The future of electric vehicle charging depends on Tesla’s Supercharger network division. Unfortunately this entire department was fired IN Last week, there were mass layoffs of the company’s CEO, Elon Musk. The world of electric vehicles was turned upside down in 2023 when Musk staged a coup Tesla’s once-proprietary charging plug to the soon-to-be-ubiquitous North American Charge Standard (NACS) plug adopted by Ford, Rivian, Stellantis, General Motors, Volkswagen, Hyundai/Kia; basically everyone. None of these companies sells cars with a NACS plug yet, so one by one to charge them using a Tesla Supercharger you need an adapter key. The Atlantic I just posted a deep dive into the mess this whole situation has become, and you should definitely read it.
WITH Atlantic: :
However, like everything with Tesla, it’s not that plain. The introduction of NACS from the success story of electric cars has become the key to the future of electric vehicles. Musk fired Tesla last week 500-person Supercharger teama surprising and inexplicable move, considering how central governance has become for the company. On his social media platform X, Musk posted that Tesla will develop its Supercharger network “at a slower pace.” According to reports, Ford and Rivian are now in the obscure because they have lost their main contacts within the company.
I remember when Apple switched everything to its own Lightning charging port and removed the 3.5mm headphone jack from its phones. My car had an AUX port but no Bluetooth, so I could no longer operate my recent phone to play music. I had to buy a bunch of crappy headphone dongles to convert the signal. It was an extra expense, an extra thing I had to carry, and an extra level of annoyance. In my opinion, this is the current state of electric vehicle charging. Somehow Tesla tricked everyone into moving away from a perfectly good solution and adopting a not-so-perfect NACS port, and now everyone who bought an EV with a CCS port is left behind, just like everyone who bought an EV with a CHAdeMO port five years ago . The whole thing just stinks.
Why this recent Tesla adapter fixes — and doesn’t — fix electric vehicle charging | WSJ
I’ve driven across the country in electric vehicles a few times, and while it’s not particularly arduous anymore, it’s still quite annoying. Half a dozen apps are needed to search, map, pay and initiate charging sessions. This is where Tesla’s integration with the company’s cars made for a great charging experience. Until recently, Tesla chargers only had to communicate with Teslas, which literally meant “plug and play.” You don’t have to swipe your card, deal with the app, or restart your session because the “handshake” didn’t have the right vibration or anything.
More from The Atlantic: :
The introduction of these adapters will be an early test of how much Tesla is willing to continue to invest in charging. At worst, the layoffs suggest that now that Tesla has won the charging plug wars, Musk is abandoning the mission because is trying to turn the company around artificial intelligence. “Firing the entire Supercharger staff means that Tesla will no longer have anyone to develop software updates and ensure interoperability with non-Tesla vehicles,” Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for electromobility research at Guidehouse Insights, told me. “Over time, this can lead to reduced reliability of existing chargers and adapters.”
Overall, this transition has become a win-win situation, and the next few years of installing NACS chargers while manufacturers continue to produce EVs with CCS charging ports will turn into a dongle nightmare. If you must operate an adapter, refrain from the siren song of a budget-friendly power supply from Alibaba, Temu, or whatever, because you’re running a lot of high voltage through something that probably wasn’t properly designed to handle it. You don’t want to die or burn your car because you overpriced your adapter.
