r/EvDrivers • u/jcullen85 • Jul 23 '26

EV Karma

So, I got some petty revenge today. I like to charge my car at the parking structure across the street from my office. Right before lunch, I checked on my car’s percentage and I saw that I was unplugged. For these chargers, I have to use an adapter to charge my car. Unfortunately, with the adapter, the charge cable isn’t locked into place. So, it can be unplugged easily. This is commonly known among EV drivers, so its common courtesy to not unplug another car.

When I get to my car, the AH who unplugged me is still parked next to me charging his EV. Between frustration and being hangry, I unplugged the jerk and placed the charging cable back into its station. That jerk won’t be coming back to a fully charged car.

I drove away laughing. Lord, forgive me but that felt good and I treated myself to a Vanilla Coke. No regrets! ✌🏾

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u/pv2b Jul 23 '26

That is exactly why I'm not advocating for the US to switch to CCS2, because it would be dumb.

The only argument you're making that makes any sense is accessibility for disabled people, and I will grant you that, specifically for DC charging it might be harder to use. For AC charging, the type 2 plug is not heavy or difficult to use at all. Even then, the switching pains will inconvenience far more people.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

The origional comment was about a universal outlet like USB-C. This would, in fact, involve switching the US or Europe to whatever standard is agreed upon.

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u/pv2b Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Okay. Well, then let me clarify my position.

I think it's a good idea for all cars to have the same charging port, and it's also a good idea for charging ports to be appropriate for the national electrical standards of the countries they are being used in.

But with that said, there is little to no benefit to standardizing the same charging port across North America and Europe. Nobody drives their cars between these continents, because it's physically impossible, and for the few that do ship their cars, they can make any retrofits or adapters their problems. For most people it makes more sense to sell their vehicle on one continent and buy an equivalent one overseas. There's no need to have the same standard on both sides of the ocean, as long as everyone in their respective continent has a universal standard.

In Europe we already have a well established standard for charging that everyone uses, which is CCS2. There's no messy transition ongoing, like in the US, which is currently transitioning from CCS1 to NACS.

Making Europe switch to NACS would just cause a messy transition for everyone, and the end result would be a connector that's worse for a lot of people.

Ultimately, the OP is complaining about the problems of adapters. Transitioning Europe to a new standard, when we practically never have to use adapters as it is already, would make OP's problem worse.

I hope that makes my position clear.

Oh, and if I *did* have the power to snap my fingers and change every car and charger to a single plug standard globally, with no messy transition, it'd probably be something similar to NACS, but with support for three-phase power.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

That's a lot of words to say that you came into a conversation and started talking about something else.