The Name "NACS" is Confusing and Problematic: Use SAE J3400 Instead

[@Tazman55x]

Calling NACS a racist microagression is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Thank you for the laugh

[@newscoulomb3705]

You're welcome. Hopefully we see J3400 in South America.

[@Tazman55x]

@@newscoulomb3705 already making its way into Mexico. You need to realize the amount of EVs is SA and Africa is almost 0. We need budget EVs first before we even think about that step.

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@Tazman55x Mexico is in North America. The number of Teslas in South America is low, but there are actually quite a few EVs from other automakers there. As posters on the Tesla forums regularly say, "Those people can't afford a Tesla, so it makes sense." 🙄

[@unccred]

I think the real issue here is the difference in understanding between rank and file lay folks and techy nerd coder types. What I mean is that to the general public the “standard” in their minds refers to the physical shape and form of the plug itself. To tech nerds and in the eyes of the government and standards bureaus the “standard” is the coding and signaling protocols.

[@newscoulomb3705]

I fully agree until it gets to the point of interoperability and actually functionality. That's when the average consumer is affected. I've seen similar issues in the past, where Tesla drivers were complaining about "slow Superchargers" after plugging in at a destination charger. Now, instead of unexpected power level issues, we're going to have cases of unexpected lack of access.

[@plugandplayEV]

Nice digest of an in-depth section of the discussion. Thanks for covering and providing some counterpoints to the broader narrative.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Thank you for hosting these discussions, Steve!

[@rp9674]

I hope it works out, it seems like a bad time to confuse plug standards. If someone invents a better standard in two years, should we change again? I wouldn't trust any deal with Musk, especially after the agreement to pause AI development while he worked on AI acquisition and development.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Yes, I also don't particularly trust Elon/Tesla's intentions, but the cat is out of the bag now. So long as SAE has control of the new standard and can set power limits based on agreed upon safety models, I'm all for the smaller plug. For light to medium duty EVs, it really is a better plug for most consumers.

[@rp9674]

@@newscoulomb3705thanks, you made me feel better about this whole situation. Just bought a new 23 bolt EV, I wouldn't have held out anyway tho.

[@anthonyc8499]

SAE J3400 is not going to win the marketing branding war over NACS. If someone wants to champion a better name, by all means go for it, but SAE J3400 isn't gonna be what we end up calling this new form factor.

[@newscoulomb3705]

As others have noted, after it becomes the standard plug, people are unlikely to use the proper name anyway. It's just going to be an AC or DC "plug" or "charger."

[@anthonyc8499]

@@newscoulomb3705 that may not ever happen considering how many years CCS1 is expected to linger, plus we’ll need a way to differentiate NACS from CCS2. If anybody expects NACS to fall out of favor, then they’re still waiting on Kleenex/Xerox/Chapstick.

[@Dextermorga]

More chargers, more competition 👍 happy customer, better services overall

[@newscoulomb3705]

Yup. The additional options are great, but right now, I don't think consumers are being well informed about exactly what to expect or what they be able to access and use.

[@JohnRoss1]

A section of the Trans Canada Highway between Ottawa and North Bay is starting to get magic docks. One at Deep River has been converted. It had been announced that the section would be getting better DCFC coverage by tesla converting some superchargers. I

[@BillB33525]

Very informative conversation; can’t wait for Tesla to market an adapter for CCS cars to use their SuC. I frequent places that don’t have CCS fast chargers but have Tesla SuC.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Thank you. Unfortunately, Tesla hasn't been prioritizing the opening of Superchargers in areas that have poor public charging support. So far, every site they've opened has been very redundant.

[@COSolar6419]

The future of EV charging in the USA has only gotten more confusing and uncertain in the past year.

[@newscoulomb3705]

I feel like it's gotten a little clearer. We were never certain of the level to which Tesla was going to participate in public charging, and now it at least appears that they will be involved. With this new, unified standard, we can expect to see charging start to look more like gas station fueling, with multiple highway/Interstate charging sites off each exit, as well as dense city charging coverage. As long as the public charging providers adhere to California's requirements for displays and point-of-sale payments, we'll see a very natural transition for most consumers.

