Volvo Is Latest Automaker To Agree To Adopt Tesla's Charge Port (caranddriver.com) 50
Volve has joined Ford, General Motors, and Rivian in adopting Tesla's proprietary charging port. Car and Driver reports: Volvo says that starting in 2025 all of its electric vehicles will be equipped with a North American Charging Standard (NACS) port. This will allow them to charge at Tesla's far-reaching Supercharger network in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The charging network is currently said to consist of 12,000-plus fast-chargers and is expected to continue to keep growing. "One major inhibitor to more people making the shift to electric driving, a key step in making transportation more sustainable, is access to easy and convenient charging infrastructure," Volvo CEO Jim Rowan said in a press release.
What does this mean for the owners of Volvo models built before the NACS adoption? The company says its current lineup of EVs, which includes the XC40 Recharge, the C40 Recharge, the recently revealed EX30, and the new three-row EX90 SUV that are are currently equipped with CCS-type charge ports, will be able to use an adapter to connect to Tesla's chargers. Volvo says the CCS-to-NACS adapter will be made available in the first half of next year, but what remains to be seen is how much it will cost, if anything. Also worth noting is that the automaker plans to offer a NACS-to-CCS adapter for future 2025 models for owners who wish to replenish their battery using that style charger.
What does this mean for the owners of Volvo models built before the NACS adoption? The company says its current lineup of EVs, which includes the XC40 Recharge, the C40 Recharge, the recently revealed EX30, and the new three-row EX90 SUV that are are currently equipped with CCS-type charge ports, will be able to use an adapter to connect to Tesla's chargers. Volvo says the CCS-to-NACS adapter will be made available in the first half of next year, but what remains to be seen is how much it will cost, if anything. Also worth noting is that the automaker plans to offer a NACS-to-CCS adapter for future 2025 models for owners who wish to replenish their battery using that style charger.
Eh not quite (Score:5, Informative)
> This will allow them to charge at Tesla's far-reaching Supercharger network in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Except not really? They, along with Ford, GM, and Rivian, have only adopted the physical connector. Behind the scenes, what makes it all work is that they're still using the CCS protocol.
Tesla was been forced to adopt CCS in Europe. As a result, all Tesla vehicles after May 2019 include the necessary hardware and software to "speak" CCS. This is why vehicles made after this date can make use of an adapter, while older vehicles need a replacement charge controller.
V3 superchargers also support CCS. This is how and why MagicDock and other adapters work. However, older superchargers will not work with anything other than Tesla. I've seen no evidence that this will change, because NACS as it currently exists is only the specs for the physical connector and no information about the older Supercharger protocol has been published.
And since roughly half of the Supercharger network is still V2, which lacks the necessary hardware, any non-Tesla vehicle will either only be able to use half the network or get baked-in support for the older Tesla protocol (and it's not clear if or how that will happen at this point)
All that said, I still have concerns about the software. Much of the "supercharger experience" that people love is due to the software integration, and with third parties getting involved I feel that will become just another debacle like CCS currently is. There is no true standard for it yet, much less an independent body to enforce one.
=Smidge=
Re:Eh not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on the numbers in the press releases, it's 60-ish percent of chargers that are compatible. If you follow where Tesla is installing new Superchargers, you'll see that they have a habit of putting in new stations near old stations rather than upgrading the old ones. So the coverage even with just V3 Superchargers is pretty good. But clearly Tesla will need to prioritize that a bit, as there are probably noticeable gaps when the older stations are dropped from the map.
One thing that Tesla is probably including in the access agreements is software in each car to identify it to the network, so that if they've registered a payment method, it will just work.
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so that if they've registered a payment method, it will just work.
Sadly, I have a deep faith in the traditional car companies to be able to fuck this up.
There's also a lot to say about concentrating more on expansion rather than upgrading current chargers. Tesla, and other EV companies, just need as many charging stations as they can get, and a Tesla using the older station is still a spot left open on the newer spots for other cars - plus it still lets Tesla hold a bit of favor over other brands - my being more likely to get a charger because I have a Tesla, is a real s
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They are very rarely down, and when one is down, they just fix it. Replacements are extremely rare. And usually only one or two chargers at a site are down even when there is a failure.
