What will happen to CCS?

I’m amused the brands who have not announced the switch yet seem to think they have some kind of choice in the matter.

The CCS network, inferior plug design aside, is an absolute s**t show of unreliability and user experience. It has only gotten worse, not better, as the last few years have gone by.
Tesla absolutely dominates this area and no matter the reason (vertical integration, competency or just a genuine drive to make it a success vs grab subsidy money to cheaply build a business to later sell) the public, at least those buying or considering buying an EV, is starting to figure this out.

There may have been hope that the poor user experience would drive customers back to their gas cars but in reality it is simply driving them to Tesla. Their astronomical growth rate, profit margin and manufacturing capacity have also given them a land grab of batteries and battery materials and that alone is a very real risk of future auto market dominance.
When the legacy auto maker EV’s are at least halfway decent (ie now) people may buy them but not if they can’t charge them.

Some of the legacy companies are starting to wake up to this reality.

Once Ford announced it it was no longer a choice for the other makers.
When GM joined there was only one nail left for the CCS coffin, namely luxury European brands. With Mercedes announcing the switch the rest, be it BMW, Audi, Porsche etc, have no choice in the matter any more.

It remains to be seen if the legacy auto makers will survive this transition even if they make all the right choices, grab materials and move quickly (by their standards). It may already be too late. But those that think they can somehow win the EV market or even kill it by sticking with CCS in North America will only accelerate their own death.

Any concept of choice in the CCS/NACS debate has been taken away from them.
And it’s not about the connector itself, nice as it is, but more access to the reliable and rapidly expanding Supercharger network.
Public networks will need to be as reliable and convenient to use as Tesla Superchargers but cheaper or better located otherwise they will not survive either no matter which plug they use.

 

It’s not CCS that’s the problem it’s the crappy network that’s the issue. The entire user experience is poor. I’ve used multiple dispensers on both sides of the Atlantic. The Tesla stalls are nice because they care about user experience.. Rollup at EA and it’s a crap shoot.

stalls like here where you have to cave man drag a cable because it’s 30ft long are annoying. Also Tesla stalls by design are low maintenance. Short cables, easy to use with no screens or RFID.

Go to Europe and see how it can be done properly…. CCS2 is king. There was no incentive for charging to be done correctly here outside of Tesla. What’s hilarious is it took this long to decide on a standard Vs years ago… so now you will have cars needing a collection of adaptors and having to retrofit thousands of dispensers. North America is run by muppets

As for that BMW email it sounds like a copy paste. I wouldn’t buy too much into it. They’ll make the switch as they have no choice. It’s just negotiating with Tesla for network access

 

Completely agree. While the CCS connector is a clunky oversized thing with no elegance to the engineering, it’s a design we could all live with.

The problem is primarily one of reliability, there is no way I trust I can get a charge when I need it and even if I can charge it will likely crawl along at 30kW because the cable cooling is bust.

The second issue it the number of chargers, both the number of locations and the number of chargers at a location. Rock up at a Tesla site and it’s considered small if there are only 6-8 chargers, many going in now on popular routes are 20-24 units and busy locations are getting 50,60 even 100!
By contrast EA typically has 4, of which half will 150kW max and chances are between 2 and 3 of the 4 don’t work or don’t work at the rated speed. If there are 8 units that’s a big site and I think they have a couple of locations in the country that have 12, maybe 20 at one spot? Apply the same failure ratio to them though…
While they cover the country on primary routes there is very little margin for error, often there is no backup option 30 miles before or after the site you’re aiming for.

Then there’s the app situation, the slow busted screens and card readers, plus the agonizingly long handshake.

The only issue I have at Tesla Superchargers are sometimes (rarely) they are at poor locations with nothing more than a Comfort Inn within walking distance so nowhere to get refreshments of food, or maybe only one crappy food choice. But this tends to be older sites in the middle of nowhere and the same issues apply to non Tesla locations often even more so. Charging at the dark far end of the Walmart parking lot at night? No thanks.

It’s not about the connector, it’s about access to the only reliable, easy to use network.
Tesla could have switched their chargers and cars to the CCS connector instead of this other way around, but why should they?
Switch to an inferior connector and change hundreds of thousands of cars, or get the manufacturers who have made only a small handful of vehicles to switch to their better connector to get access to their network. Makes sense.

On a side note, with regards to Europe and CCS2 (which is very different to CCS1), the situation is better but it depends which country you’re talking about. The UK seems to be having many chargers issues (again, non Tesla, their CCS2 units work fine).

 

I was just in the UK and everywhere I used was fine.People have become too obsessed with how things look. The handle just needs to work and survive drops etc but I do prefer the EU CCS2 handles and Magicdockones. Don’t blame CCS blame EA and friends for ruining the charging experience.

what makes Tesla good is their network is setup for their cars and you don’t need to connect to a wonky app or call to reset a unit.

your issue more seems to be with EA than CCS connectors and getting bent out of shape with a generic bmw email. EA has zero incentive to be better as they just have to meet a court order min

 

The issue with BMW is that their Neue Klasse platform will be using an 800V architecture so there's probably extra work that has to be done to make sure the V3 supercharger sites provide a reasonable experience. Also the Tesla charging curves are now designed with a linear decrease to limit the duty cycles on the equipment. I wouldn't be surprised to see sitewide charge throttling at the supercharger sites, but at least Tesla can guarantee that at least 50% of the superchargers will work 99.96% of the time!

