EV connector types, explained

Connectors confuse people more than anything else in charging, partly because North America spent a decade with two competing standards and is now sorting itself onto one. If you are picking hardware for a property, these are the parts that matter.

Two things a connector has to do

Fit the car, and carry the right kind of current. Alternating current is what Level 1 and Level 2 deliver, and it goes into the car's onboard charger. Direct current is what DC fast charging delivers, and it skips that and goes to the battery. Some connectors handle one, some handle both.

J1772: the AC plug that's been here for years

The SAE J1772 connector has been the standard AC charging plug in North America for a long time. Nearly every non-Tesla electric car sold here takes it, and the large majority of Level 2 equipment in the field uses it.

It handles AC only. It's what you'll find on most existing workplace, apartment and hotel chargers, and adapters between it and other standards are common and cheap.

NACS: where the market is going

The North American Charging Standard started as Tesla's connector and is now published as SAE J3400. Most major automakers selling here have said they're adopting it, and new equipment increasingly ships with it.

Its practical advantage is that one physical connector handles both AC and DC, where the older approach needed a bigger combined plug for DC. What that means for you is simpler still: over the life of the equipment you install now, more and more of the cars pulling into your parking will be NACS.

CCS: the DC standard built on J1772

The Combined Charging System takes a J1772 connector and adds two big DC pins underneath, which is why a CCS plug looks like a J1772 with a chin. It's been the main DC fast charging standard for non-Tesla cars in North America.

You'll only run into CCS if you're looking at DC fast charging. It has nothing to do with a Level 2 install.

CHAdeMO: on its way out

An older DC fast standard, mostly associated with early Nissan Leafs. It's being phased out in North America. New installations rarely include it, and specifying it today is usually a waste of money unless you have a specific fleet that needs it.

What this means if you own the building

For Level 2, the connector question is smaller than it looks. Adapters between J1772 and NACS are everywhere, they're cheap, and plenty of drivers already carry one. Some equipment ships with cable assemblies you can swap. This is not the decision to lose sleep over.

Ask your installer these three instead:

• What connector does this hardware ship with, and can the cable be changed later without replacing the whole unit?
• Is the equipment certified to the relevant safety standards, and is the manufacturer going to still be around supporting it in five years?
• Is it networked, and if so what does the network cost per year, and what happens to the charger if the network company folds?

That last one is the question people regret not asking. A networked charger whose vendor disappears turns into an expensive wall ornament. A non-networked charger keeps working no matter what, but it can't bill anybody or report anything either.

The cable is what people complain about

One practical note that never shows up on a spec sheet. Cable length and how it's managed decide whether the charger is pleasant to use. A cord that only reaches one parking position, or one that ends up lying in a puddle between uses, generates complaints out of all proportion to what it would have cost to get right at install. Walk the stall with your installer and check the cable reaches the charge port of the cars that will actually park there, coming in from the direction they'll actually park.

EV Ready USA doesn't sell or install hardware. What equipment suits your property is the installer's call, made against your building and the cars that'll use it.