There are plenty of places in the country that’s the only option.

> In response, in November 2022, Tesla supplanted its previous proprietary charging connector,[10] sometimes informally called the Tesla proprietary connector,[11][12] with a new "North American Charging Standard" (NACS) and opened the standard to make the specifications available to other EV manufacturers. Unlike the Tesla proprietary connector which uses CAN bus to communicate, NACS uses power-line communication (PLC).[13] Like CCS, NACS uses the ISO 15118 protocol, making any CCS vehicle electrically compatible with NACS.[14] Only a simple pass-through adapter is needed to make CCS vehicles compatible with NACS. On the other hand, Tesla vehicles built prior to 2021 are incompatible with CCS and require an ECU retrofit to become compatible with CCS.

>One aspect of the news that seems to have flown below the radar is that the so-called NACS is effectively the next generation of Tesla connector and protocols. The connector itself is slightly modified, but backward-compatible with older Teslas.

I suggest not buying any adapter unless it's been endorsed by your vehicle manufacturer. A2Z claims they're working with OEMs, but haven't said which ones.

Props to Tesla for adopting the CCS1 signalling protocol. Adapters would be more expensive if they required a microcontroller.

I don't want an adapter that makes Big Clive say "oh, that's even better. That's very interesting."

https://insideevs.com/news/682634/electrify-america-evgo-ban...

So if anything goes wrong, you're probably in a worse position from a liability/compensation standpoint.

Best Buy sent me and everyone who bought them within a certain period before discontinuing a $100 gift voucher.

In north america, essentially everyone has agreed on the NACS [1] (starting in 2025). In Europe they use a "Type 2" aka CCS2[2], and in China they use GB/T[3]. So we're getting there in north america, it'll just be another couple years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_connector

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB/T_charging_standard

How could a Supercharger freeze? I don't know all details, but some connectors would report as NO LATCH and Tesla would refuse to charge.

Apparently it's about some moisture freezing in the connector and preventing proper mating with the port. Literally, some ice in the 'needle' holes. Maybe some other issues.

I'm not sure if this is a design problem or maybe some improvements are due if this type to become standard.

Tesla is on version 4 of their Supercharger, and many improvements have been made since v1. Iteration is progress, expect it to continue. We're only at the beginning of a historical mobility transformation.

https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electr...

https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-...

https://supercharge.info/map

https://supercharge.info/map?siteID=7341 (52 stall station Tesla is building by ORD in Chicago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger

(own several Teslas, in 6 years have never arrived at a down station in over ~200k aggregate miles traveled long distance in the US; one of my residences is in the greater Chicago area, so I am very familiar with the charger network there)

Frozen Supercharger connector is not a clickbait. It's a reality of -9F over 3-day weekend.

At some stations snow drift would be up to the charger so that cable may accidentally fall into the snow when putting it back.

I can see how such connector would be then put upright and the moisture would end up in the mating holes.

Also, waiting in the line at the charger (some waits were over 1hr) would likely cool the battery, unless driver would manually keep the battery conditioning on, which eats the charge too!

Then it goes to slow charge due to cold battery. Which increases the wait time to the others in the line...

Dismissing these issues on personal experience does little to improving the infrastructure and charger design.

There was a case where they hadn’t properly desulpherized gas down south so the fuel contained an acid that damaged the fuel gauge so the gauge would always read “full” and you’d drive till you ran out of gas.

There was another case where gas got contaminated with water in NJ which led to the strange spectacle of people noticing a lot of broken down cars as they approached the gas station, then they drove a block and broke down

https://archive.ph/2024.02.07-190857/https://www.nytimes.com...

This just in: https://www.thedrive.com/news/fuel-shipping-company-charged-...

That was a windy and wet storm, lots of deep drifts, road signage covered, etc. now there are quite a few Tesla drivers who are not enthusiasts and don’t know everything about the tech.

Issue one: if you don’t precondition the battery it’s going to take a while to warm up before charging, and if you are unfamiliar you may think something is broken, and tell other people a charger is broke when it isn’t. In fact you might even leave the charger hanging to indicate it isn’t working instead of putting it back in its receptacle, causing it to ice over.

Issue two: some chargers iced over even when returned to their receptacles properly. Superchargers aren’t new to the Midwest and this was a nasty storm but not something we hadn’t seen before, I don’t think there is some fatal flaw, but idk what the stats are for how many ice up.

Issue three: non preconditioned batteries take way longer to charge, lowering the throughput of the chargers that were not (mistakenly or otherwise) broken.

Issue four, that I didn’t see anyone on the news talking about: you have to back into superchargers. Snow had drifted against the chargers and backing up into them with a RWD version of a Tesla was real hard. I saw several people struggling with this. My rental was AWD and had no problems.

Overall, I’d say I didn’t love the vehicle (AWD model Y) but DC charging was the one thing that really worked well for me, regardless of storm. Before the storm I went 20% to 50% at like 230 kW. That’s fast. I didn’t get that sort of speed during the cold (but I was also on the slower part of the charging curve above 50%) but it still worked well for me.

Latch problems in freezing temps is not new. Some drivers even work around the frozen connectors by parking sideways (!) to the charger then bringing the connector indoors just to warm it up enough for the moisture to thaw out. Don't know how long this could take.

Perhaps, some heated receptacles on the charger or some antifreeze laced cradle could deal with that. Again, this is the reality of wider EV adoption, extension of field-test. So some adjustments are due.

https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/198g0o5/t...

The Tesla connector latch issues in freezing temps are likely common as well.

Or cross your fingers and hope GM's bean counters authorize buying you one, but I would not hold your breath.

I love my Model 3, but I already decided that my next car would not be a Tesla because I don't like the direction the design of the cars have been going, and I don't want to give more money to Elon Musk, but I'm still going to remain an EV driver.

I have a Tesla wall charger in my garage. By everyone switching to NACS, it means I don't need to replace it.

Still praying the Corvette EV impresses, and praying that I won't have to be on a 12+ month waitlist to get one.

Tesla could have won at any point, but they waited until a ton of cars were sold and a ton of infrastructure was built just to obsolete it all.

Tesla's sales depended on the Supercharger network to soothe consumer range anxiety for long distance travel. It was existential to build it, so might as well save nothing for the swim back (>$1B investment globally). It is now an asset that legacy auto needs access to in order to sell EVs they must build and sell to survive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrify_America

The Tesla Supercharger network is an under-advertised feature.

The third party networks are just so half-assed. Slow (The 19.2 kW J-1772 plug should have never existed, and it took too long for CCS to catch on), expensive, and half the time not even working.

An optional retrofit would be great. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.