2023-07-08 00:59:26
automobile
United States electric car charging standard ‘Tesla’… Korea? [소부장박대리]
Digital Daily Issue Date 2023-07-08 09:59:26
supercharger [ⓒ 테슬라]
[디지털데일리 이건한 기자] Recently, a hot topic in the US electric vehicle market has been the ‘Tesla charging standard’. This is because as Tesla, which has the largest charging infrastructure in the United States, opened its own charging specifications, several competitors announced that they would introduce Tesla specifications one after another. Regarding this, different observations are coming out in the domestic charging industry that “Korea will soon follow the Tesla standard” and “it will stick to the existing CCS1 standard.”
Securing a high-quality, more charging infrastructure is considered a common task for accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. It is said that this is the reason why major finished car conglomerates and influential startups such as Ford, Rivian, Volvo, and Polestar, starting with GM in the United States in June, announced the introduction of the Tesla charging standard. This is because it is much more profitable for manufacturers who have entered the electric vehicle business belatedly to share the charging network with Tesla, which has preoccupied the electric vehicle market and has already built its own high-speed charger “Supercharger” infrastructure throughout the 50 states in the United States.
In the United States, Tesla’s own charging standards NACS (North American Charging Standard) and CCS1 (Combined Charging System) were mainly used. Tesla took the market first, but did not open NACS to competitors, so competitors chose CCS1 as an alternative.
It was the US government that initiated the opening of the NACS. While deciding on a $7.5 billion EV infrastructure expansion program and subsidy payment policy in their country, they requested the adoption of the CCS1 method as one of the subsidy conditions for charging operators. For Tesla, which uses its own specifications, it was nailed down that it could receive subsidies only when its supercharger was opened to competitors’ electric cars. From Tesla’s point of view, without subsidies, it is inevitable that it will be at a disadvantage in the competition to build infrastructure as time goes by, so it was a condition that had no choice but to choose openness in the end.
Specifications for charging various types of electric vehicles [ⓒ 한국자동차연구원]
The appearance and communication protocols of the two standards are different, but neither one is particularly superior. Therefore, rather than prolonging the competition, standardization should be done as soon as possible so that manufacturing, installation, and users can reduce costs and improve convenience. This is the reason that the standard for smartphone chargers around the world is gradually being unified to USB-C type.
Companies that have expressed their intention to use NACS this time plan to respond to changes by providing NACS adapters for models at the time of release, and manufacturing electric vehicles with NACS standard charging ports in the future. On the 15th of last month, SK Signet, which has the largest market share in the ultra-quick charger market in the US, announced that it plans to release a charger with NACS connector within the year.
In Korea, as the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced at a meeting of ministers related to pending state affairs on June 29 that it would supply more than 1.23 million electric vehicle chargers in Korea by 2030, the speed of supply of chargers is expected to accelerate further. As affiliates of large conglomerates have entered the electric vehicle charger manufacturing and charging service business one after another, attention is also increasing. Currently, in Korea, the same CCS1 standard as the US is designated as the charging standard.
Excluding China, if the United States, the world’s largest electric vehicle market, is unified with NACS and established as a single standard, similar changes can be expected in Korea, which has accepted the US standard. However, opinions in the industry are conflicting.
An official from a domestic charger manufacturer said, “In North America, it is thought that NACS will be standardized throughout the United States within this year at the earliest. Domestic charger customers who have adopted CCS1 as a standard are also showing signs of following the NACS standard. However, the NACS standard has not yet been established and it is not easy to obtain the corresponding coupler (charging cable and electric vehicle connection device).”
At the same time, “according to internal research, most of the communication protocols are similar to CCS1, so there is not much difficulty in developing NACS. I think Korea will have no choice but to follow the NACS standard sooner or later.”
On the other hand, an official from another company said, “Even if Hyundai-Kia Motors can change to NACS in North America, I think they will stick to CCS1 in Korea. Tesla also exports to the European market in the local ‘CCS2’ charging standard. There is no need to change domestically, and there is also a problem with pride. Another problem is that there is no place to manufacture Tesla connectors in Korea, so we have to import all of them.”
Experts predicted that even if the NACS transition was made in Korea, the impact would be minimal. Domestic Tesla drivers are already using existing chargers through Tesla adapters, and existing CCS1 chargers can also respond by attaching a Tesla gender. If Tesla establishes a standard and uses it to produce parts such as charging cables, supply and demand will become relatively easy. For charger manufacturers, it is not physically difficult to follow the NACS method. The maintenance method is also the same as CCS1.
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