A year ago, when automakers, EVSE suppliers and pundits enthusiastically jumped on the Tesla NACS bandwagon, the Charging Interface Initiative of North America (CharIN) was one of the few voices urging a little caution. CharIN’s mission is to facilitate the adoption of shipping standards, so the organization is now deeply involved in NACS (now known as SAE J3400) interoperability testing.
During my recent conversation with Erika Myers, CharIN’s Executive Director, I asked whether CharIN’s concerns about the new standard had been addressed.
“CharIN’s main concern was that NACS had not yet been standardized,” Ms. Myers told Charged. “Since then, we have been through the standard development process with SAE, and last December the Technical Information Report, an introduction to the development of the standard, was published. We launched the North American Freight Interoperability Task Force last July, which currently includes more than 300 individuals contributing to SAE J3400 standardization.
In the days of the wagon, pundits were predicting that CCS would quickly be replaced by Tesla’s NACS system. More thoughtful observers note that there are already more than a million CCS-equipped electric vehicles on the roads in the United States alone.
“We believe there will be many years of parallel existence between CCS and J3400, and our plan is to continue to support both,” Myers said. “CharIN is working collaboratively with SAE, Ford, Tesla, GM and many of our other members to ensure the J3400 is standardized and meets consumers’ needs for reliable and efficient charging.”
CharIN was and still is concerned about the use of transformers. “CharIN has a long-standing position that adapters are not an ideal solution for consumers, but recognizing that adapters are likely to be used for some time, we want to move forward to address the potential safety challenges of non-standard adapters. Therefore, CharIN has issued an Adapter Safety Statement regarding J3400/adapters J1772 The standard is expected to be published sometime this summer.
How does Tesla CEO’s recent decision to fire his company’s Supercharger team affect the ongoing standardization process? Ms. Myers told me that CharIN has been discussing the Tesla issue (of course), but does not currently have an official position on the matter. This is natural, considering the unpredictability of everything related to Tesla.
Moreover, while the disruptions at Tesla are certainly disruptive to its customers and business partners, they likely don’t matter much from a standardization standpoint. Tesla has gotten its innovation off the ground (or “fumbled the ball on the 10-yard line,” as one of our readers put it), and the processes of improving the standard and ensuring interoperability will continue, no matter what happens to the former industry trend setter.
Source: Sharin
