There are quite a lot of EV charging adapters on the market, however there’s by no means been one that can permit non-Tesla EVs to cost at Tesla Superchargers in North America – till now. That is as a result of even when such an adapter was developed, it would not work as a result of Tesla Superchargers have an authentication course of that ensures solely licensed automobiles get despatched energy from the station.
Tesla automobiles are at the moment the one automobiles which can be licensed to drink from the coveted Supercharger community, however that is about to alter. As soon as Ford introduced it could be transitioning to Tesla’s North American Charging Normal (NACS) connector, the business adopted and Acura, Fisker, Normal Motors, Honda, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Polestar, and Volvo have all adopted Ford with related bulletins.
The automakers will likely be putting in the NACS charging ports of their respective automobiles beginning in 2025, however to ensure that the present electrical automobiles they’ve bought to additionally achieve entry to the Superchargers, an adapter will likely be wanted.
Tesla is engineering its personal NACS to CCS1 adapter, however there can even be many firms doing the identical, and attempting to get a chunk of this very giant electrical automobile adapter market.
One such firm is A2Z EV, a Canadian-based agency that sells a wide range of EV charging adapters. A2Z reached out to me and supplied to ship me an early model of its NACS to CCS1 adapter for my overview. For the reason that agreements the automakers have cast with Tesla for Supercharger entry do not start till 2024, there is no technique to correctly take a look at the adapter whereas charging a CCS1 EV on a Tesla Supercharger.
Nevertheless, I did cost a Tesla Mannequin 3 with the adapter through the use of each the NACS to Tesla adapter, coupled with a CCS1 to NACS adapter, simply to observe the facility switch by the adapter.
Within the video, I used to be at a V2 Tesla Supercharger that was power-sharing with one other automobile on the time, so my automobile solely pulled 72 kW by the adapter (and I had a little bit of a brain-fart and questioned why it wasn’t pulling extra). I do plan to go to a V3 Supercharger and maybe a magic dock location to see the way it works there.
I additionally had the chance to interview Amine Zitour, the founder and CEO of A2Z EV, for this video, and realized fairly a bit about it.
Tesla NACS to CCS1 adapter by A2Z EV
It is vital to notice that this is not the ultimate model of the adapter. A2Z has given samples to some automakers and is getting feedback again from them. Zitour stated they are going to incorporate all the enhancements that the OEMs ask for, in an effort to have his adapter formally permitted by a number of automakers. I will be doing a follow-up video to debate with Zitour, the enhancements that have been made.
The adapter is rated at 300-amps, so will probably be capable of ship about 120-kW repeatedly to an EV with a 400-volt battery and 240-kW to a automobile with an 800-volt system. Nevertheless, Zitour defined to me that it could help greater than 300-amps for brief intervals with out overheating. In lots of instances, an EV will settle for quite a lot of energy for 5-10 minutes earlier than ramping down its energy consumption, and the adapter will be capable of ship it.
Zitour promised to maintain me up to date with the enhancements as they’re applied and supply me with the ultimate product earlier than the tip of this 12 months. The precise pricing and the discharge date for ordering have not been established but however will likely be within the subsequent couple of months.
So take a look at the video and tell us your ideas within the remark part under.