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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Recommended Actions to Improve Adapter Safety

With the rapid advancement and acceleration in the electric vehicle (EV) industry within the United States, major automakers and EV charging companies are increasingly adopting the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector style, now officially known as J3400. This shift is expected to enhance charging infrastructure, providing a better customer experience by making it easier for all EV drivers to access a wider network of direct-current (DC) fast chargers (DCFCs). However, the adoption of the J3400 standard presents challenges for many EVs already on the roads and some currently coming off production lines that are equipped with the Combined Charging System (CCS) connector, which this report will refer to as the North American standard, CCS1. These vehicles will need adapters to use new or existing J3400 infrastructure. During this transition, several issues have emerged. Firstly, there is a need to standardize the new connector type to ensure it is interoperable, safe, and reliable. Second, existing CCS EV drivers need a way to access the J3400 network, which will require electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) or sites with both connector types, driver-provided adapters to physically convert from CCS to J3400, or EVSE with retained adapters designed for use with the EVSE. Third, adapter standards will need to be written to specify how they will be designed and what evaluations will be needed to ensure safe and reliable performance. To address these challenges, adapters that support different types of charging connectors will be essential. These adapters will play a crucial role in supporting the transition and ensuring continued service for legacy EVs with CCS inlets as the J3400 standard becomes the predominant one in the United States. Consequently, the National Charging Experience (ChargeX) Consortium has investigated and performed a teardown analysis on the different adapter versions on the market. The aim is to create a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) on what are expected to be the most common adapter types used in this transition. In order to support this work, we executed an FMEA exercise with the main goal of identifying gaps in the existing adapters' performance and conformance to the most common safety requirements of high-power and high-voltage devices. This effort focused on adapters provided by the driver, as these may present the highest safety and reliability risks. The recommendations made here apply to both retained and driver-provided adapters.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Adapter Signaling Evaluations on EVs [Slides]

In case J3400 and J3400/1 define a basic analog signaling approach for DC charging adapters to communicate over-temperature events to both the EV and EVSE. They also require the EV to implement mitigation and corrective actions in cases where the EVSE does not respond to adapter thermal signals. In this study, multiple production vehicles were evaluated for responsiveness to assess field readiness and ensure consistent performance in accordance with the SAE J1772, J3400 and J3400/1 standards. A series of test cases were developed and executed across different vehicles, using an adapter thermal breakout fixture designed by NLR for evaluations. The results revealed notable variations in behavior: some vehicles expected to comply with J1772 were found to be non-responsive under certain conditions. Additionally, while some EV OEMs appear to align with the J3400 standard, discrepancies exist due to its evolving nature, resulting in inconsistent implementation of the latest requirements. These findings highlight the need for alignment within standards organizations to ensure consistent interpretation, encourage compliance, and reduce potential confusion across implementations.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Pull Force Evaluation of CCS Insulated End Caps

Insulated end caps installed on DC pins of Combined Charging System (CCS) inlets have been identified as potential debris sources within electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) connectors, increasing the risk of electric shock and fire hazards. Although standards such as IEC 62196-1:2022 specify mechanical pull-force requirements for these end caps, it remains unclear whether these requirements provide adequate robustness under real-world conditions. To address this concern, the National Charging Experience (ChargeX) Consortium's Hardware Task Force conducted evaluations of insulated end caps used in OEM CCS inlets. This study assesses the performance of insulated end caps used in OEM CCS inlets, specifically those installed on DC pins, using the procedures defined in IEC 62196-1:2022 (Section Sign) 26.7 and SAE J3400, supplemented by additional experimental conditioning. To ensure relevance to real-world conditions, NLR collaborated with charging network operators (CNOs) to guide the selection of charging inlet samples. Material analyses of the insulated end cap samples were conducted to confirm that the tested materials reflected the types and properties commonly observed in the field. The selected samples underwent temperature and humidity conditioning followed by pull-force testing to evaluate the end-cap integrity. Although SAE J3400 inlets were not directly tested due to limited diversity in available field data, the underlying end-cap principles between CCS and SAE J3400 are comparable, allowing the study's insights to be relevant to both technologies. Overall, this study provides a structured evaluation framework to inform potential refinements to mechanical pull-force requirements in charging standards.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evaluations of Connectors, Inlets, and Adapters on Side-Load and Withstand Force

This report examines the mechanical forces that direct current fast charging (DCFC) electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) connectors and electric vehicle (EV) inlet ports experience during normal usage. As we witness the fast and growing variety of EVs, charge port locations, and bigger and more powerful EVSE configurations including the SAE J3400 North American Charging Standard (NACS), which has increased the use of adapters with J3400 and J1772 compatibility. These new conditions contribute to increased mechanical forces due to their size, weight and lever arm effect, which creates the need to study and compare these forces to the limits on UL2251 and IEC 62196-1 standards. This report focuses solely on high power DC charging EVSE connectors, EV inlets and adapters for the specific compatibility cases on J3400 with J1772. We first describe the details of the 100N and the 750N side-load evaluations as described in the standards, then present the data obtained by replicating these tests to finally go into more detail on the findings and our recommendations.

100N↗
DOE OSTI2025

Thermal Evaluation of CCS and NACS Reference Devices and Adapters

It is important for manufacturers of electric vehicle charging connectors, inlets, and adapters to understand the thermal performance of their devices. Various standards, such as SAE J1772, SAE J3400, IEC 62196, UL 2251, and UL 2252, list temperature limits that charging hardware needs to meet. However, there are currently very limited standardized reference devices against which to measure connector performance, and those that do currently exist generally serve charging currents less than 500A. This can make determining whether a charging connector meets the appropriate temperature limits difficult. Additionally, as automakers and charging station suppliers transition from the SAE J1772 CCS charging standard to SAE J3400 NACS, a number of CCS-to-NACS and NACS-to-CCS adapters are entering the market. These devices are being produced both by well-known automakers/equipment OEMs and lesser-known third-party suppliers, across a wide range of price points and construction qualities. Though SAE J3400/1 and UL 2252 lay out standards for adapter construction, performance and overtemperature response, there is no guarantee that any particular adapter will follow these standards and react to overtemperature events appropriately. This work addresses these issues by developing and evaluating a set of CCS and NACS reference inlet devices to validate the performance of charging connectors in the 500-800A range. The work also evaluates the performance of multiple NACS-to-CCS and CCS-to-NACS charging adapters with respect to UL 2252 temperature limits and SAE J3400/1 overtemperature signaling criteria.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