NACS vs CCS is a plug comparison, not a speed contest. NACS (now SAE J3400) is Tesla’s North American inlet: one compact coupler that does AC and DC on the same pins. CCS is the Combined Charging System: the familiar J1772 or Type 2 AC face plus two extra DC pins underneath. The names travel together in US search. They are not the same hardware.
Most “NACS won” pages are writing about North America. This catalog is a Type 2 file. Snapshot 5 September 2026. 1,285 of 1,372 available rows list CCS. Supercharger, the Tesla DC token in this file, appears on 41 Tesla rows. There is no NACS or J3400 string in the data.
Table of Contents
- The verdict
- What NACS is
- What CCS is
- NACS vs CCS in this catalog
- The inlet is not the network
- Adapters and Magic Dock
- North America vs Europe
- Is NACS faster than CCS?
- Pick NACS if / pick CCS if
- Quick answers
- Sources
The verdict
| Question | NACS / J3400 | CCS |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Tesla-origin coupler, SAE J3400 | Combo: AC inlet + two DC pins |
| AC and DC | Shared pins for AC or DC | AC section plus a DC pair below |
| North America name | NACS on the car; Supercharger on Tesla stalls | CCS1 (J1772 combo) |
| Europe name | Not the public DC mandate | CCS2 (Type 2 combo) |
| This catalog | 41 Supercharger rows, Tesla only | 1,285 CCS rows |
| Who it fits | US shoppers who want native Supercharger geometry | Almost every non-legacy row here, and EU public DC |
Buy the inlet that matches the stalls you will actually use. A US driver who lives on Tesla Superchargers cares about NACS (or a certified adapter). A driver using this catalog, or charging in Europe, is looking at CCS and Type 2. The leftover third plug is CHAdeMO (21 rows). It is not in the NACS-vs-CCS fight except as a reason a Nissan LEAF (MY23–25) still cannot use a Supercharger.
What NACS is
NACS started as Tesla’s proprietary North American plug. Tesla opened the design to other makers in November 2022 and called it the North American Charging Standard. SAE took it over as J3400: a Technical Information Report in December 2023, then recommended practice J3400_202409 on 30 September 2024 (SAE Mobilus; Joint Office timeline). Tesla still says “Standard.” SAE’s later title says “System.” The letters are the same. This page means the EV plug, not the National Association of Convenience Stores.
The useful mechanical fact: one inlet does Level 1, Level 2, and DC. DOE’s Alternative Fuels Data Center describes J3400 (NACS) as working at all charging levels. The current-carrying contacts are shared. In AC they are line and neutral. In DC they are DC+ and DC−. That is why the handle is smaller than a CCS combo gun. It is not a third kind of electricity.
SAE J3400 is the open document other makers can build to. It does not, by itself, put a NACS inlet on every new car. The Joint Office wrote that every non-Tesla EV produced through 2024 still had a CCS1 port, and that makers had announced J3400 beginning in 2025. That is an announcement calendar, not a guarantee for a named trim.
What CCS is
CCS is a family, not one plastic shape. CharIN’s implementation guide and DOE both describe the same idea: take the regional AC inlet and add two DC contacts under it.
- CCS1 (Combo 1) — North America. The upper face is SAE J1772. The two fat pins below are DC. One vehicle port covers Level 1, Level 2, and DC.
- CCS2 (Combo 2) — Europe and other Type 2 markets. The upper face is Type 2 (Mennekes). Same DC-pin idea. EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (2023/1804) requires Combo 2 on public DC points.
CCS1 and CCS2 are not interchangeable just because both say CCS. The AC faces differ. A US CCS1 car does not plug into a European CCS2 stall without the right adapter and the right communication stack. EV charging levels is the Level 1 / 2 / DC map. This page is only the inlet.
CHAdeMO is the older Japanese DC coupler. It is a separate gun, not a combo under Type 2 or J1772. DOE’s 2024 infrastructure reports already treat it as a shrinking public-DC share. In this file it is 21 available rows, including older LEAF generations. The LEAF Extended Range (MY26) lists CCS and Type 2. That is the handover, not a NACS conversion.
NACS vs CCS in this catalog
The information the charger blogs do not have is a counted spec file. Available rows on 5 September 2026:
| charge_ports token | Available rows | What it means here |
|---|---|---|
| Type 2 | 1,356 | AC inlet on almost every row. This is a Type 2 catalog. |
| CCS | 1,285 | DC combo. In practice CCS2 with Type 2. |
| Supercharger | 41 | Tesla DC label. Not written as NACS or J3400. |
| CHAdeMO | 21 | Legacy DC. LEAF, e-NV200, a few others. |
| Type 1 | 16 | Older J1772-style AC, often with CHAdeMO. |
The dominant combo is CCS + Type 2 on 1,285 rows. Supercharger appears only with Type 2, only on Tesla, and never on the same row as CCS. Empty port lists: none.
Tesla itself is the split that US explainers skip. Of 89 available Tesla rows, 48 list CCS and 41 list Supercharger. The Supercharger token sits on older Tesla rows, such as the Model S Long Range Plus (2020, 250 kW DC). Current European Model 3 / Y / S rows list CCS, including the Model Y Premium RWD (Juniper) (2026, 250 kW DC). Same brand. Same 250 kW ceiling in these two cells. Different tokens, because the European inlet is CCS2.