I figure they're thinking that their crews are maxed out installing new chargers, so they want to just leave the old ones alone. They also know they'll have V4 chargers soon, and maybe even V5 after that, so anything replaced now will soon be obsolete again. Also, newer chargers draw more current, so not all sites have su
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I think I wasn't quite clear enough, perhaps. I figure the most common breakage situation would be the charging cable. That would be an "outer" failure. Internal would be things like the control board, which Tesla probably doesn't want to keep dozens of versions of around. So if the control board in a old supercharger goes out, they'd replace it with a new one that is capable of CCS communication. I also don't know how much integration there is, so maybe more of the electronics would be replaced becaus
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The chargers (at least the V2s, I've not seen the inside of a V3) have several racks of smaller chargers which are identical, which link up either all together for one user, or are split between two users (V2 = two stalls per charger; V3 isn't set up that way). So you can replace the chargers individually.
My presumption is that they're no longer making the V2 hardware, and will replace individual charger racks when they have them in stock, and otherwise will cannibalize and replace chargers with newer ones
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By the same token, if the DC conversion equipment(or such) goes bad, maybe needing replacement, in goes a new control board with the new DC equipment. While yes, the latest superchargers dispense more power, I don't imagine that Tesla can't set them for lower power levels if needed at the site.
I think it is reasonable to assume that V2 superchargers could support CCS with a firmware change, or at most, a minor hardware change (likely to a board inside the pedestal). But V2 superchargers are slow. Adding more cars would have a disproportionate impact as a result. It makes more sense to just add V3 capacity right next to it, and eventually bulldoze them and start over.
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150 kW is slower than 250 kW, so a 15 minute charge stop turns into a 25 minute charge stop, but keep in mind that the large majority of CCS chargers are 50 kW, and compared to that 150 kW is a nice step up - the same charge at 50 kW is perhaps 75 minutes.
Moving from v2 to v3 means a different charger, not just the pedestal, so really you're not reusing anything much, perhaps the case. What I've seen so far is that Tesla just builds out more capacity with v3, extending the row of chargers, so you end up wit
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150 kW is slower than 250 kW, so a 15 minute charge stop turns into a 25 minute charge stop, but keep in mind that the large majority of CCS chargers are 50 kW, and compared to that 150 kW is a nice step up - the same charge at 50 kW is perhaps 75 minutes.
Don't misunderstand. I can clearly see the advantage for non-Tesla drivers. But it would be a big negative impact for Tesla drivers, because those old, slow V2 stations don't have enough stalls to accommodate a bunch more cars.
There's not much advantage to tearing out chargers that are working fine, they might as well leave them available in case people need them.
Except at high usage stations, because the old V2 charger units stop working if you run them continuously (or so I've read). Either way, over time, they will become a bigger and bigger maintenance liability.
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> I think it is reasonable to assume that V2 superchargers could support CCS with a firmware change
CCS uses special hardware that V2 stations do not have, and it's not clear they can be retrofitted. If a simple firmware upgrade was all it took, then Tesla vehicles made prior to May 2019 would have been upgraded to work with their CCS-NACS adapter.
Specifically, the Homeplug GreenPHY is a 10Mbps communications-over-powerline scheme designed to support V2H/V2G without requiring additional appliances in ever
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The implication of the announcements that next year Ford/GM/Volvo EVs will have access to 12,000 superchargers in North America is that nearly all superchargers will be upgraded to support CCS in addition to CanBus protocols. I don't know whether that'll require a hardware upgrade, or if the controllers already can physically support both encoding mechanisms and it's just a software update.
Of course, adding Magic Docks for CCS physical compatibility is a hardware upgrade, and they've announced 3,500 of thos
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Why is the roll out so slow in the US? Europe is way ahead, and forced Tesla to retrofit CCS to all its chargers.
Over here it was a bit of a land rush as companies competed to install chargers at locations, with many now having a choice of multiple networks to pick from. The car manufacturers funded a lot of it too.
Okay, the US is bigger, but you would expect all the popular routes to have multiple networks competing for business. What's the issue?
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The issue? Basically not enough EV penetration yet to justify the installation level for significant competition, Tesla undercut most of them back in the day with free charging for Teslas at superchargers(that deal is no longer available), so "most" EVs wouldn't use their stations unless forced. And there wasn't enough subsidization to justify doing it anyways.