[@D0li0]

Thanks for the great nuance... Doesn't the Tesla PLC-CCS protocol supercharging stations all still also have the old CHAdeMO capabilities? So that they still support the older Teslas? If that's the case... Why not push for a standard that can continue to do all the protocols? Isn't it a shame to exclude older CHAdeMO and old Tesla which speak that protocol? It shouldn't be a big deal to ensure that a stations communication can speak all legacy languages (protocols), right? Anyway, thanks again for getting into the inconvenient details.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Thank you! I can't speak to the logistics of it, but I do agree that we're leaving a lot of EVs behind. Tesla, as far as we know, is still continuing to support both standards, but part of the issue is that Tesla's proprietary CAN standard isn't open and available. I've seen some people assert that it is CHAdeMO, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. If it were, Nissan LEAF owners could simply swap out their CHAdeMO socket with a Tesla socket, and they'd have direct access to the Superchargers. So until and unless Tesla releases their CAN protocols, I can't see how public charging providers would be able to implement the "bilingual" J3400 plug.

[@firstbigbarney]

All charging stations will require a approved adapter and not just any adapter.

[@newscoulomb3705]

That's really just new to Electrify America, which I'll admit, was a bit of a surprise. After all, they are including CCS1 to Tesla adapters at some of their new charging sites. On the other hand, EVgo has had that requirement in writing for several years now. Either way, it's questionable whether they will even be able to enforce it (especially EVgo's policy, which includes EVs that weren't modified or produced by an "official" automaker). And as far as I know, ChargePoint hasn't instituted the same policy, and I don't know of any other automakers who have either.

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

There are 8 thousand stalls that are "Tesla only"? Why can't they just change the communications on the charger side? It's Tesla we are talking about, they can maneuver like that yeah? Super curious about this. I know not all older Teslas are ccs adapter compatible but that's a car side thing.... Hmmm... Couldn't they update the car comms? Answer I am tracking is no..... What is real? 😂

[@newscoulomb3705]

It appears that it's more of a hardware issue. The V2 Superchargers were still essentially CAN linked onboard AC car chargers strung up in parallel, so all the communication was essentially the same as the car's internal systems. Realistically, Tesla should probably be ripping out all of those chargers and replacing them with V3 to V4 anyway, at which point those stalls should be available to everyone. Ford made a statement that their owners would be able to access additional stalls beyond the original 12,000, but I think they might be updating based on how much the Supercharger network is expected to grow before Ford EV owners finally have access. 😂

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

​@@newscoulomb3705 rightin.... hmm... well working equipment could possibly have a gateway communication device installed before removal of good equipment happens, I hope. Let's call it a magic gateway. I'm so curious what they are going to do. What is the right thing to do?

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@TRYtoHELPyou The "right" thing to do will depend, but for Tesla, it probably is simply ignoring all their existing sites and continuing to expand with new hardware. The problem for everyone else is that it appears that Tesla figured out how to access NEVI funding despite V3 not actually meeting the minimum requirements (e.g., dedicated 150 kW per stall), and so they now have a huge incentive to add "Magic Docks." Essentially, they're accessing the same billions of dollars of funding by retrofitting existing equipment while other providers are having to go through the expense of installing all new equipment.

[@zigadabooga]

J3400 on EVgo means Teslas can arrive at an EVgo to a broken charge location. Yay.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Keep in mind, not all Tesla's have received the CCS update, so they aren't compatible with the NACS/SAE-J3400 standard. So it's not the charger that's broken; it's the car.

[@zigadabooga]

@@newscoulomb3705 😅 that's not what I mean. The EVgo stations are always broken.

