I was wondering with all the talk of NACS, what would happen to J1772. I think I found the answer, unless folks here see it differently. Thanks!
*In North America
Indeed. In Europe all chargers have CCS2.
All cars come with CCS2 as well, except for some very old cars, which carry a CCS2 adapter.
Europe never used J1772, so that standard won’t be replaced over here. Europe standardised IEC 62196 Type 2 (the “Mennekes” plug) in 2013, so the whole question doesn’t apply to the EU.
What is the currently maximum available performance of NACS?
CCS is designed up to 1000V and 500A. Charging stations offer typically up to 350 kW.
What do the available NACS charging stations offer? As I remember Tesla is only using 400V batteries, so with 500A they only get up to 200kW.
So the switch to NACS sounds like a performance downgrade. But yes: probably a usability upgrade but at the cost of longer charging times.
Is Tesla planning to switch to 800V too? So they can deliver more performance?
While they are only 400v, at least here in Europe we get up to 250kW charging for a short while. But that is why CCS2
IIRC, Tesla claims their connector is rated for 1kV as well, and at a slightly higher total power rating than NACS. They haven’t actually fielded chargers above 400V, though. It seems though that the general consensus is that the NACS connector is actually more or equally capable overall compared to the CCS (J1772) connector, in a smaller form-factor. At first I thought it was a pretty odd switch, but now that it’s an open standard managed by SAE and the specs seem to be at worst comparable… it’s not exactly a bad idea for the OEMs to use it.
Actually, it’s not just another plug. The fact that the same Pins are used for AC and DC charging adds a little bit more complexity to the car. Either you need additional switches in the car to separate the Onboard AC-Charger from the charging port, or the AC-Charger must be designed to withstand an DC input on its AC-Input contacts. That probably won’t be the biggest problem when the DC-voltage is just around 400V, as the AC-voltage is not that far away.
But if you switch to 800V Batteries (which most of the industry is doing), that probably could get more challenging, as the AC-charging-voltage won’t change.
We‘ll see what the car industries solution will be.
