Ford will add a Tesla (NACS) port to its future EVs
Tesla
In a move that attests to Elon Musk's words on fostering industry collaboration over competition, Tesla and Ford have announced a partnership to enable the latter's electric vehicles access to Tesla’s extensive Supercharger network.
Ford's Green Light to Tesla's Charging Technology
Contrary to earlier speculations that Tesla's move to open its proprietary charging connector might be a futile attempt at standardization, Ford has embraced the North American Charging Standard (NACS) - Tesla's charging system. With this, Tesla’s charging plug design, known for some advantages over the current CCS standard, might start gaining traction across the North American EV sector.
This agreement with Tesla allows Ford EV owners to enjoy the expansive Supercharger network through an adapter named “Magic Dock,” which is being deployed at Superchargers. Starting early next year, Ford EV customers will have the luxury of charging at more than 22,000 stations — 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers and 10,000+ DC fast-chargers already part of the BlueOval Charge Network.
Ford EVs to Directly Integrate Tesla's Connector
Signaling a significant step in EV charging standards, Ford plans to incorporate Tesla’s NACS connector into its future electric vehicles starting in 2025. This will allow Ford EVs to access Tesla Superchargers without needing an adapter directly. More importantly, it could allow Ford vehicles to charge at more Superchargers, which do not have the Magic Dock adapter. Jim Farley, Ford's president and CEO, expressed enthusiasm about this breakthrough agreement, hailing it as vital for Ford's growth as an EV brand.
The impressive reliability of Tesla’s Supercharger network was a major factor in Ford's decision to facilitate the use of the network for its EV owners. Tesla's Superchargers have a near-perfect uptime rate of 99.95%, offering a dependable solution to the charging needs of Ford's EV customers.
Evolution of the BlueOval Charge Network
Ford's existing charging network, the BlueOval Charge Network, already boasts over 84,000 chargers. The addition of Tesla Superchargers will bolster its infrastructure, significantly reducing range anxiety for Ford customers. In tandem, Ford plans to add approximately 1,800 public-facing fast chargers to the BlueOval Charge Network by early 2024.
Elon Musk’s Supportive Approach to Industry Collaboration
This partnership exemplifies Musk's commitment to industry collaboration over annihilating competition. Following a precedent set by Henry Ford's assembly line revolution, Tesla's continuous advancements in EV technology and strategic price reductions have led to questions about the future of other automakers in the EV market. However, unlike Ford's competitive approach a century ago, Tesla's actions aim to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by enhancing access and efficiency of charging for all EVs.
This partnership is a significant milestone in the EV industry, setting a course toward a collaborative and innovative future. While it brings a superior charging experience for customers, it also propels the world’s transition to sustainable energy, emphasizing the shared goal of all players in the EV sector.
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Tesla’s vehicles all have a built in Service Mode, where you can find working diagrams of anything from the HVAC system, low or high voltage systems, your power steering, or infotainment. All of this is included on-vehicle, and doesn’t require a third-party tool or subscription.
Of course, if you need more information, Tesla does offer Toolbox3, a fairly inexpensive subscription package that can be downloaded onto any laptop and connected to any Tesla - without the hassle of needing a special manufacturer-specific OBD tool.
Thanks to John Kelly for finding this. Let’s dig into it.
48V LVCS Connector Reference
Cybertruck runs on a 48V architecture, called LVCS, or Low-Voltage Connector Standard. They recently launched this standard to the rest of the automotive industry, in hopes of promoting standardization and progress.
48V and LVCS offer Tesla the unprecedented ability to optimize the wiring inside Cybertruck and future vehicles, massively reducing the complexity and cost - and also ensuring that everything within the vehicle is networked. That networking means that you can also debug the Cybertruck’s wiring from within the vehicle - without needing to disassemble the entire thing.
The wiring diagram, set to the front cabin view.
John Kelly on X
The Wiring Service Diagram offers the ability to search for particular connectors, and also see where the wiring runs originate and terminate. And that’s not all - you’re also able to pull up the pinouts, wire colors, and harness connections to see everywhere that specific connector brings data, power, or anything else to.