Issue with the USA? Much higher dependence upon the roads, larger amounts of driving, and yes, more spread out with fewer people relatively. Com
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It's chicken and egg, you need the chargers to encourage widespread adoption. European manufacturers and in some cases businesses that just wanted to promote EV usage like Ecotricity in the UK installed chargers. Others just wanted to get a stake in the ground early and become one of the major providers, taking the opportunity to replace fossil fuel providers.
Non-EV sales will end in Europe between 2030 and 2040. That probably helped get investment, as governments signalled that charging is the future and t
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Yes, Europe got over the "chicken and egg" issue by picking a single standard, mandating it, and funding both deploying chargers and incentivizing EV sales and thus manufacturing, not just with money but with clear long-term commitments to electrification. So EV adoption in Europe is way ahead of the US, and the chargers are all physically interoperable with all the (recent) cars.
The US didn't do those things, or did them later and with less funding, so the car market is fragmented (CCS1, Tesla, CHAdeMO), t
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Typically Tesla just expands the station, as the older Superchargers still work just fine, and it's worth having them available in case all the newer chargers are full. For example, I've see places with 10 v2 superchargers (150 kW) and 10 v3 superchargers (250 kW). There's not much reason for Tesla to tear down working equipment, as both 150 kW and 250 kW are faster than the large majority of CCS chargers, which are 50 kW. And as they're not starting to deploy v4 superchargers and megachargers, I'd imagine
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Typically Tesla just expands the station, as the older Superchargers still work just fine
Yeah, that's basically what I said, and I even added why - more chargers better, even if some are slower. It's better to install new, at least for now.
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More specifically, from Supercharge.info, when I select North America, and filter by >= 250kW, I get 1790 sites, while when I filter by >=120kW (e.g. also including 250kW), I get 2391 sites, so that's 3/4ths of all North American sites are >=250kW (ignoring the 169 low-power "urban charger" sites - I have no clue what they support / will support). Also, when they were doing the V2 buildout there was an average of 8 stalls per site, but now there's an average of 10 stalls per site, so the difference
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> Also, is there any actual evidence that there's no plans to modify V2 to support CCS?
Two things; First, what I said is there's currently no evidence that non-Tesla manufacturers will be compatible with V2 superchargers, which would require them implementing Tesla's currently-still-proprietary protocol. I didn't say anything about upgrading V2 superchargers to support CCS.
Second, it's stupid to upgrade V2 to support CCS; At that point just upgrade the entire station to V3 or newer.
=Smidge=
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Where are the privacy advocates decrying having to identify their vehicle to charge?
You can make semi-anonymous card payments at other chargers.
Either way, hopefully V4 is on the way with support for higher power and 800V. Europe has 400kW chargers now. Some of them have smaller cables and connectors like Tesla does, but they can only charge at maximum rate for a short time before a temperature sensor reduces the load. The idea is you can get a short, high power boost and then move on, while keeping the cab
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The sudden switch to NACS put my plans to purchase a vehicle on hold. Would suck to buy something that used the old standard just as everyone is switching to another. Had been looking at Volvo, so this is welcome news.
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Agreed. It's not an issue of being "unable to charge"; it's an issue of having to charge through an adapter.
Which, mind you, might be a show stopper for some people. But I don't think it would be for most people, unless they're like a courier or something and have to be fast charging all day.
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Probably just what Tesla hoped. If NACS is to be a standard then it needs to be removed from their control otherwise they've just become a monopoly.
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The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) is the standards body for NACS, and they're working with Tesla and the US Government to fast track the process. https://www.sae.org/news/press... [sae.org]
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just another debacle like CCS currently is
Please expand on what the debacle here is. That you need to use either an app or swipe an RFID card at your charge point? Are the petrol stations we've used for the past 70 years also a debacle? CCS charging is utterly trivial. It works universally, vendor agnostic, and can be done without thinking by people even too dumb to drive cars.
Re:Eh not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
> Please expand on what the debacle here is.
There is no strict enforcement of the communications protocol, and the specifications are simultaneously vague and complicated (literally designed by committee) so every charger equipment manufacturer and every vehicle manufacturer has broad leeway to implement it how they see fit.