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@zigadabooga Not according to the data. They have a 98% charger uptime. EVgo was the first company to actually provide that data, and it's the metric that NEVI's rules were based on. Now, to be fair, that doesn't count intentional vandalism, which unfortunately underwent a notable spike in the wake of Tesla's NACS proposal. The hope is, it's not Tesla owners targeting and sabotaging EVgo stations in order to make the case for NACS over CCS1 (or simply to put down the strongest public charging competitor to the Superchargers in North America). Sometimes, simple accusations of poor reliability are enough to undermine a competitor. I've found that to be very important in the TSLA investment circles. Fuzzy Panda Research jumped on that anti-EVgo bandwagon, too, and they certainly have an oddly coincidental overlap of interests with TSLA investors.

[@zigadabooga]

@@newscoulomb3705 My coworker has to charge sometimes twice a day and most EVgo are down. He's better luck at Electrify America since they are all pretty new.

[@zigadabooga]

@@newscoulomb3705 your conspiracy theory makes no claim of actual data on vandalism. Just a wild claim. The only vandalism I've heard of was against Tesla. Whole cables had been cut and posts knocked over.

[@justinjones6810]

The only companies that has not negotiated with tesla is vw (vw Porsche and the other vw brands) Kia and hyundai pretty much the same company and lucid Kia and hyundai and lucid I could understand because they are 800v architecture but Kia and hyundai 400 volt cars need the nacs port because they can run just fine on the tesla network the Kia Niro ev and hyundai kona they need to be going to nacs because if they do not transition they will be missing out on a very big part of the market which is vehicles below 40k range

[@newscoulomb3705]

I suppose it depends what you mean by "negotiated." I think the better term would be "inquired." To my knowledge, while Hyundai, KIA, and possibly Lucid all inquired about what Tesla was offering, they ultimately rejected any true negotiations. That makes sense to me, given that both Hyundai and KIA actually operate out of a CCS1 domestic market, and Lucid is run by a former Tesla engineer. They understand that there is limited value for their customers. As for the Kona and Niro, it's true that they likely want to maintain those cheaper options; however, nothing is preventing them from transitioning to the smaller E-GMP battery and powertrain. Also, I think a lot of people miss just how robust the public charging infrastructure is for smaller, more efficient EVs. All the complaints you see are from consumers demanding 150+ or even 350+ kW charging. Cars like the Bolt, Kona, and Niro travel just fine while rarely having to interact with the crowded, sometimes problematic Electrify America stations.

[@justinjones6810]

@@newscoulomb3705 I highly doubt that hyundai and Kia will bring the budget models to the e gmp platform as that would increase the cost which already hurts them in my opinion they need to be manufacturing these vehicles in Mexico that way they could get the tax rebate and e able to sell the vehicles at a lower cost overall because that is really hurting them not having that rebate

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@justinjones6810 Hyundai and LG are already expanding their manufacturing efforts in Georgia for exactly that reason. They're looking at a 300,000 domestically produced EV per year run rate starting in 2025. I'm not sure how much their E-GMP "Light" battery pack would cost compared to the current pack being used in the Kona, but it shouldn't be that much more. And a 170 kW charging speed on a budget EV could be quite compelling.

[@justinjones6810]

@@newscoulomb3705 that plant in Georgia is just for the hyundai ioniq 5 ev6 the 800v platform they need to put a plant in Mexico for the budget line of ev to compete with Chevy bolt because even with the tax rebate it is still cheaper to get a Chevy bolt if they lower the manufacturing costs they can better compete especially if they are even cheaper than the Chevy bolt

[@tommckinney1489]

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize the J3400 would incorporate both the J1772 and CCS standard. I wonder if that means the auto manufacturers will stop supplying cars with J1772, and if so, what becomes of all the (many) J1772 stations that are out there.

[@newscoulomb3705]

I think the current state of AC charging can tell us what this will look like for some time to come. Tesla has already released one of their wall connector chargers with both the Tesla head and a built-in J1772 adapter (it looks like what they provide their customers when they buy a car). There's always been 100% interoperability on the AC side because Tesla based their AC standard on J1772. Initially, it was J1772-2001, which is why Tesla's first AC chargers omitted the pilot (IIRC) connection, so it was interoperable with the old Avcon chargers. By the time Tesla started using their new plug, though, they had already moved to J1772-2009, which is the current public AC standard. Essentially, AC is not really something to worry about. I foresee consumers using basic AC adapters for many years to come, and it probably won't be a big deal at all.

