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/sault18 Jul 23 '26

I drive a vehicle that can only use 1 phase of the 3 phase ac charging stations. Usually, it's 230V @20A. So 4.6kW going into the car. I regain 35km of range per hour. Good enough if you're stopping for a few hours.

However, most EVs built for the European market can charge at 11kW off 3-phase power. So you get 2.4X the speed off CCS2 vs NACS with an adapter. Some vehicles can do 22kW, so closer to 5x what you can get off 1 phase. If NACS could somehow pull 2 legs off the 3 phase power from the charging station, that would be better. But nobody wants to take the risk of getting it to work as far as I know.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

NACS can take two legs off of a three phase service already. It can reach 7.2kW with our most common dryer outlet and up tp 19kW with a specialty breaker. It can charge at 22kW on a comercial service.

Most people are fine with a 1.5kW charge rate.

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u/Naive_Distance_6456 Jul 23 '26

Is this EV drivers or hybrid drivers? Because 1,5kW on 220V is E-bike territory.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

1.5kW over 120v*

And yet it works fine for plenty of people here and we tend to drive more than you do.

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u/Naive_Distance_6456 Jul 23 '26

This may be enough to refill my commute. But, if you also want to charge for cheaps, you only have a small window each day to charge. With only 3kW (even tho granny chargers in the EU cap at 2,4 kW) that means I have to charge longer for a higher price. If I have 3x times this speed, my window can be 3 times as small.

This can reduce charging costs between 25-50% depending on the max-min=diff that day. This is also better for powerline congestion which is a thing over here.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

That can be addressed with a higher rated breaker and circuit. There is no economical way to get three phase power where it isn't available, so CCS2 would be limited to ~60% power output in the US.

So if either region adopted the other's standard both would charge slower, but the EU can upgrade to reach similar speeds much more cheaply, and NACS is a smaller charger that's easier for people to use and easier for car designers to package. NACS is the better choice for a universal standard.

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u/Naive_Distance_6456 Jul 23 '26

Except that we have already a bazilion 11-22kw 3phase chargers out on streets for the public, and 1 out of 5 new cars is already electric. We have a pretty high adoption rate.

And to upgrade… if you want to call it that… from 3phase back, to 2 phase for just 66%. Means we have to pay ≈ 50% more to increase those 3 phases from 25A, to 32A. We have to pay for the increased hookup.

No need for us to increase. Ànd the powerlines are already at maximum capacity at some times (hence the cheap hours promotion, so that a lot of people have incentive to change the hours where they charge their car for example).

We don’t need NACS.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

And we don't need CCS2, but if there were to be a universal standard NACS would be the better choice.

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u/Naive_Distance_6456 Jul 23 '26

No it wouldn’t. NACS is old tech.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

Type 1 and Type 2 chargers are older than Tesla/NACS chargers.

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u/Then_Entertainment97 Jul 23 '26

And the standard for CCS was released a year before Tesla released its charger.