The result is widespread compatibility issues. Difficulties authenticating. Chargers faulting and locking up. Vehicles refusing to work at certain chargers even though they'll work with the station next to it. Slow charging speeds due to reverting to fallback settings. Sessions spontaneously ending just a few minutes after they started... 99.9% of all these issues is in the software.
It's pretty bad. When you pull up to a CCS charger, there's a fair chance - maybe 1 in 50 or so? - you will not be able to use it or otherwise have a terrible experience.
And this is before we get into the physical variations and build qualities between charger manufacturers, which NACS does not solve either. Some cables and connectors are definitely more robust and easier to use than others.
=Smidge=
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In Europe, where almost all chargers (including Tesla) are CCS, what typically happens is that when a manufacturer first releases a new EV platform they test with public chargers and get compatibility sorted out. At first it takes a few months after adoption for firmware updates to roll out now.
Most launches are smooth because they buy well debugged charging interface systems, rather than building their own from scratch.
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The result is widespread compatibility issues. Difficulties authenticating. Chargers faulting and locking up. Vehicles refusing to work at certain chargers even though they'll work with the station next to it. Slow charging speeds due to reverting to fallback settings. Sessions spontaneously ending just a few minutes after they started... 99.9% of all these issues is in the software.
You know, I've literally never heard of any of this, and I know more than 50 people with EVs (friends and colleagues since our work lease cars are mandated to be EVs) and have 3 family members who drive EVs. Where I live most taxi fleets have changed to be EVs. I've sat in a Total Energies station with taxi drivers while waiting for his car to fast charge and he said he's never once had an issue and has used chargers multiple times a day all over the country.
I have a sneaking suspicion you're reading the Da
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Interoperability in Europe works a lot better - you can even "plug and pay" at most CCS chargers because the networks do cross-billing. So you can (from what I've been told) basically drive up to almost any charger and plug in and charge, and expect it all to work fairly quickly, same experience as Tesla.
In the US, the CCS networks have a 25% failure rate, because they're incredibly badly engineered and badly maintained, on top of which "plug and pay" doesn't work between charge networks, and the charge net
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> Total Energies
We don't have those here in the US. See, The EU did the right thing by mandating everyone use the same standard. Here in the US, where all this NACS business is relevant (because the "NA" in "NACS" means "North America" you see...) it's a very different situation.
So I have a sneaking suspicion you lack awareness of anything happening outside your own country. How deliciously ironic considering I'm American.
=Smidge=
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> Total Energies
We don't have those here in the US. See, The EU did the right thing by mandating everyone use the same standard. Here in the US, where all this NACS business is relevant (because the "NA" in "NACS" means "North America" you see...) it's a very different situation.
So I have a sneaking suspicion you lack awareness of anything happening outside your own country. How deliciously ironic considering I'm American.
=Smidge=
You mentioned CCS, not NACS. I have a sneaking suspicion you don't understand how conversation works. Get back on point and tell me why CCS is such a bad standard as *YOU* claimed rather than trying to divert the conversation.
There's nothing ironic here. Just someone who isn't backing up their claim. Or is CCS in the USA not CCS as defined in the CCS standard? If that's the case say that rather than coming across like an arse (spelled the way the Queen intended).
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> You mentioned CCS, not NACS. I have a sneaking suspicion you don't understand how conversation works.
Besides the parts where I explicitly mentioned NACS; The entire post you replied to was about NACS. This entire Slashdot story is about NACS.
> Or is CCS in the USA not CCS as defined in the CCS standard?
I already addressed this point. The CCS Standard is loosely defined and not rigidly enforced by any central body, meaning each manufacturer has broad leeway to implement it as they see fit. This lack
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Well for starters, there's no such thing as "the NACS protocol." Right now, all NACS is, is the dimensional specifications of the connector and voltage/current ratings of the components used to build the connector (which, oddly, fall short of what Tesla superchargers deliver so they don't even obey their own ratings...)
Copied directly from the technical specification Tesla published: "The operator uses any provided method to indicate the desire to begin a charge session. ... The lock is engaged to prevent v
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"The operator uses any provided method to indicate the desire to begin a charge session."