[@zigadabooga]

That 2% must be in the Bay Area.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Must be. Many of those are some of the oldest public fast charger installations in the world, and many are due for updates. Personally, I haven't had many issues with EVgo's chargers in the Bay Area, but I suppose everyone's experiences can be different.

[@zigadabooga]

@@newscoulomb3705 try East Bay. Now it is second hand information to you. But there's no reason for my coworker to lie, or even embellish to me. It's not vandalized. They are just offline. And not both, a lot of the time just one stall. I've had about 5 Tesla stalls out, but never the rest taken. I'd just move over. Flip the cable over the top of the bollard (universal symbol for stall out). Then the next trip to the location and it's working again.

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@zigadabooga I use East Bay chargers a lot. Just glancing at PlugShare, most of the EVgo sites are between 8 and 10, meaning less than one or two issues have been reported out of the last several dozen check ins at each site. Perhaps your coworker was referring to Electrify America. They are still working through a lot of reliability issues, and they are notably less reliable than EVgo (about 70-75% charger up time using the same metric).

[@zigadabooga]

@@newscoulomb3705 The one in Martinez pretty much has one out all the time, it's only two there.

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@zigadabooga Oh, sure. If you want to find a single site, maybe. EVgo has hundreds of sites in Northern California, so a single site is literally a fraction of a percent. However, that said, both chargers at Lucky Martinez appear to be up right now. 🤷‍♂ I do notice that EVgo is actively taking down a number of older sites and replacing them with their ReNew program (like that Martinez site, which had the unreliable BTC Power units replaced by Delta units). I also know for a fact that a number of those sites being repaired were targeted by vandals. In one case, the vandals specifically disabled the CCS1 and J1772 plugs while leaving the CHAdeMO connectors unharmed. In another case, they literally cut all the cords at the site.

[@stevewausa]

3400 is a STANDARD. NACS is a brand.

[@WiltonLiveTV]

Since they built the network and they have more EV than any single auto maker on the road in the US, yeah they get to create a gate to keep if you don’t like it, you can take your dumb hat off and go to Amazing, Electrify America and charge at 20! Lol

[@newscoulomb3705]

Oh, I don't care whether Tesla maintains and gatekeeps a private network. It think it's stupid of them from a business sense, but it's their prerogative. However, they shouldn't then be able to claim that they are a "public" provider that is eligible for funding earmarked for public-access chargers. They already flushed $6.4 million of infrastructure funding down the drain because they refused to comply with California's grant requirements, and they're now the top awardee for NEVI funding despite not producing a single charger that meets NEVI requirements (i.e., they're just sitting on that funding preventing it from being used to build public infrastructure).

[@JeffKubel]

5:06 - A racist microaggression, lmao. muh racist tesla plug. god I love my tesla even more now that I know it's [insert heavy metal] RRRAACCCISSSTTT.

[@anthonyc8499]

Eric, NACS is no more racist or micro-aggressive as Chademo is for being a Japanese language pun.

[@newscoulomb3705]

Yes, in retrospect, I believe it was unintentional; however, given Elon's history in particular and Tesla customers' comments in general about South America, Tesla needs to be more cautious with their language and word choices.

[@JohnRoss1]

Perhaps a bit presumptive. 😇

[@newscoulomb3705]

@@JohnRoss1 Not really. It's still clearly a means of masking the fact that Tesla has never bothered to support charging in South America. In addition to Elon's backing military coups to overthrow democratic governments in South America, it's not a huge stretch to be concerned about "what they really mean."

