To The Moon

What Automakers Could Learn from Aptera Being the First to Adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard

Up-and-coming automaker Aptera Motors has made its flagship vehicle the first non-Tesla to feature Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, which could become a lesson to all automakers to pay attention and re-evaluate their charging design.

Aptera will include the same proprietary connector that comes on every Tesla produced for the North American market as standard.

Additionally, Aptera has made fast charging/Tesla Supercharging a standard feature on every Aptera sold.

DC Fast Charging has become a given on just about every electric vehicle sold in recent years; however, Aptera may not have adopted fast charging into its design due to the inherent bulkiness of the CCS standard.

Aptera’s co-founders had previously petitioned Tesla to make its charging connector available for use by all automakers due to its sleek, all-in-one design. Tesla responded by establishing a North American Charging Standard, thereby opening its connector to all prospective automakers.

It’s a win-win for both automakers, as Aptera is able to utilize the industry’s most effective, efficient plug and Tesla immediately has a third-party automaker backing and adopting its North American Charging Standard.

More automakers getting on board, particularly legacy automakers, may require a much higher degree of consumer demand as driven by a hesitancy to partner with Tesla — the most valuable global automaker.

Tesla is attempting to solve this by conforming to the CCS standard with a Magic Dock adapter that will allow virtually all electric vehicles to use its Supercharging Network for the time being.

While it’s not ideal that Tesla has had to develop an adapter that will be outfitted at nearly every Supercharging station, not doing so would have excluded all of the electric vehicles that have already been produced with the CCS fast charging standard.

It’s not entirely new for Tesla to partner with automakers to influence electric vehicle design: humble beginnings led to Tesla to work with Daimler to develop an electric Smart Car, eventually leading to a partnership with Mercedes for a compliance electric vehicle.

Foolishly, Daimler sold the entirety of its early Tesla stake that amounted to 10% of the automaker in 2014 showing a lack of a desire to remain vested in the automaker.

Nonetheless, the CEO of Mercedes hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a future partnership with Tesla — which could inevitably lead them to investing in Tesla’s North American Charging Standard over the current industry standard duo of the J1772 charger and CCS fast charger.

In fact, we believe that just one conventional automaker having the foresight to adopt Tesla’s connector on a mainstream electric vehicle could be enough to gradually convince the industry that it’s a beneficial design.

However, this comes with its own challenges as automakers have already been investing into the efforts of Electrify America and EVgo, both of which would require adapters that could become convoluted down the line.

Comparatively, Aptera is an entirely new automaker that’s producing a pioneering class of vehicle: the world’s most efficient Solar Electric Vehicle.

The automaker claims that most daily use will require no charging at all, as the vehicle’s chassis can be configured with numerous solar panels.

At the same time, Supercharging on Tesla’s Supercharging Network will make extended trips effortless for Aptera owners.

DC Fast Charging capability will range from a speed of between 40kW-60kW per hour. Thus, charging an Aptera will be especially efficient as the battery ranges from just 25kWh on its most basic model quoted at 250 miles, to 100kWh on its top-spec “1,000-mile” battery configuration.

The Aptera accomplishes class-leading range and efficency through an extreme level of aerodynamics and efficiency in its lightweight, three-wheeled design.

Therefore, the Aptera’s compact design necessitated a sleeker plug design: the automaker had no option other than to design their own charger, utilize Tesla’s connector which was already perfect for their use, or potentially forgo fast charging altogether.

Other automakers don’t currently have this issue, so adopting Tesla’s connector would be more so about standardizing a sleeker and frankly technically-superior charger that integrates all types of charging into one plug.

Automakers are criticized for offering charging designs that are cumbersome or inconvenient, thus Tesla’s plug design could be a solution — if they’re willing to indirectly give a nod and even slight advantage to Tesla by recognizing its solution as the most practical.

However, Tesla is a large part of the reason that all automakers are producing and transitioning to electric vehicles today. Thus, any measurable level of hubris should be set aside in order to give realistic consideration to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard.

Tesla has created an ideal alternative with its North American Charging Standard that should be increasingly adopted by more automakers to optimistically become the new normal.

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