Ford makes deal with Tesla to share its Supercharger network

It's all over except the shouting and complaining about how it's working. What I want is to be able to replace the charging ports in my Kona and Niro to just have the NACS plug, instead of the stupid CCS-1. I would pay significant money for this, and frankly it should be as straight forward as building an adaptor. If we were really together we could add in the additional communication protocols that ID the vehicle at the same time, so one could plug and go. I would pay $1000 today for this if I could do it.

 

I broke down and bought an OpenEVSE charging station. All I have to do is swap the charge cable if I ever get my wish! Pretty sure the bulk of the units out there are using the same tech in the control modules.

 

I had a similar problem as all but Tesla were making J1772 plug, home chargers. Tesla addressed the problem by including an adapter with each EV. Even today, I have three, JuiceBox 40 Pro, two operational and the third a spare, that all have J1772 plugs. So I bought a second adapter, ~$350, for home use and it has worked out fine.

Tesla had announced they were going to sell a refit kit to add CCS-1 capability and adapter to older cars like mine. When it didn't show up after six months, I bought one from a Canadian company A2Z, $400. Three weeks ago, I installed it and so far, it has worked with Electrify America and EVgo. So I can take the shorter route to the Mississippi casinos saving a dogleg of 30 miles with two fast DC chargers along the way. One gives the first hour of charging free.

Bob Wilson

 

It isn't straightforward however. There needs to be some switching circuitry so that if you are doing AC charging the current goes one place, and if you are doing DC charging, the current goes another. If you were to buy adapters, you would need a separate one for each use case.

As for communications, NACS is essentially just the same as CCS. If your car can do plug-and-charge at a CCS charger, then three is no technical reason why it cannot plug-and-charge at Tesla. They just need to get some backend stuff sorted out.

 

Good news for older Tesla owners. My A2Z adapter kit works with:

• Electrify America (Athens, AL)
• EVgo (Nashville, TN)
• ChargePoint (Tuscumbia, AL)

Each CCS-1, fast DC charger has their own 'features' so Tesla charging is not plug-and-go. I use a network specific App for each one that links my credit card to the charge session. As is common in the Dixie, you have to use an accurate clock to deal with 'time based' charging.

Regardless, I can get a charge, ~$0.10 more per kWh than a SuperCharger. This means staying closer to the direct route saving both time and wear. For example, charging in Tuscumbia saves ~30 miles headed to Memphis.

Bob Wilson

 

I think it's actually very straightforward. Tesla already figured this out and published the spec. Products are already on the market that do this, nobody is re-inventing any wheels here. On the new car side it's simply a different on-board charging unit/socket. . . . Replace the box and wiring harness engineered for a CCS socket with a box and harness for a NACS socket. You can stick it in exactly the same place, it's just a control box and some wires to a socket. If they ever produce a retro-fit kit for my NiroEV or KonaEV, I will be the first in line to get one. The AC/DC on common pins is actually kind of trivial on the on-board side, basically you either have 100 to 200-odd volts AC, behind a relay, or you negotiate 400-1000vdc detect it, and activate a shunt to the DC-DC charging circuit. Again, this box already exists in Tesla vehicles. At it's simplest, the adapter for DCFC could simply shunt the tesla pins to the CCS DC pins, and refuse AC negotiation.

The backend is not much different. Those big giant DCFC charging pedestals are big electrical boxes, with a couple of modules. NOTE: They do not put out AC, just DC, and there are already prototype Tesla -> CCS adapters. But in reality, we are talking some minor software adjustments and a different cord and plug. When you plug into a DCFC, it only uses the control pins on the J1772 side. The AC pins are not even connected to anything. So pretty much all they need at the pedestal is a software update and a different cord and plug. What this actually means in reality is, two cords, just like Diesel and gas handles at the pump, only you don't need a bunch of extra piping, just swap it, and do a firmware update. We already have combo CHADEMO/CCS stations, short-mid term reality for Non-Tesla stations is going to be a CCS plug on one side Tesla on the other, just like the CCS/CHADEMO we have now.

If you already own or purchase a J1772/CCS vehicle before the changeover (same idea with CHADEMO for that matter), short-term you will simply need the Tesla to CCS adapter, if you want to charge from a Tesla/NACS-only station. Throw it in the frunk or trunk. I would expect to possibly see OBC conversion kits at some point as well. I have an openevse EVSE unit. It works with either Tesla or J1772 for AC charging. The only difference is the pigtail plug. I repeat, the only difference is the pigtail plug. From a home charging standpoint, you are simply going to have whatever plug you need for the car you own. If you end up with cars using both, you will either get 2 pigtails, or use an adapter, or just have two units, they are not that expensive these days, and the adapter should be under $500, likely will drop even lower over time.