[@ThisIsTeslaTrippin]

Eric… I find this video disingenuous at best. V3 Superchargers (with their CCS language underpinnings) came out 4 years ago. For all of those 4 years, up until just this video actually, you took countless swipes at the form factor of the plug itself, the cables, stall layouts, specs, etc. Often with completely incorrect info/specs. (You claimed that Tesla’s plug couldn’t support GM’s Ultium charging specs, which is wrong.) Basically, you wanted nothing to do with Tesla’s plug. 6 months ago, after Tesla rebranded the already open source NACS plug, you laughed and said there is no way any OEM is going to adopt the Tesla form factor. Little did we all know, the NACS name brand was announced while talks were already going on with both Ford and GM behind the scenes. Tesla was merely giving a formal name to something that was already in negotiations with Ford and GM. But I digress. Anyway, after Ford announced they were going with the Tesla style plug, you replied to one of my comments with “Ford must be desperate…” and I asked you “when GM adopts the Tesla plug, does that mean they are desperate too?” And you said yes. That was only a few months ago. Now, in this video, you claim that you have given it more thought after watching Jim, Mary, and RJ, and now think the Tesla style plug is great???? Please. You’ve been thinking about it for years, and always had a dozen reasons why the Tesla plug was not for the masses. You are correct that when a NACS port does show up on a Chevy Blazer EV or a Ford Explorer EV, if the owner chooses to plug in at a Tesla Supercharger, they will need to select only the V3 (or by that time V4) chargers. You’re also correct that “it’s only a dumb adapter” that is needed to convert CCS1 to NACS (or vice versa). And station OEMs are free to start putting NACS plugs on their stations. But that misses the point. If that was all Ford/GM/etc were interested in, they wouldn’t need to install a native NACS port on their vehicles. They could just negotiate with Tesla for an adapter to work with their CCS1 port and call it a day. But they wanted the actual NACS port on their vehicles. Why?? Because they wanted their vehicles to have native access to the Tesla branded Superchargers. Why?? Because they work. Period. Certainly you’ve seen Kyle Connor’s latest cross country videos using his Rivian, or the Taycan, or his dad’s Lucid Air. Virtually every CCS1 station he visits in his travels has a plug (or 2 or 3) that don’t work at all, or are only working at 1/2 or 1/4 power, or give him the “signet surge”, or a combination of all the above. It’s 2023, and EA especially has a very poor user experience delivering a reliable charge as advertised. (The other major providers aren’t much better, with EVgo perhaps having the best reliability record, but with a poor spacing in the Northeast and Midwest that makes for inconvenient road trips.). So the ironic part of EA putting NACS connectors on their stations is that it won’t fix a thing. And Ford/GM/etc know that. That’s why they want to give their customers native access to Tesla’s own Superchargers. If EA and the other providers manage to get their stations working properly and consistently, then having NACS plugs on their stations is a bonus. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

[@newscoulomb3705]

There's a lot of strawman here... Those who follow my coverage of the public charging providers know that I don't pull any punches. I'm happy to celebrate the things they do right (e.g., opening Superchargers to non-Tesla EVs), but I'm also quick to point out shortcomings, like site configuration, limited current/voltage, lack of adequate displays, lack of adequate payment options, etc. The fact that those also apply to Tesla isn't my targeting Tesla; it's my being based. If I gave Tesla a free pass, that would be biased the other way. As for the Superchargers not being ideal for Ultium EVs, I still stand by that. There are power limitation concerns, voltage limit issues, charging stall configuration issues, etc. Yes, V4 should address most of that, but where are the V4 chargers now? My other big criticism of Tesla is, as you pointed out, they started adopting CCS nearly 4 years ago. It's taken until now, and only after repeated requests from automakers, for them to finally start the process of partially opening their Superchargers. Frankly, that's a bad look for a company whose mission is to "accelerate the adoption of EVs."

[@ThisIsTeslaTrippin]

@@newscoulomb3705 Tesla did not “open their superchargers to non-Tesla EVs”. They have been open to any OEM that wanted to go with their plug style. And that’s exactly what they are doing now. I would instead ask the question of Ford/GM… what took them so long to finally get onboard with a charging provider that actually works consistently and as advertised? Why did OEMs allow EA and other so-called “public” charging providers to give their customers such poor charging experiences so as to stifle their own sales?? Because that’s exactly what happened. And now they realize that to speed up adoption, they need to finally go with a charging provider that delivers electrons consistently. Period.