Tesla has announced a new CCS charging adapter that this time can work with its proprietary connector.
However, the availability in North America is still unclear.
With the launch of the Model 3 and its Supercharger V3 in Europe, Tesla switched its main charging standard to CCS.
The automaker ended up launching a CCS adapter for Model S and Model X owners to be able to use the growing CCS charging station networks.
Tesla made the adapter, which is CCS to Type 2 (standard charge connector in Europe), available in some markets, but it never released a CCS adapter for its own proprietary connector, which the automaker uses for its vehicles in North America and a few other markets.
This left Tesla owners in North America unable to take advantage of growing third-party charging networks using the CCS standard.
Now Tesla has revealed that it will launch such an adapter, in South Korea at least, during the first half of 2021.
Tesla owners in South Korea are reporting having received the following email seen by Electrek (translated from Korean):
In the first half of 2021, Tesla Korea will officially launch the CCS 1 charging adapter.
Tesla owners can conveniently recharge their vehicles at 33 Supercharger stations located at the heart of transportation, and more than 150 Destination chargers located at popular hotels and restaurants. In addition, the CCS1 charging adapter is released to enhance the customer experience by allowing access to public charging networks nationwide.
The email also features the image of the adapter seen above.
While this doesn’t confirm a launch in North America, it’s the first time that Tesla confirms that it is going to produce an adapter for CCS to its own proprietary connector used for vehicles in the US and Canada.
Electrek’s Take
With this news, now I can’t imagine that Tesla won’t also launch this in North America, but at the same time, I also don’t understand why they haven’t made this available a while ago when they made one for Europe — granted with a different connector, but still.
I understand that it is not as useful as it is in Europe, but Tesla has nothing to lose in selling it as an accessory for those who want it.
The Supercharger network will remain a more useful charging network for most Tesla owners, but there are plenty of people that regularly do some specific trips that some CCS charging stations might facilitate with better locations.
For those people, it’s a big deal to have access to those stations.
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