Analysis: EV charger makers guardedly look to adopt Tesla standard

ACN 650 026 314

12/06/2023 22:55

(Adds Tesla share move in paragraph 2, updates ABB and EVgo
comments in paragraphs 5 and 9)
    By Abhirup Roy
       June 12 (Reuters) - Electric vehicle charging companies
are cautiously embracing Tesla's  TSLA.O  charging technology as
the main U.S. standard, mere days after Ford  F.N  and GM  GM.N 
said they were adopting it, but questions remained about how any
interoperability would work.
    The rare agreements between Tesla Inc and each of the two
U.S. automakers, who among them control more than 60% of the
country's EV market, is likely to give top billing to Tesla's
North American Charging Standard (NACS). Tesla shares rose 2.2%
on Monday.   
    That puts companies, including ChargePoint  CHPT.N , EVgo
Inc  EVGO.O  and Blink Charging Co  BLNK.O , in danger of losing
out on customers if they offer only Combined Charging System
(CCS), the rival standard that the Biden administration has
favored.
        The White House said on Friday that EV charging stations
that offer Tesla plugs would be eligible for billions of dollars
in federal subsidies as long as they included CCS connectivity.
The White House aims to spur deployment of hundreds of thousands
of chargers, which it sees as integral to EV adoption. 
    Charger maker ABB E-mobility North America, a unit of Swiss
industrial firm ABB Ltd  ABBN.S , it will be offering a NACS
connector option that it is now designing and testing.
        "We are seeing tremendous interest in beginning to
integrate the NACS connector into our chargers and our units ...
customers are saying, 'when can I get one?'", said Asaf Nagler,
vice president of external affairs at the unit.
    "The last thing we want is to rush a solution to the market
that is not seamless," said Nagler, adding, "we still don't
fully know all the limitations of the (Tesla) charger itself."
    Ashley Horvat, a senior executive at Schneider Electric SE's
 SCHN.PA  unit in the U.S. that supplies EV charging hardware
and software, said interest in NACS adoption had been on the
rise since the announcement by Ford Motor Co and General Motors
Co.
    Blink Charging  BLNK.O  said on Monday it would launch a new
fast charger with Tesla's connector, as did ChargePoint Holdings
Inc  CHPT.N  and Tritium DCFC Ltd  DCFC.O . EVgo said it will
add NACS connectors to its fast-charging network.
        Some of these companies' stocks fell sharply on Friday,
but were paring some of those losses on Monday after they said
they would adopt NACS.
    Still, concerns remain about how smoothly the two standards
would talk to each other and whether having both standards in
the market raised costs for vendors and customers.
    Neither the automakers nor the U.S. government have
explained how any interoperability would work or money would
change hands. 
    "We don't have much visibility on what's the charging
experience going to be like," said Aatish Patel, co-founder of
charger maker XCharge North America.
    
        'MILES TO GO'
    Charger makers and operators noted several concerns about
interoperability: whether Tesla Superchargers can adequately
charge higher-voltage vehicles with fast charging and whether
the design of its charging cables will suit the ports on some
cars.
    Tesla's Superchargers are integrated with its cars and
payment is tied to accounts of users, who can charge and pay 
through a Tesla app seamlessly. It offers adapters that can be
used to charge its cars at non-Tesla charging stations and is
opening up its Superchargers for use by non-Tesla vehicles. 
        "If you don't have a Tesla and you use a Supercharger,
it's not as clean-cut. How much integration do Ford, GM and
other automakers really want to give Tesla on their vehicles to
allow for this seamless integration? Or are they going to pivot
into a less seamless integration to have access to a larger
network?" Patel said.
    A former Tesla official who worked on Superchargers said
NACS chargers would add cost and complexity in the near term,
but the government needed to support one standard - NACS - given
its higher vehicle population and better user experience.
    The person, who now works for a charging company, is not
authorized to speak to the media and declined to be named. The
company that is developing CCS chargers, is "reviewing" its
strategy because of the Tesla-GM deal.
    "Tesla's proposal ... is not a standard. It has miles and
miles and miles to go before it becomes a standard," said Oleg
Logvinov, president of CharIN North America, an industry body
that promotes CCS. 
    Logvinov, who is also chief executive of EV charging parts
supplier IoTecha, said CCS was worth backing because it had
worked for more than a decade with multiple vendors.

 (Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Additional
reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Jarrett Renshaw in
Philadelphia; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Jonathan Oatis)
 ((sayantani.ghosh@thomsonreuters.com;))