 

It's not like CCS is any more clunky and oversized than your average gas pump nozzle... so, we have been living with it for decades already.

 

Aren’t V4 1000v?

 

If today's "magic dock" supercharger locations are the precursors to tomorrow's NACS supercharger locations, then how is adopting the NACS connector necessary for access to a NACS-equipped supercharger network? A simple (inexpensive) passive adapter should get the job done, because NACS "speaks" CCS.

Sure, putting the sleeker NACS connector on your car makes it more attractive to consumers... but not because of extra functionality. The only way supercharger access factors into the equation is if Tesla locks the network down to only manufacturers that sign a deal with them, which would be a change from how "magic dock" superchargers operate today (and crucially, is not a requirement of adopting an "open standard" NACS in the first place).

 

We don't quite know yet. The electrical label says 1000V & 615A (615kW max) but Tesla has been artificially capping it to 250kW.

The 697V Korean EV are being limited to 42kW charging at the V2 supercharger.

 

A gas pump cable is thinner and lighter and the connector end, the nozzle itself, is small and goes into a tapering hole in the car in any orientation. Anyone can handle them. The CCS connector got is a very different beast.

Anyone who thinks the CCS connector is not clunky hasn’t watched a 5 foot 110lb woman try to deal with getting it lined up perfectly with the angled CCS port on the Mini. Especially when it’s cold and the cable is stiff.
There is a video on YouTube of a guy in a wheelchair that got flipped backwards when he tried to do it.
The NACS connector is not only smaller, the port is self guiding (it tapers as it goes in and the squarish shape causes the connector to rotate itself to guide itself in). And the Tesla cable is easier to handle as it’s thinner.
It’s not about slimline looks, the connector itself is easier to use.not everyone is a healthy 6 foot 200lb engineer.
Again, it’s not that we couldn’t live with it if we had to, it’s just demonstrably inferior is all.

 

I posted this elsewhere that Tesla could limit non Teslas to let’s say a 100kw cap and I got downvoted into oblivion

 

Just ask Uncle Rich if the Tesla fanboys are real or not.

 

The European style handles are easier to use but I 100% get what you are saying. I’ve have to caveman pull cables out of snow or around the dispenser itself. I’ve seen some going to an overhead gantry setups

 

Not in New Jersey. =)

A) That's a bit of a non sequitur. Did anyone say the CCS connector wasn't clunky? I know I didn't.
B) Plenty of people struggle at gas pumps as well. Gas pump nozzles are clunky, but they've been that way for nearly 100 years and we don't ever think about it.
C) Cold weather making EV charging cables stiff and difficult to line up perfectly for small women is not a CCS-specific issue. Though, I'd also point out the original comment was specifically about CCS connectors, not cables.

I believe the video you're referring to is this one (not in the cold, btw). I'm very familiar with the channel and thoroughly recommend it to everyone in here. He's in the UK and does quite a lot of videos on driving a MINI Cooper Electric as a disabled person and reviewing charging stations for wheelchair access, something that's important for a lot of people and that able-bodied people should be mindful of as well. In general, given accessible site design, he has no issues charging with CCS (the only connector available in the UK).

In that video, it's clear the reason he fell over is because of unfamiliarity ["now remember this is my first time to attempt plugging in the car to a charger, so I'm fumbling around a bit"] and the cable length ["at this stage, I knew the cable was quite tight, but I thought it was longer, so I gave it a bit of a tug and pulled myself over backwards in the wheelchair"]. It had nothing to do with CCS connectors, and short cables are a thing at superchargers as well.
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I feel I need to emphasize that my claim was that the bulk and clunky-ness of the CCS connector is on par with that of gas pump nozzles. I am responding to your points from that position, I am not attempting to equate the Tesla/NACS connector with the CCS connector, nor am I claiming the CCS connector isn't clunky (as your reply seemed to suggest). I'm sure everyone here agrees that the CCS connector is more clunky than the Tesla/NACS connector; that is plainly obvious and has never been in question.

 

They have built an excellent network and tbh while I’m happy with the Mini… the Model 3 LR could have been had for 58k locally before rebates of 12k. Had this been an option last summer I wouldn’t be posting here right now.

My brother in law ordered a Model Y RWD and it’s under 50k. Cancelled the order on his Ioniq 5

 

To be clear, they are not being limited by Tesla as some sort of policy. The Superchargers are a 400v design and the Korean EVs rely on the idea that 800V chargers are what exists. It is a good assumption for public chargers, almost all of them are 800v class I believe, however now that Tesla is opening up their 400v units it isn’t quite so.
Lucid have the same problem, they use a converter box to enable them to charge on 400V class chargers but that box is limited to 40kw.
As Tesla will likely move to 1000v chargers for the Cybertruck we can assume the v4 units will be fine for them, as will the v3 units which I suspect will receive module upgrades.

 

Yes, that’s the one,
I came across his channel when looking at Mini SE videos and his videos on accessibility issues really got me thinking. Now when I go to any site, be it Tesla or other, I think about the accessibility.
I saw in a video recently that a Tesla have started fitting an extension or plastic tube price to the charger handles so that people using a wheelchair can use them as they are indeed too high. But I’ve never seen one out in the wild…

 

Angled?

 

I think he means it’s not parallel to the body panel; the top is more recessed than the bottom, so it’s at an angle (relatively speaking).

 

Exactly.