Munro predicts Ford will switch to NACS only (Tesla standard) based on their announcement from last week.

[Amps]

It should be do-able, with a new EVSE and support from the vehicle.

It should be doable with existing if HIS/FCSP via update and NACS can adopt ISO 15118 as their V2X implementation.

Do you know if the V2X portion of ISO 15118 uses on-board or external inverters or contains provisions for both methods?

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[djwildstar]

It should be doable with existing if HIS/FCSP via update and NACS can adopt ISO 15118 as their V2X implementation.

Do you know if the V2X portion of ISO 15118 uses on-board or external inverters or contains provisions for both methods?

The existing FCSP? I don't think so. You might be able to put an adapter between the FCSP CCS plug and a NACS vehicle socket, but that adapter would have to communicate with the FCSP and the vehicle, and contain a switch that could handle both 240V 80A charging current and 400V 25A V2X output -- so at this point, the adapter is getting the be the size and cost of an EVSE in its own right. Add to that the additional cable length and another set of plugs, and I doubt Ford would go for it.

I expect that Ford will redesign their EVSE for the 2025 model year. They may go with the NACS plugs, which would mean that the CCS receptacle in 2024+ vehicles would only be for away-from-home use at chargers that lack an NACS option.

ISO 15118 is specifically about communication between the vehicle, EVSE, and larger grid (plug-and-charge is a part of the standard). It doesn't really say much about the architecture of the energy storage and delivery solution -- so it should be usable in either situation.

In general, I suspect that vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid applications will probably not use on-board inverters. The 10kW inverter for the HIS isn't small or light, so that's a lot of space, weight, and cost for the vehicle to devote to a system that will only be used when it is parked.

 

[carys98]

They are guessing. Everybody is. Even Ford admitted they don't know what they will be doing.

There's nothing stopping them having NACS and CCS side by side. You don't have to have completely different cabling for each. They could be tied together right at the sockets, so your only extra cost would be space on the vehicle and the price of the "extra" socket.

Saying that, my hope is it's NACS going forward, and Ford provides a CCS to NACS adaptor as standard equipment, like Tesla does.

They’ll never tie two charging ports together directly. If they did you would have an exposed 400V set of pins accessible by the user. Also, what kind of nightmare scenarios are possible if you plugged two chargers in at the same time? Adding a second port is going to require an additional set of contactors and that is the bigger cost driver than the connector and some cable.

 

[sotek2345]

The existing FCSP? I don't think so. You might be able to put an adapter between the FCSP CCS plug and a NACS vehicle socket, but that adapter would have to communicate with the FCSP and the vehicle, and contain a switch that could handle both 240V 80A charging current and 400V 25A V2X output -- so at this point, the adapter is getting the be the size and cost of an EVSE in its own right. Add to that the additional cable length and another set of plugs, and I doubt Ford would go for it.

I expect that Ford will redesign their EVSE for the 2025 model year. They may go with the NACS plugs, which would mean that the CCS receptacle in 2024+ vehicles would only be for away-from-home use at chargers that lack an NACS option.

ISO 15118 is specifically about communication between the vehicle, EVSE, and larger grid (plug-and-charge is a part of the standard). It doesn't really say much about the architecture of the energy storage and delivery solution -- so it should be usable in either situation.

In general, I suspect that vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid applications will probably not use on-board inverters. The 10kW inverter for the HIS isn't small or light, so that's a lot of space, weight, and cost for the vehicle to devote to a system that will only be used when it is parked.

But the Lightning already has those inverters onboard for the outlets. I have

 

[djwildstar]

But the Lightning already has those inverters onboard for the outlets.

It does ... but the Lightning doesn't use them for intelligent backup power.

When the HIS detects a power outage and is ready to provide backup power, it signals the FCSP, which in turn signals the Lightning to provide power. The truck puts high-voltage DC from the battery pack on the CCS DC pins, and a dedicated high-voltage DC circuit carries this power to the 10kW inverter in the HIS, which then powers your house.

