Yes, every US car maker has by now joined the NACS club (blog article). This means that Real Soon Now, they will drop the legacy CCS1 charging port and switch over to the NACS (Tesla-style) charging port. The natural corresponding step will be to place the charging port at either the left rear corner of the car or at the right front corner of the car. This location permits normal parking in a parking space in a Tesla supercharging station.
But Real Soon Now has not yet happened. As of right now, every newly manufactured EV by any US car maker that is not Tesla has a CCS1 charging port. Where on the vehicle do these non-Tesla car makers choose to place the (CCS1) charging port? I invited readers to respond to a survey on this. The diagram at above right shows the results of the survey.
Survey respondents gave the following responses.
Charging port at the left rear. By this we mean “behind the rear wheel”. This is one of the correct places to put a charging port, given the layout of Tesla supercharging stations. Car makers using this location are Tesla (which we would expect) and Mercedes.
Charging port at the right front. By this we mean “in front of the front wheel”. This is one of the correct places to put a charging port, given the layout of Tesla supercharging stations. No respondent said their charging port is at this location.
Charging port at front center. Carl makers using this location are Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan. Older Nissan cars use a CHAdeMO port. Newer cars using this port location for CCS1 charging ports are Hyundai and Kia.
Charging port at left front. Unfortunately, what this generally means is “behind the front wheel” and immediately adjacent to the driver’s door. This means that the port is not very close to the front of the car. Car makers using this location for their CCS1 charging ports include BMW, GM, Ford, Honda, Rivian, and Volvo. Of these car makers, only Ford (as of March 2024) has made it possible to plug in at a Tesla supercharging station. The location of the charging port means that even if you were to double-park at a Tesla charging station (occupying two parking spaces and making one of the charging kiosks unusable by anyone), the charging cable would only just barely reach to the charging port. See blog article about double-parked Ford EVs at Tesla charging stations.
Charging port at right rear. Car makers using this location for their CCS1 charging ports include Hyundai, Mercedes, Mini, Toyota, VW, and Fiat. None of these car makers have actually enabled charging of their EVs at Tesla charging stations, but when they do, there will be a double-parking problem (blog article).
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