The White House is providing subsidies for charging stations that use Tesla connectors, as long as they also include a Combined Charging Standard (CCS) connector, Reuters Friday report.
Reported after an announcement by common engine this week, and Ford a few weeks earlier, that it would use the Tesla connector, which Tesla recently renamed the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for future electric vehicles. Both automakers have favored CCS up to this point.
The federal government said earlier this year that Tesla will need to open up its network for other electric vehicles to qualify for part of the $7.5 billion set aside in the Biden administration’s infrastructure law, which aims to create a national network of 500,000 chargers. Countries that have control over 5 billion dollars of that grant, spread over five years, but it must be approved by the federal government.
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The White House did not say whether the CCS adapter would be sufficient for Tesla to demonstrate interoperability, and that was not addressed in the statement reported by Reuters. Green Car Reports contacted the Joint Office overseeing the implementation of the program.
In a letter to the Federal Highway Administration last year, Tesla argued that its Supercharger stations must be eligible for federal funding if they are co-located with CCS stations, which does. would allow automakers to avoid installing CCS connectors on their own chargers.
The federal government is also in the middle solve charger reliability during infrastructure construction—including uptime and reliability data requirements. That’s another box Tesla will have to check for federal funding for its charging stations — funding other networks that rely on the CCS connector it was hoping to capitalize on.
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Following the defections of Ford and GM, federal funding of Tesla charging stations will be another blow to CCS. It also puts hardware manufacturers in a position of having to decide which formats to support. Some have announced plans to offer NACS compatibility.
“Ultimately, increasing adoption of the NACS standard involves both the widespread use of the standard by electric vehicle drivers and the reliability of the stations that currently provide NACS,” said Nathan Yang, product manager for NACS. FLO, said in a statement, adding that “FLO is an industry leader in reliability, delivering over 98% uptime.”
ABB North America released a statement on Twitter Friday says it will offer NACS connectors as an option on its products.