It is interesting that the Lightning doesn't use the Pro Power Onboard inverters for intelligent backup power, but it doesn't. I'm not sure what the rationale is, but there are some possibilities:

• It is possible to build a Pro or XLT Lightning without Pro Power Onboard. So one rationale might be so that intelligent backup power works with all F-150 Lightnings, regardless of trim.
• There could be some significant engineering differences between the inverters.
  • There might be different electrical or functional requirements between the HIS vehicle-to-home use case and the Pro Power Onboard vehicle-to-load use case.
  • If nothing else, Pro Power Onboard uses three different 120V inverters, while the HIS uses a single larger inverter.

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

They are guessing. Everybody is. Even Ford admitted they don't know what they will be doing.

There's nothing stopping them having NACS and CCS side by side. You don't have to have completely different cabling for each. They could be tied together right at the sockets, so your only extra cost would be space on the vehicle and the price of the "extra" socket.

Saying that, my hope is it's NACS going forward, and Ford provides a CCS to NACS adaptor as standard equipment, like Tesla does.

Based on the video, the NACS has a lot of potential cost savings if they change more than just the connectors, which is why they're waiting until the 2nd Generation EVs hit the market. The adapters will bridge that gap and for what it's worth, I'm okay with needing to use one. Tesla owners use adapters to use non-Tesla chargers too.

I hope NACS eventually becomes the ONLY standard in North America. Having one standard goes a long way to finally seeing mass adoption.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

The only reason you haven’t seen a LOT more data is because YOU have not looked for it. There are plenty of examples of broken NACS ports. No amount of redesign is going to change the fact that the NACS connection point is very small and prone to extreme stress.

All it would take is someone putting their weight on the cable and that port is going to break, not the cable but the port in the car. I can easily envision some Tesla or EV hater coming across a line of NACS EVs charging and breaking the charging ports on every one of the EVs simply by putting his weight on the charging plugs. Not to mention non-malicious accidents like someone hitting the cable with a shopping cart or parking too close to a charging EV.

No, you can’t fix this by saying it’s not true.

Im not a scientist, but I am a Tesla owner - multiples of them actually. 3 of which are over 100,000 miles with one of them approaching 200,000 miles, so plenty of cycles on the NACS.

My Teslas have had…multiple door motors replaced. Multiple AC compressors replaced. Condensation issues that required me to rip the entire interior apart. Steering column failures. Motor failure. MCU failure. Multiple camera failures. Hood latch replacement. Door latch replacement. Control arms replaced. Body control module failures. Onboard charger failure. I’ve even had the charge port door fail and replaced. a lot of these were common failures across all my Teslas.

But I haven’t had any issues with the charge port itself on any of my Teslas.

Nobody has been malicious to them. My kids often plug/unplug them so they’re not always handled with care.

Can’t speak to the research, but I don’t have any concerns about using NACS or CCS based on my experience with them. Ive got my bundle of adapters and welcome the option on road trips.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

The existing FCSP? I don't think so. You might be able to put an adapter between the FCSP CCS plug and a NACS vehicle socket, but that adapter would have to communicate with the FCSP and the vehicle, and contain a switch that could handle both 240V 80A charging current and 400V 25A V2X output -- so at this point, the adapter is getting the be the size and cost of an EVSE in its own right. Add to that the additional cable length and another set of plugs, and I doubt Ford would go for it.

I expect that Ford will redesign their EVSE for the 2025 model year. They may go with the NACS plugs, which would mean that the CCS receptacle in 2024+ vehicles would only be for away-from-home use at chargers that lack an NACS option.

ISO 15118 is specifically about communication between the vehicle, EVSE, and larger grid (plug-and-charge is a part of the standard). It doesn't really say much about the architecture of the energy storage and delivery solution -- so it should be usable in either situation.

In general, I suspect that vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid applications will probably not use on-board inverters. The 10kW inverter for the HIS isn't small or light, so that's a lot of space, weight, and cost for the vehicle to devote to a system that will only be used when it is parked.

Would it be hard? (Not an electrical engineer)

I think someone said the communication with the truck is over Bluetooth between the FCSP and the truck right now. I would think that could still be the same. I was also under the impression that whether to push or pull AC or DC is determined/switched by the HiS/FCSP but I could be wrong.