The pinout view for a particular connector.
John Kelly on X
This is an fantastic update, and enables anyone, including a DIY home mechanic, to be able to figure out exactly what might be wrong with a particular system, as well as how to potentially correct it. In addition, all of this data is freely available within the vehicle, and nothing else is required to be able to access it other than sitting down and entering Service Mode Plus.
How to Access It
For this particular interface, you’ll need to access Tesla’s Service Mode Plus, which means you’ll need a subscription to Toolbox 3, Tesla’s Service Software. We won’t walk you through that procedure here, as we recommend you review Tesla’s Service Manuals before jumping in.
Assuming you know what you’re doing, once TB3 is setup and connected to the vehicle, you can enter Service Mode Plus from the TB3 primary menu, and then navigate your way to the Low Voltage section. The Connector Reference Tool is its own sub-heading, and the search tool to look for particular connectors is in the top right.
Tesla has recently committed new code to its Light Show Github repository that reveals several additional Lightshow features and shares specifications for others.
Tesla hosts the software for building Lightshows on GitHub, an open-source code repository. The new code was added five days ago, but given that this is a change to the actual software and not an on-vehicle change, we’re not sure whether the features below will be available for immediate use or will be available in a future software update.
Up to Four-Hour Long Light Shows
The feature update is pretty extensive and, for the most part, is focused on the Cybertruck and Model 3 Highland, but also features changes for other Tesla models.
There’s one general change, which now lets you create Light Shows that are up to four hours in length — yes, that’s really long. In the Holiday update, Tesla mentioned that Light Shows can now be longer, but this recent commit makes it seem like Tesla is essentially removing the limit of how long a Light Show can be.
Front & Rear Light Bars
On the outside of the Cybertruck, you’ll now be able to control the front light bar, but what’s even better is that you can control each of the 60 LEDs individually. The rear light bar is seeing similar improvements, letting you control each of the 52 LEDs individually.
This feature alone is going to create some amazing Light Shows, anything from which has 60 individually configurable LEDs each. The rear light bar has 52 individually controllable LEDs as well.
This alone is going to inspire some really creative designs, such as a Knight Rider-like animation as seen on Rivian.
These are, of course, locked to just white for the front light bar and red for the rear, but Lightshow designers will be able to configure how bright each individual LED is and feather them up and down in brightness.
As we saw in the absolutely epic Tesla octa-truck Lightshow, the off-road lightbar is also controllable on vehicles that have it equipped. For now, that’ll just be Foundation-Series Cybertrucks, but the lightbar has been confirmed to be compatible with the non-Foundation-Series vehicles once it arrives in the Tesla shop later this year.
The off-road lightbar has six segments - two side-facing ditch lights and four forward-facing lights. Although you won’t be able to address individual LEDs here, you’ll be able to control each segment (six total) and brightness.
This feature was added as part of the Holiday update, so it should be available for all vehicles on 2024.44.25 and higher.
Center Display Color
Over on the interior side, designers will get full RGB control for the center display. Even when viewing the light show from the exterior of the vehicle, the center display will light up the interior in any color of your choice, letting you add festive colors to your Light Shows.
The interior display is also available on the Holiday update and is available for all vehicles, including legacy Model S and Model X vehicles that support Light Shows.
Ambient Lighting
This one has been a long time coming, but you’ll finally be able to control the vehicle’s ambient lighting feature on the Cybertruck and new Model 3. The accent lights are split into five segments and are all controllable RGB, so you can set each section to a different color if you want. The sections include center front, left and right front, and left and right rear.
These are some massive additions to Tesla’s Light Show feature, and they’re arguably some of the best. The individually controllable LEDs in the light bars and the ability to choose colors for the first time will undoubtedly create some of the best Light Shows we’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately, Christmas is behind us now, but we’re sure developers will find other holidays that take advantage of colors, such as Independence Day.
Light Shows bring the Tesla community together, and they’re one of the most distinctive Tesla features. Enjoy the awesome Christmas Light Show compilation below. Thanks to Rhys Samson for sharing these Light Show changes with us.
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