NACS for all?

EV9, the world is your oyster (dongle not included, yet)…

I’ve had at least one EV for a long time - a 2016 Tesla Model S P90DL. While that car may have Supercharging for life, it has rarely charged on anything other than a regular L2 unit at the house.

Things change, though, and the Model S is now joined by a Model Y and a Kia EV9. The Model Y has had a number of trips to Atlanta (from north of Charlotte), and a recent Chappell Roan/Charlie XCX trek to Knoxville (via a circuitous route, due to the tragic devastation in western NC). The EV9 has had a couple long-ish trips as well.

A few days ago I took care of the largest issue I have with using the EV9 for longer trips, and that’s the charging infrastructure. The EV9 uses CCS, which is awesome if you find a CCS fast charger. The Electrify America 250-350kW stations aren’t that hard to find, and they’re amazingly fast. The problem is a matter of uptime, location, and open chargers.

You’ll definitely have enough time to grab some food at Sheetz :/

I got a CCS1 to NACS adapter. We already use a J1772 adapter at home to charge the Teslas, but the new adapter enables the EV9 to charge on a Tesla Supercharger. I have a few notes…

First, at around $180 (at the time of this post) the adapter is expensive. Considering what it is, it’s hard to imagine the BOM and assembly cost is even a quarter of this price - and that’s bearing in mind the high current that this needs to be able to handle.

Second, the thing is CHONKY. Due to the size of a CCS1 connector, there’s not much anyone can do about this. However, the thing is a great candidate for going into my EV9’s hilariously small frunk.

Third, due to the EV9’s 800V battery, the charge rates from a Supercharger aren’t great. Like 90kW, or so, at best. Then again, when many Supercharger stations are half full, you probably won’t get that with a Tesla, either. This one isn’t as big of a deal, as you’ll most likely use a Supercharger out of necessity or convenience, which probably means you don’t care as much about raw charging speed.

Not related to the adapter, I have to say that the Supercharger experience isn’t all that bad with a non-Telsa. With a Telsa, the entire experience is great - the charger knows who you are, and as long as you have a linked payment card, you don’t really have to do anything. Aside from hooking up and unhooking the charger cord, that is. With a non-Telsa, the experience is still nicer than ChargePoint or Electrify America (a low bar, for sure).

If you want the adapter, please click through the link above. It won’t cost you any more, but it will give me a tiny bit through the Amazon Affiliate program. Thanks!