If that’s all still in place, Tesla sells a CCS to NACS adapter for $175. I don’t know if it’ll work with FCSP but I know the NACS port is able to deal with both the AC and DC requirements my Model S charges at 240V/80A AC on my Gen 2 Tesla wall charger and plugs into the Supercharger network pulling 400V/300A DC.

It’s not the cheapest thing but if you’re dumping $5-10k on the HiS, a $200 adapter to keep using it with a 2nd Gen wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

 

[djwildstar]

I think someone said the communication with the truck is over Bluetooth between the FCSP and the truck right now. I would think that could still be the same. I was also under the impression that whether to push or pull AC or DC is determined/switched by the HiS/FCSP but I could be wrong.

If that’s all still in place, Tesla sells a CCS to NACS adapter for $175. I don’t know if it’ll work with FCSP but I know the NACS port is able to deal with both the AC and DC requirements my Model S charges at 240V/80A AC on my Gen 2 Tesla wall charger and plugs into the Supercharger network pulling 400V/300A DC.

It’s not the cheapest thing but if you’re dumping $5-10k on the HiS, a $200 adapter to keep using it with a 2nd Gen wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Yes, the FCSP communicates with the truck over BlueTooth (source: SunRun's troubleshooting guide "Issues Paring the Charge Station Pro to the Ford Lightning"), so that would still work. And I believe that the FCSP coordinates with the HIS and tells the truck to output DC for the inverters when the HIS is ready to accept it.

The fundamental issue is that NACS carries AC or DC charging current over the same pins, while CCS uses different pins for AC and DC. This means that a "dumb" adapter won't work for both use cases:

• The Tesla CCS adapter connects the CCS DC pins to the NACS charge pins, leaving the AC pins unconnected. So with a FCSP, this would let you get DC power out of the vehicle to feed to the HIS inverter, but you couldn't charge (because the Level 2 AC pins aren't connected).
• The Tesla J1772 adapter connects the J1772 AC pins to the NACS charge pins, so if you used this, you could charge a NACS vehicle from a FCSP, but you couldn't get backup power out (and if the vehicle put 400V DC on the NACS charge pins while they're connected to utility AC, it could be Very Bad).

So the solution would need to be a "smart" adapter that includes a contactor that can switch the NACS charge pins between the CCS DC pins and J1772 AC pins as needed. It would also need a controller to coordinate with the FCSP and vehicle to ensure that the adapter is in the correct state before either the FCSP or the vehicle put power on any pins. It could be engineered, but it wouldn't be cheap -- the price point for the adapter would probably be somewhere between a Tesla Wall Connector and a Ford Connected Charge Station. So overall it makes a lot more sense to redesign the FCSP to directly support NACS vehicles.

 

[djwildstar]

They’ll never tie two charging ports together directly. If they did you would have an exposed 400V set of pins accessible by the user. Also, what kind of nightmare scenarios are possible if you plugged two chargers in at the same time? Adding a second port is going to require an additional set of contactors and that is the bigger cost driver than the connector and some cable.

I agree -- an extra contactor to switch between the charging ports would be the preferable solution, and if I was in charge of the engineering, that would be the way I'd go.

That said, never say never. If you put the two connectors side-by-side, you could devise a lockout mechanism so that it's impossible to connect to both simultaneously. I'm also pretty sure that both the NACS and CCS plugs are IP20, meaning that it isn't possible to get fingers into the live portions of the plug.

The side-by-side lockout solution is likely to cost a lot less to produce, since it could be done with a few pieces of plastic and some pins and springs. So if cost is an issue, we might see a solution like that.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

Yes, the FCSP communicates with the truck over BlueTooth (source: SunRun's troubleshooting guide "Issues Paring the Charge Station Pro to the Ford Lightning"), so that would still work. And I believe that the FCSP coordinates with the HIS and tells the truck to output DC for the inverters when the HIS is ready to accept it.

The fundamental issue is that NACS carries AC or DC charging current over the same pins, while CCS uses different pins for AC and DC. This means that a "dumb" adapter won't work for both use cases:

• The Tesla CCS adapter connects the CCS DC pins to the NACS charge pins, leaving the AC pins unconnected. So with a FCSP, this would let you get DC power out of the vehicle to feed to the HIS inverter, but you couldn't charge (because the Level 2 AC pins aren't connected).
• The Tesla J1772 adapter connects the J1772 AC pins to the NACS charge pins, so if you used this, you could charge a NACS vehicle from a FCSP, but you couldn't get backup power out (and if the vehicle put 400V DC on the NACS charge pins while they're connected to utility AC, it could be Very Bad).

