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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 the US uses CCS1, while Europe standardized on a slightly improved CCS2. So the US is alone in its (non)standard connector either way.




Not all Tesla's can speak CCS. Older Teslas need a $400 retrofit to be able to use the Tesla CCS1 adapter. https://shop.tesla.com/en_ca/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter


Not much of a practical problem until some other charging network builds out enough NACS chargers that a Tesla driver would try using anything other than a Supercharger.

Looks like the cutoff for this is vehicles before May 1, 2019.


It’s more like may 2020. I don’t know anyone who got a car delivered in 2019 ( mine included) that has support for ccs


Were these vehicles _built_ after May 1, 2019 or just delivered after that date?


Once you have the retrofit, you can use existing CCS fast charger with an adapter. So it is useful in that sense..


I had the retrofit done on my 2018 MS. Have never once successfully charged at a non-Tesla charger. I'm not sure if it's me or the charging stations, which are somewhat known to be less reliable in general than Tesla's.


I got the $450 adapter for my 2016; There's one charger I really wanted to use and otherwise I think it'll waste space in my trunk. I still haven't used it at that charger but I did test it at a CCS1 charger; it worked though it was a terrible experience - the CCS1 plug is silly huge, the payment processing was terrible, and it charged pretty slowly.

I think they're retrofitting the existing supercharger network to speak both "NACS" (really CCS1) and the OG supercharger protocol. My car, with the retrofit, will be able to (HA! good luck believing it'll actually work) charge at an EA or other DC Fast charger setup, possibly. Non-updated OG S/X cars will just get an error (probably I will also, because these other DC Fast chargers simply don't have skin in the game -- they're malicious compliance).

L2 will be nice -- I'll not have to use the dongle to charge at public chargers.


I bought the adapter off the gray market when it was only being sold in Korea, and promptly ran to my local EA station to try it out. Of the four plugs, only two worked, and one of those was loose and would glitch out if I didn't hold it against the car by hand.

I haven't charged via CCS since. It lives in the car as an emergency backup, but frankly I wouldn't plan a road trip stop at a CCS station if you paid me.


FWIIW that is the experience of using an EA station with a car that came with a CCS plug.


Yeah, only ~80% of Teslas in the US support it without modification.


Fast-charging CCS is the Micro-USB 3.0 of car chargers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors


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.




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