I have the NACS to J1772 adapter, I keep it in the car, with a 120/240v/20A EVSE and a bag of 6-20 gender bender AC plugs, for emergency charging. I will have the NACS to CCS whenever they release them. Short term, if a Tesla station is available and more convenient on my route, I may use it instead of EA. Long term I will keep an eye out for an OBC conversion kit.

 

Third party folks already have prototype adaptors. Remember that NACS aka J3400 (https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j3400_202312/) is now a fully open standard, anybody can use it royalty free. Most of the dust waiting to settle on the adapter is around certification and testing. The adapter is a mostly mechanical device, clones will hit the market within 30 days of the network opening up, and a tested and approved design is released.

On the Tesla side they are probably still trying to figure out how they want it to work since Tesla's ID to the station, and CCS vehicles do not.

 

Will Tesla charging stations be required to have credit-card readers or can Tesla force non-Tesla drivers to have mobile phones running the Tesla app? How could CCS EVs be retro-fit to identify who's going to pay for the charge?

 

Who's going to force them without compensation? So I would say very, very unlikely unless the chargers are upgraded to the V4 chargers, which we know have card readers.

However, where there is government money involved you will see card readers, and they will be the V4 superchargers.

It would be interesting to know if the Tesla stations have WiFi for those with poor cellphone reception. Maybe Bob knows the answer.

 

Build a microcontroller (see TI MSP430) in the adapter that sends a Supercharger compatible VIN. Each adapter has a unique VIN.

Bob Wilson

 

How long can the last hold-out, Stellantis, keep their head in the sand?

 

Not a problem when they go out of business. <rim shot>

Bob Wilson

 

From the Tesla perspective, it's more about modifying their infrastructure to not require this communication in order to charge the vehicle, and perhaps prioritizing based on whether or not you have a Tesla, or other agreement. I'm told, the newer stations will take a card, but likely the app will be more useful. I don't think CCS ev's will be retrofitted, but that would not matter for any older EV's anyway, you would not be getting any freebies based on your vehicle ID.

 

Irrelevant, they will be forced to switch at this point, it's pretty much a done deal. Prediction: Within 180 days all new charging platforms will have at least 1 NACS plug, existing stations will start retro-fitting within 90 -120 days of the first non-tesla NACS socket vehicles rolling out the door. Likely VW wanted to wait until they figured out how it was going to work with all the EA stations, as they are likely to provide charging incentives, and wanted to make sure they could service whatever the demand might be.

The detachable Tesla charging cable could also be a big win in areas prone to nitetime/off-hours vandalism like daytime / commercial parking areas around shopping, work, and event venues. A lot easier to protect an outlet than a cable.

 

I've wondered about the feasability of 'spoofing' a Tesla vin with an in-line device of some sort. Make someone else pay for your charge. Sort of a non-issue currently as a non-Tesla vehicle at a supercharger would have attracted a bit of attention, but now with whatever pulling up to the 'pump' the possibility goes up dramatically, since their may not be a conversation between the vehicle and the charger that correlates to an app on a phone for the user than owns the vehicle with the connected vin. This is what I was talking about above, Tesla needs to figure out how to handle charging when it can no longer make assumptions about the connected vehicle based on the fact that it's a Tesla and already connected to their network.

This is probably the core reason they haven't opened anything up yet. I'm guessing things will open up in stages maybe geographically but who knows.

 

Somethings are too cheap to steal. Besides, Tesla has world class engineers and I suspect they are using hard encryption.

Bob Wilson

 

My gut agrees. My experience OTOH has been somewhat different. I know early in the game communications were neither keyed, nor encrypted. I dunno about too cheap to steal, I've had someone try and siphon gas from my car for theirs. It's stunning what people will steal.

 

There's an old story about a Model S old enough to include free charging being used to mine Bitcoins with that free electricity. If someone could spoof the Tesla charging network to steal the ID from an old Model S, they would be able to make a lot of Bitcoins. Here's a newer story about a guy making money by generating Bitcoins in his Model 3 because Tesla's electricity costs him less than plugging in at home. Spoofing another Model 3's ID would make that enterprise even more profitable.