Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson has confirmed that the company will likely not be among the first to switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). The issue stems from NACS chargers not having the required voltage for Lucid’s EVs
In a conversation with the Wall Street Journal, Rawlinson noted that Lucid needs 1,000-volt DC charging to support the high-voltage system in Lucid vehicles. Lucid runs a 900-volt architecture which requires high voltage to successfully fast charge. With CCS1 chargers, Lucid vehicles can access up to 900 volts, making fast charging a breeze.
Although we do not know specifics, we know that Tesla Superchargers run around 500 volts through DC output. Tesla has confirmed that there will be a 1,000-volt configuration coming to the NACS connector, but it is not here yet.
Lucid is also interested in bidirectional charging for vehicle-to-grid applications. But Tesla has not fully outlined how NACS would tackle that issue yet, but has suggested it could come in a few years. Although we’re not quite sure on this part of Rawlinson’s explanation as Ford has championed this application as a real-world solution over the last few years and is switching to NACS.
So, for Lucid, the decision seem to be they will stay with CCS for now, but that decision will naturally anger some Lucid owners who were hopeful they would soon be able to use the Tesla Supercharging network.
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