(Credit: ChargePoint)
Anyone looking to get an EV has to familiarize themselves with the various connector types. All major automakers have pledged to switch their EVs to the Tesla-backed North American Charging System (NACS), but that's a work in progress. In the meantime, EVs on the road are still charging up via J1772 or CCS1 charging ports.
ChargePoint is looking to ease charging anxiety (and compete with Superchargers) with the Omni Port, which can be changed to accommodate any EV.
"Omni Port eliminates the hassle of carrying an adapter for drivers, negates dedicating parking spaces exclusively to a select connector type and is available at no incremental cost as a standard feature of ChargePoint’s applicable chargers," the company says.
Once drivers add their vehicle's details to the ChargePoint app, the charging station will automatically release the correct connector type when they arrive. If you don't have the ChargePoint app, you can make those adjustments via the charger's touch display.
ChargePoint says the Omni Port "enables full support for vehicles with 800-volt architecture—ensuring max charging speeds for sustained periods of time."
The new charging systems will ship later this year. Existing ChargePoint stations, including CP6000 and Express Plus Power Link 2000 stations, can be retrofitted "at a nominal cost" to station owners, according to the company.
Currently, there are more than 5.5 million EVs on North American roads, and more than half are equipped with J1772 or CCS1 ports.
"The overriding factor that drove us to do this is that we did not want to dedicate parking spaces to one connector type or another," Rick Wilmer, CEO of ChargePoint, told State Of Charge in a YouTube interview. "If we did that...you would get the ratio of vehicles to the ratio of connectors wrong, and you would end up underutilizing your site."