So the solution would need to be a "smart" adapter that includes a contactor that can switch the NACS charge pins between the CCS DC pins and J1772 AC pins as needed. It would also need a controller to coordinate with the FCSP and vehicle to ensure that the adapter is in the correct state before either the FCSP or the vehicle put power on any pins. It could be engineered, but it wouldn't be cheap -- the price point for the adapter would probably be somewhere between a Tesla Wall Connector and a Ford Connected Charge Station. So overall it makes a lot more sense to redesign the FCSP to directly support NACS vehicles.

So hypothetically lets say there's a dumb adapter that supports both J1772 and CCS pins for AC/DC.

Couldn't the truck be programed to accept an either or instead of having the switch be built into the adapter? I guess I'm not following why Tesla is able to differentiate between AC or DC on the same pins.

 

[djwildstar]

So hypothetically lets say there's a dumb adapter that supports both J1772 and CCS pins for AC/DC.

Couldn't the truck be programed to accept an either or instead of having the switch be built into the adapter? I guess I'm not following why Tesla is able to differentiate between AC or DC on the same pins.

Tesla has designed both their vehicles and their chargers from the ground up to do both AC and DC charging over the same sets of pins. There is a safety appendix to the NACS documentation that describes the measures that have to be taken to ensure that AC voltage is never directly applied to the vehicle battery, and that DC battery voltage is never connected to the AC power grid. There are redundant contactors to guard against single component failure, redundant controllers to guard against computer glitches, and multiple tests (for example, the EVSE identifies itself as a supercharger, no AC voltage is present on the pins, and correct DC voltage is present on pins) that must be passed before the contactors connect and the vehicle starts charging.

Current F-150 Lightnings have been designed for CCS, and one of the features of CCS is that you cannot connect AC and DC at the same time. If you're doing an AC charge, there is no connection to the DC pins; if you're fast charging then there is no connection on the AC pins. This simplifies the engineering -- there is no chance that high-voltage DC will be applied to the built-in AC charger, so it doesn't have to be designed to withstand that. There is no chance that AC will be directly applied to the battery, and no chance that DC battery voltage will get applied to AC power lines, so there is no need for the redundant contactors and controllers to prevent that, either.

So with these protections missing, if you wire the AC and DC lines together through an "dumb" adapter, then Bad Things can happen -- you could fry the built-in chargers, the battery, the EVSE, or possibly even more-serious 'thermal events' may happen..

So NO -- I don't expect a bidirectional NACS adapter for the FCSP+HIS. I expect that Ford will produce a new version of the FCSP that supports vehicle-to-home or vehicle-to-grid natively via the NACS connector.

I DO expect adapters to enable charging:

• A J1772 to NACS adapter to allow NACS vehicles to use J1772 Level 2 AC chargers (Tesla already makes this adapter),
• A CCS to NACS adapter to allow NACS vehicles to use CCS DC fast charging (Tesla also already makes this adapter),
• A NACS to J1772 adapter to allow J1772 vehicles to use NACS Level 2 AC chargers (Lectron and several others already make this adapter), and
• A NACS to CCS adapter to allow CCS vehicles to use NACS DC fast chargers (this is the Ford/Tesla adapter that is coming in 2024).

 

[Roy2001]

They are guessing. Everybody is. Even Ford admitted they don't know what they will be doing.

There's nothing stopping them having NACS and CCS side by side.

To have 2 ports does NOT make sense. It cost more to have both ports than throw an adapter which retail price is only $50, that would cost Ford maybe just $10.

It also increases the complexity of hardware and software.

 

[lightspeed]

If they go that way, they can just include the CCS to NACS adapter when you buy the truck. Those adapters are all over the place and relatively cheap.

 

[Blainestang]

If I was going to have two DCFC ports, I’d rather they just be the same plug type, but in two different locations to make using pulling into charging stations easier. Plus just one adapter.

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