Tesla Opens Up Its EV Charging Connector To The World |

Tesla removed all the patents in the lobby of its Palo Alto headquarters prompting Elon Musk to explain in a blog, "They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology." The post is from 2014; he continued, "Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport." That policy has been held, but some designs have not been for public consumption, including its industry-leading charging connector — until now.

A new post on the Tesla website reiterates Musk's words from eight years ago. "In pursuit of our mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, today we are opening our EV connector design to the world," states the company. "We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port, now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), on their equipment and vehicles."

It is a generous move but also a clever, strategic play. There is no doubt that electric vehicles are here to stay. The question is, what will the nozzle be on the gas pump of the future? With more private companies getting into the EV charging game, this move makes it easy for them to add the Tesla connector to their equipment. Tesla has already been in discussions with some of those companies. The post states, "network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers, so Tesla owners can look forward to charging at other networks without adapters.

The company says that its connector, the NACS, is North America's most common charging standard. Tesla states, "NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla's Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined." EV owners who don't have NACS will have fewer options to charge up. Car manufacturers are already racing to get into the EV game and don't also need to try to play catch up to Tesla's already well-established charging network. Tesla states, "we look forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla's North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks."

It's ingenious to drop the Tesla brand off and name it the North American Charging Standard. It will make it much easier for competing brands to swallow their pride and use superior technology. The system is the most tested EV charger in the world, and the company reports it has "20 billion EV charging miles to its name." It is also far better than the Combined Charging System (CCS 1), offering twice the power in half the size.

A petition to the U.S House of Representatives was started in July 2022, asking for the Tesla connector to be the charging standard for the U.S. A solar-powered car company named Aptera is behind the Change.org petition that has more than 40,000 signatures. It links to reports showing the Tesla connector wins in every category tested.

While CCS 2 has become the charging standard in Europe, the market is wide-open in North America where the CCS 1 connector has not yet taken off.

There is a comment on the Change.org website worth noting. Eric Stewart posted, "The Tesla connector is what engineers would choose if politics didn't make these things about ego." Now, if NACS is not the standard, it will be crystal clear that Stewart is right.

Tesla requested more time for details to be kept confidential, and in doing so, everyone now knows something is up. A document dated November 18, 2022, appeared on Twitter on December 6. It’s from Tesla Inc. and addressed to the Federal Communications Commission. In the brief letter, Certification Engineer Cindy Li requests a 60-day extension of a previous agreement to keep a device secret. This mysterious letter set the Tesla sphere on fire with speculation to find out what is the secret device.

All we know from the letter is that model number 1541584 includes a user manual, internal photos, external photos, and test setup photos. Whatever this device is, it was going to be made public by the FCC on December 7, 2022. Tesla asked for an extension because the device will not be ready until mid-January 2023. The company wants to “avoid any unnecessary disclosure and competitive harm before our product launch…”

The poster of the letter, Twitter user @Taka87 reached out to well-known Tesla hacker @greentheonly, for some insight. The response: … something potentially major planned for mid-January which is just a bit over a month away... Like something that coincides with a sensor suite change.

That opens the door for the return of radar, which was removed last year and/or ultrasonic sensors, which Tesla just scrapped in October when it made the call to go completely with Tesla Vision. At that time, Tesla said in a statement: With today's software, this approach gives Autopilot high-definition spatial positioning, longer range visibility and the ability to identify and differentiate between objects. As with many Tesla features, our occupancy network will continue to improve rapidly over time.

There has also been a lot of speculation about HW4, where a high-resolution radar is believed to be part of the full self-driving sensor suite. HW4 goes as far back as the 2021 A.I. Day when Elon Musk said a new FSD computer would come out with the Cybertruck. This upgrade is now reportedly being developed by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). It is expected to be much more powerful than the current hardware by as much as four times.

Elon has also previously commented on HD radar, saying "A very high-resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar does not exist. I mean vision with high-res radar would be better than pure vision."

An unidentified part, closely resembling a new radar was found on Tesla's Parts Catalog back in September by @GreenTheOnly. This mysterious item was marked but suspiciously not given a name, a part number or a description. However, given Green's experience with the inner workings of these vehicles, Green believes it is a new Tesla radar. In a follow-up tweet, he doubled down on his stance, saying the part matches the high-resolution radar Tesla registered with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in June.

Fans recently spotted multiple Model 3 vehicles that had parts of the front and rear of the vehicle covered up. If Tesla is planning to add HD radar or change some of the vehicle's sensor suite, these vehicles may be testing exactly this.

Christmas is almost here, so Tesla’s holiday update will soon be here. While many are still guessing what may be under the tree in this update, we now have word that Tesla will include support for MyQ accessories.

MyQ lets you control supported garage doors, gates and lights over WiFi. Until now, users could only control MyQ devices from their smartphones, but Tesla is adding support for it to their vehicles.

The information was shared with us through an anonymous source, but it was also leaked on Twitter. Twitter user @DirtyTesla, who is also the President and Founder of the Tesla Owners Club of Michigan, posted: Looks like MyQ support is coming to Tesla vehicles with software update 2022.44.25 :) I don't have any more detail than that.

If MyQ is indeed included in the holiday update, it will not only allow users to open or close their garage from the screen in the Tesla. MyQ also tells users if the garage is left open, it can control lights, access cameras, lock and unlock doors and use home intercoms. MyQ can also be scheduled to automatically close the garage every night at a certain time. The MyQ system is much more than a garage door opener.

So why would this be better than HomeLink? That was a question repeated several times. MyQ is WiFi based so you can check in on it anywhere. There is also no need for the antenna. HomeLink is included with the Model S and Model X, but it's a $350 USD add-on for the Model 3 and Y.

If you have an older garage door opener but still want to get in on MyQ, there is a MyQ device that, according to the company, makes any garage door opener a smart garage door opener. These are available at various retailers including Amazon, for roughly $20.

Elon Musk confirmed WiFi garage door support was coming back in 2020.

Tesla's integration of HomeLink into their vehicles is beautifully executed. You can have the vehicle automatically open or close your garage as you approach, never needing to touch a button. The vehicle uses your garage door's location and the vehicle's current position to determine when to open or close your garage door.

It's not clear whether Tesla will similarly integrate MyQ devices, but it certainly would make sense to have the ability to automatically trigger specific devices based on the vehicle's location. It could potentially open your garage door and turn on your hallway lights as you begin driving down your driveway.

MyQ support could have several advantages over HomeLink, besides being included for free. HomeLink currently requires proximity to the device to send the wireless signal, while MyQ could theoretically be executed anywhere in the world that has an internet connection.

HomeLink is also limited to a maximum of three devices, while the limit for MyQ will likely be much higher. However, the last improvement is actually the biggest deal. HomeLink is somewhat of a 'dumb' system, meaning it will send a signal to open/close your garage door, but it doesn't actually know the state of the garage door.

This can sometimes cause issues. For example, if you're arriving home and your garage door is already open, then your vehicle will still send the command to "open" the garage door, which in turn causes it to close.

Since MyQ requires an internet connection, we're not sure whether it'll only work on WiFi or over cellular. In all likelihood, it'll send the signal over cellular if it needs to, but it's not clear whether Tesla will require subscribing to their Premium Connectivity package in order to use it.

View the release notes for the upcoming version 2022.44.2.

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