BIG news for the North American electric vehicle industry! In a mission to accelerate the world's sustainable energy transition, last year Tesla announced that they were opening up their proprietary charging connector design, AKA North American Charging Standard (NACS), to the world. As we've seen, the Tesla Connector is only half the size of the Combined Charging System (CCS), but up to twice as powerful to charge. With an integrated AC/DC lightweight slim design with no moving parts, it supports up to 1 megawatt of DC charging. More importantly, Tesla owns 60%+ of the DC charging network in the United States. All the advantages prompted the two North American auto giants, Ford and GM have changed sides. And this wind shift has made the path of change in North American EV charging standards, like the Snowball Effect, develop rapidly. Since May of this year, automakers including Aptera, Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, and others have announced that they have signed agreements with Tesla and are planning to officially join the NACS by adding NACS ports to their new vehicles. The leading charging network and charging equipment manufacturers ABB, Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Electrify America, FLO, Tritium， etc. have also announced to provide NACS connector service on their EV charging stations or EV chargers. And on the 27th of last month, SAE officially announced that they will assist Tesla to accelerate the NACS standardization process. NACS may dominate the North American EV charging market, but for the stakeholders, there is no doubt that they have different concerns.   Automakers Competitors who share the electric car market with Tesla are focusing more on its Supercharger network, as it has the largest share of the DC fast charging network in North America. Consumers will always gravitate toward EV manufacturers with larger charging networks and more convenient charging, so improving charging convenience is tantamount to improving brand competitiveness and further expanding market share. On the other hand, the opening of Tesla's Supercharger means that the agreement saves these automakers from the high cost of building their own charging stations.But they are more concerned that interoperability for non-Tesla owners using the Supercharger network can attain highly user-friendly, as well as secure the charging benefits for drivers of their brand. Given the still inadequate EVSE, achieving charging equity for consumers is the key. For automakers planning to adopt NACS ports in future new vehicles, they need to consider the development difficulty and cost of structural changes and ensure that EVs have a design life of a decade or more. How to better integrate with the ID design of their products, and how to design the location of the charging port to make charging more accessible are all considerations that need to be addressed. In the transition phase of charging standards, perhaps an adapter is not optimal (as interoperability is not always effective), but offers more flexibility. Alternatively, having a slower portable electric vehicle Level 2 EV Charger along with the car will work just as well for most drivers.     Charging Equipment Manufacturers For charging equipment manufacturers, choosing NACS connectors undoubtedly means choosing the future. The Tesla connector's up to 1 MW power redundancy design, in a sense, reduces the technical difficulty for manufacturers to develop. After all, the market demand for EV charging is moving toward higher power, more stable current, and faster charging speed. Improving the stability and reliability of the equipment and lowering the average cost of maintenance is exactly what they have to consider if NACS connectors are added. For high-power charging equipment, controlling the temperature of cables, terminals, and components, and considering the combination with liquid-cooled supercharging technology can significantly improve the manufacturer's competitiveness.   Workersbee, as a professional EV Plug Manufacturer, has industry-leading ultrasonic welding technology and connector cooling technology. The EV Charging Plug can make temperature monitoring and voltage and current monitoring to guarantee the stability and charging safety of the equipment. At the end of the gun will be lengthened design to protect the cable, a high anti-drop design, greatly reducing the maintenance cost and the possibility of breakdown. Meanwhile, due to the different charging port positions of non-Tesla vehicles, different models have different cable length requirements, and Workersbee's ODM and OEM services can customize the cable length.     Charging Networks Charging Point Operators are facing up EV owners, and their main concern is to provide drivers with a pleasurable charging experience and thus increase their charging incomes. This means chargers should be highly reliable (high accessibility, stable running), easy to handle (lightweight EV cables, easy to plug and unplug, even for disabilities or women with little strength), as well as have more options (NACS, CCS, CHAdeMO ports) or be able to meet different charging needs ( Level 2 AC charging, low-power or high-power DC fast-charging).     Administration From the government's subsidy standards, high reliability is a MUST requirement. In terms of the new standards for electric vehicle chargers announced by the White House, the equipment is required to achieve 97% uptime to build a convenient, reliable, accessible, and user-friendly charging network for EV drivers. Tesla's NACS Supercharger network meets this requirement, unlike many other devices that often break down and cannot be charged. The administration aims to eliminate drivers' doubts and concerns by building an EV charging market that can gain widespread acceptance and recognition, which will in turn boost EV adoption to achieve the goal of electrifying the country to combat climate change.   Energy Utilities   Pressures on energy supply are increasing by the day. They need to consider load balance and demand response on the grid and achieve reliability and efficiency in energy distribution in different areas, whether urban centers, village suburbs, or low-income areas. They also want to manage and plan for EV charging demand through the standardization of NACS to maximize the balance of grid pressure. Through the efforts of all parties to realize the diversity of renewable energy development (such as solar energy, wind energy, etc.) and reduce carbon emissions. Utilizing the integration of solar energy and charging pile, conforming to the development trend of PV， Energy Storage, and Charging, realizing low-power DC fast charging. Workersbee's R&D team is actively developing NACS low-power DC charging cable products in response to this market demand, with a dedicated project team. Utilities would also like to embrace smart charging management through microgrid-distributed energy management， which schedules and optimizes charging sessions based on tariffs, grid conditions, and renewable energy availability.   EV Drivers The opening of the NACS connector is not always good news for some auto owners. Tesla owners will worry about whether their advantage as Tesla consumers still stands. With Tesla drivers still often facing long and disorganized charging queues and other annoyances, if there are still non-Tesla drivers joining the competition, whether Tesla's future deployment of its Supercharger network can solve their difficulties in finding chargers. And for non-Tesla owners, having access to Tesla's Supercharger network is a delight, whether through an adapter or a direct connector to the NACS charging port of a future new vehicle. Tesla owns more than half of the fast chargers in North America, which means increased charging convenience and high power significantly reduce charging wait time. The great design of the NACS connector also makes it easier to plug and unplug than the bulky CCS connector. In point, they expect to have the same user-friendly charging experience as Tesla drivers who get stable and efficient charging. But no matter which side, EV drivers want to have charging fairness, orderly queues for charging, and less wait time. Workersbee has always been committed to promoting the development of EV charging and striving for the achievement of global climate goals. We always pay attention to industry policy trends and positively respond to them. We have several R&D project teams working in parallel to develop NACS series products, including (but not limited to) NACS connectors, NACS adapters, etc. Contact us to explore how we can help your business capitalize on the NACS opportunity.