal government from spending the billions intended for Tesla plug-charging stations. All states had to install “non-proprietary connectors that meet applicable industry safety standards,” according to the law.
While Tesla would like to claim otherwise, its plug is not an industry standard because it is now referred to as the “North American Charging Standard.” Tesla’s connectors may not meet that definition when the law was written. Regulators created the rules mandating CCS plugs because they were the only ones that complied with the law as of early 2022.
And how does one go about qualifying to become an industry standard? The organization that established these standards, CharIN, is not agreeing. The article stated that Tesla’s plug might be considered to become an industry standard but that it would first have to go through the same lengthy process as CCS.
There is no way for the Tesla plug to satisfy the infrastructure law’s requirements before all the funds for charging stations have been used to construct thousands of CCS stations every 50 miles along most highways.
The law could be changed, but doing so would necessitate redoing the law with the House of Representatives. They’d want to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, NEVI funding if the law were amended.
When it comes to adapters, EVs aren’t affected by the past format wars, when it was impossible to make a Beta tape fit in a VHS player or an HD-DVD play in a Blu-ray player.
Carrying an adapter around will eventually be standard procedure so that Tesla cars can use CCS stations and CCS cars can use Tesla stations. The remaining CHAdeMO vehicles will also be similar. So, it’s not something to worry about!