This is a spectacularly gross misrepresentation of the spec. That's only talking about the software to authenticate a charge. E.g. if you want a credit card to start it, whether you want it coin operated like a gumball machine, whether you just want it to start regardless of payment for free.
The actual standard:
4.5.1 For DC charging, communication between the EV and EVSE shall be power line communication over the control pilot line as depicted in DIN 70121.
4.5.2 The North American Charging Standard is compatible with âoeplug and chargeâ as defined in ISO-15118.
DIN 70121 is very clearly defined. ISO-15118 is clearly defined.
The NACS standard clearly defines the NACS Protocol. It's DIN 70121 and ISO-15118. (Aka CCS).
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Again, I'm really confused what spec you're reading. Or how you can so spectacularly misread the clearly written spec.
6.1 Voltage Rating The North American Charging Standard exists in both a 500V rated configuration and a 1,000V rated configuration. The 1,000V version is mechanically backwards compatible (i.e. 500V inlets can mate with 1,000V connectors and 500V connectors can mate with 1,000V inlets).
6.2 Current Rating The North American Charging Standard shall specify no maximum current rating. [...]
Tesla has successfully operated the North American Charging Standard above 900A continuously with a non-liquid cooled vehicle inlet.
Tesla v3 superchargers are 480v. And 900A is way in excess of v3 superchargers.
Re:Eh not quite (Score:4, Informative)
Superchargers use the Tesla connector, and support both CCS (NACS) and CanBus-based (original Tesla protocol) control protocols. And recently manufactured Tesla cars also talk both protocols. Using the control protocol used by CCS doesn't mean that NACS is CCS1 - CCS1 specifies a particular physical connector, which is worse than NACS is many ways. NACS was specifically designed to allow CCS manufacturers of both cars and chargers to adopt Tesla's connector and use the Supercharger network, and it's been wildly successful.
The software integration is important, and it's why GM, Ford, Volvo, etc., didn't just adopt the NACS standard, they did a deal with Tesla to give their applications and vehicles access to the APIs so that they can locate chargers for routing, see their status, bill charging to their accounts, etc., using the GM/Ford/Volvo apps instead of needing to run the Tesla app. Or course, any driver can use the Tesla app and charge from Superchargers, once they're opened up. Most of the Superchargers in Europe are open, and they're starting to open up in the US as well. Tesla promises 12,000 Superchargers open to GM/Ford/Volvo (so far) and at least 3,500 open to everyone, meaning that they've got the 'magic dock' CCS adapter on the supercharger.
Perhaps you missed it, but Tesla and the US government are working with the SAE, who will be the host standards body for NACS.
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> Superchargers use the Tesla connector, and support both CCS (NACS) and CanBus-based (original Tesla protocol) control protocols
V3 superchargers do. Older units do not support CCS, for exactly the same reasons older Tesla vehicles don't support it.
> Using the control protocol used by CCS doesn't mean that NACS is CCS1 - CCS1 specifies a particular physical connector,
You have that almost exactly backwards.
The CCS standard encompasses both the form factor and the underlying protocol. Subset to that is
OR (Score:2)
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Across the desert?
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No, that's what the horse with no name is for.
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You could walk. And live longer.
I rarely use my car and I live in a place with excellent alternate transport forms in a walkable city. But I don't pretend that walking is viable in the USA. In many cases it is utterly dangerous and no you're not likely to live longer, you're likely to have your blood hosed off the road.
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If I have to walk 400 miles regularly my life might technically be a little longer, but I'll spend a good portion of it walking.
What's the benefit and challenge? (Score:2)
Anyone know the technical and legal details here?
I assume the NACS port can charge at different current and power levels compared to the old standard (CCsomething?). Does adopting NACS require the battery accept more current? Or is that an option the manufacturer can choose to implement or not? If the latter, it seems you could make the charging port an option (when you order the car, you choose which port you want). Similarly, a charging station could offer both plugs much like a gas station offers gasolin
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The connector is usually not the limiting factor, charging is usually limited by either how much power the charger can provide and how fast the car can safely accept it, where the two negotiate down to the highest speed that both can handle. And it changes as you charge - the more a battery fills up, the slower it can accept more power, so you typically see very fast charging up to 50% or so, then it slows down gradually, and the last 10% can take more time to fill up than the first 50%.
There's no license f