The North American Charging System Will Finally Fix Public Charging

THERE'S HOPE FOR THE FRAGMENTED AND FRUSTRATING EV CHARGING LANDSCAPE NOW THAT TESLA'S BETTER IDEA HAS WON OUT.

- Frank Markus

Public charging of electric vehicles got off to a rocky start as non-Tesla EVs first began proliferating. Given that no competitor decided to expend the effort to develop its own bespoke charging network as Tesla had, third parties were left to fill in the gaps with networks that have largely lagged in customer satisfaction. This is changing at last, with other automakers switching to Tesla's network and various automakers and consortia opening new, elevated charging centers—all of which we considered for our Best Public Charging Experience award. Of these, the recently rebranded and now SAE-blessed North American Charging System (NACS) was the clear winner, pointing the way forward for all public charging.

The simple user experience of manipulating and attaching the slimmer, smarter NACS connector has always been vastly superior to the struggle you face when connecting a clunky CCS plug for DC fast charging. And although a J1772 AC Level 1 or 2 connector is no harder to handle than the NACS connector, the Tesla-developed one is vastly superior here, too, because it's so much smarter. If a ground-fault interruption in your power supply disrupts a charging session, the NACS communication protocol will detect and communicate this, sparing drivers any uncertainty that could result in an unnecessary service call or dealer visit.