I don't think people can hear this loud enough. I own an EV with CCS, I'm glad the rest of the industry looks to be going NACS. CCS is in fact objectively terrible. CCS could only seem decent when it was following on something as truly atrocious as Chademo.
He is really into good engineering which has made him a huge fan of Tesla, especially since they took some of his recommendations and incorporated them into their manufacturing process.
It is fair to say he is biased, but at the same time I don't see why his assessment of NACS vs CSS is wrong.
It's better engineered and designed. It's that simple. Yes, the differences aren't mind-blowing, but who cares. As long as they properly open it up and standardize it as they are saying they will, then this is a perfectly good outcome. Most EVs and fast chargers in the US have Tesla/NACS ports anyway, so this is the easier lift to standardize.
It's not black and white: CCS supports 800V charging, NACS does not (yet). Higher voltage = lower current and lighter cables and less strain on the connectors.
Superchargers wete also lagging on liquid-cooled cables, which will be included in v4.
If it's possible for NACS to support 800V charging then that is not really a very meaningful advantage of CCS, is it? I think Tesla themselves will eventually switch to 800v at some point.
V3 Superchargers have liquid cooled cables, that's why they are thinner than V2 cables. V4 has even crazier liquid cooling, where the conductors are directly immersed in the coolant.
> sounds like goal-shifting, considering gp's rather absolute claim on NACS having superior design and engineering
CCS currently supports 800V. NACS is going to support 800V. The number of extant chargers with 800V capability is, to a reasonable approximation, the same for CCS and NACS. So NACS being able to support 800V rhetorically balances CCS being able to roll out 800V chargers (or any, period), at least in my mind.
Put another way, one solution is deployed and capable of upgrading. The other is also capable of upgrading, maybe comes upgraded already, but hasn't been deployed. The first strikes me as better engineered. (The latter may have superior design, but I have trouble buying that argument given NACS can be upgraded.)
Sure, but I don't know whether that would be a hardware revision or just a protocol thing how complicated it would be. Could be a software update for all I know. Is it the case that all currently deployed CCS chargers support 800v charging? If not, is it possible for an 800v architecture vehicle to charge at a 400v CCS charger?
Plus, if the concern is the port then I don't necessarily mind that fast charging companies will have to deploy new hardware, as long as the cars don't need to get retrofitted all the time or use adapters.