The White House announced on Friday that Tesla’s model chargers would qualify for billions in federal subsidies, on the condition that they include the CCS (Combined Charging System) connection. This news follows recent announcements from Ford and General Motors (GM) about their adoption of Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), signaling a significant shift in the EV charging industry.
The industry previously seemed to be gravitating towards the rival CCS connection, supported by billions in federal funding. However, this latest move indicates an inclusive approach, permitting Tesla’s model chargers to gain from the federal subsidies.
Analysts have pegged the new Ford and GM deals to bring in up to $3 billion for Tesla by 2030.
Robyn Patterson, a spokesperson for the White House, commented on the matter to Reuters, stating, “Earlier this year, we developed minimum standards to ensure publicly funded EV charging is accessible, reliable, and affordable for all drivers, and we required interoperability to promote competition. Those standards give flexibility for adding both CCS and NACS, as long as drivers can count on a minimum of CCS.”
The move is seen as a significant boost for the EV charging infrastructure and a win for the adoption of electric vehicles across the nation. The NACS from Tesla offers a smaller charger connector and charge port compared to CCS. The coalition behind CCS criticized the Tesla-Ford deal. Are we seeing a VHS vs Betamax moment right now in the EV charging space?
Why don’t they require Apple and Samsung charging ports too? USB3? The White House is just continuing to show how idiotic government agencies can be when it comes to trying to understand and regulate things they don’t understand. This is why the EU went CCS instead of Tesla’s NACS, it seemed to make sense before doing proper analysis. With GM and Ford on board, it is only a matter of time before all the others (if they want to remain competitive) join in and then needing a CCS adapter is totally ridiculous. I drove taxi in a city that required cabs to carry a bale of hale in their trunks because at one time all cabs were horse drawn. The law was still on the books in 1985!
CCS1 is a bad, inferior design, no questions asked.
But there is already a fleet of EV’s equipped with it, it makes sense to request some support for those legacy cars.
So they can be the ones that need adapters. Caveat emptor! I’m not saying throw them to the wolves but they shouldn’t be the ones that control the direction this is all going in. NACS is the best system by far, already has twice as many users without Ford and GM and will only increase in usage going forward. Europe might prove too much to re-visit, but North America will be better off adopting NACS as the standard.