A pivotal announcement from electric vehicle (EV) charging leader FLO revealed plans to offer Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) across its network of stations. The move, prompted by multiple automakers’ adoption of the NACS, is expected to alleviate EV drivers’ confusion over disparate charging hardware.
The news comes after GM followed Ford’s footsteps to adopt NACS in the U.S. and Canada. It looks like Tesla is on pace to win the charging connector standard versus the likes of CCS.
In a statement last week, FLO’s Chief Product Officer Nathan Yang expressed strong support for this standardization, stating the wider adoption of NACS is linked to its increasing popularity among EV drivers and the reliability of the stations currently providing NACS. FLO is known for its exceptional station reliability, boasting an impressive uptime of over 98%.
“As a company striving to provide the best EV charging experience for users, we stand by technologies and standards preferred by our drivers,” said Yang.
FLO’s vertical integration strategy allows the company considerable agility in adapting to the standards and technologies most customers desire. This approach extends to hardware, software, and network design, fostering a nimbleness that enables the swift adoption of new technology and standards.
FLO’s latest stations, including the NEVI-compliant FLO UltraTM fast charger, have already been designed with the capability to support NACS cables if so requested by customers or site hosts.
FLO monitors and calculates the uptime of its charging stations using an in-house system known as SmartVIEW. This system remotely monitors the performance of each station in real-time, allowing it to identify any downtime, its frequency, and duration immediately.
Here is how the uptime calculation works in simpler terms:
First, SmartVIEW determines the total potential operating time by multiplying the number of hours in the examined period (usually a 12-month rolling basis) by the number of included stations. This represents the maximum possible uptime if all stations were operational 24/7.
Next, it tracks two important pieces of data for each station: the time when an outage begins (OT) and when it ends (ET). It adds all these time periods together to find the total downtime for all stations.
Finally, to calculate uptime, SmartVIEW subtracts the total downtime from the total potential operating time. It then divides this figure by the total potential operating time to calculate uptime as a percentage.
So, in essence, FLO’s uptime represents the proportion of time that the charging stations were operational compared to the total possible operational time.
Determined to continue providing the finest charging experience for all drivers, FLO is also developing a plan to give existing station customers the option to add NACS on compatible stations. Details regarding this option will be released in a forthcoming announcement.