Those rows are in the catalog. Put two of them side by side in the comparison tool if you want the rest of the sheet. Do not read 1,285 CCS cells as “the US market rejected NACS.” Read them as: this database is built from Type 2 spec sheets, and CCS is the DC default on those sheets.
The inlet is not the network
NACS the plastic and Supercharger the network are easy to mash together. They are different jobs.
A CCS car can use some Tesla Superchargers today with a CCS-to-NACS adapter, or at stalls Tesla fitted with Magic Dock (a station-side NACS-to-CCS1 adapter). The Joint Office describes Magic Dock that way. It is not every Supercharger. Access also depends on the Tesla app, the car’s software enablement, and whether that stall is open to non-Tesla vehicles.
A NACS car still needs a path onto Electrify America, EVgo, ChargePoint, and every other CCS1 stall: a NACS-to-CCS adapter, or a stall that hangs both connectors. Tesla’s own manual is the honesty check: having a NACS port is not enough if the car does not speak the station’s DC protocol.
Federal money does not settle the fight by deleting CCS. 23 CFR 680 (NEVI and other Title 23 public DCFC) requires a permanently attached CCS1 connector on each funded DC port. J3400 may be added. It may not replace CCS1 on those ports. That is why dual-cable cabinets keep showing up in US funding rules. Europe is even clearer: AFIR writes Combo 2 into public DC. A Tesla site that wants to stay on public EU DC has to offer Combo 2 for that reason.
Adapters and Magic Dock
Adapters are how a multi-year inlet change actually works. Almost no car in this file ships two DC inlets. The catalog has zero CCS+Supercharger rows.
Direction matters:
- CCS car → NACS stall: a CCS1-to-J3400 DC adapter, or Magic Dock on the stall. Home Level 2 is usually still J1772; that is a different adapter.
- NACS car → CCS stall: a J3400-to-CCS1 DC adapter. US Level 2 equipment typically uses J1772 (DOE AFDC).
- CHAdeMO car → Supercharger: no. The LEAF 40 kWh (MY23–25) stays on CHAdeMO + Type 2 in this file.
The Joint Office’s rule for federally funded DCFC is that an adapter on the station must be permanently attached and meet the rest of 23 CFR 680. Loose dongles in the trunk are an owner problem, not a NEVI connector. Use the maker’s approved DC adapter. Communication still has to match. CharIN noted in June 2023 that NACS DC already used DIN 70121 and ISO 15118 over power-line communication — the same family CCS uses — which is why adapters can work at all. The handle still has to fit.
North America vs Europe
NACS vs CCS is a North America sentence. CCS2 vs Type 2 is the European one.
CharIN’s 2024 connectors paper puts it in one line: Europe’s mandatory public pair is Type 2 / CCS Combo 2; North America is Type 1 / CCS Combo 1 and/or SAE J3400. Neither region is waiting for this US search query to resolve.
If you are reading evstats.org from Europe, the catalog already told you the answer: Type 2 on 1,356 rows, CCS on 1,285. If you are shopping a US-market car, ignore those token counts as a US share statistic and read the inlet on that model year. This file does not store a US-inlet flag, so we do not invent one.
Is NACS faster than CCS?
No. The plug is not the charge curve.
DOE lists DC equipment up to 500 kW and says delivered power varies by vehicle and state of charge. Vendor blogs like to print “NACS 250 kW vs CCS 350 kW.” Those are stall and car ceilings they happened to quote, not properties of the plastic. In this catalog the Juniper Model Y on CCS and the 2020 Model S on Supercharger both peak at 250 kW. The fastest-charging leaderboard is sorted by DC peak, not by port name. The charging simulator exists because the session is minutes under a taper, not “250 kW times the time you stood there.” Power is kW; energy is kWh — kW vs kWh if those two still blur.
A 350 kW CCS stall does not pull 350 kW from a car that asks for 100. A NACS Supercharger does not make a CCS car faster than its own peak. For the DC stack behind the plug, see what DC fast charging is.
Pick NACS if / pick CCS if
Pick a native NACS / J3400 inlet if you are buying a US-market car for 2025 or later, you will use Tesla Superchargers as the default highway net, and you want to stop carrying a DC adapter. Confirm the model year. The announcement is not the port.
Pick CCS (and live with an adapter if you want Superchargers) if you are buying from this catalog, driving in Europe, or keeping a 2022–2025 CCS1 car. CCS is the public-DC mandate in the EU and the required connector on US federally funded DCFC. It is not a dead standard. It is the majority token in this file.
Do not pick on “which is faster.” Pick on the stall you can reach and the kW the car will ask for. Compare two rows if the decision is actually the car.
Quick answers
What is the difference between NACS and CCS? NACS / J3400 is one compact inlet that reuses its power pins for AC or DC. CCS keeps the regional AC inlet (J1772 or Type 2) and adds two DC pins below it.
Is NACS the Tesla plug? Yes, in the EV sense. Tesla designed it, opened it in November 2022, and SAE standardized it as J3400. Other brands can ship it. It is not the convenience-store trade group.
Can a CCS car use a Tesla Supercharger? Sometimes. You need a CCS-to-NACS DC adapter, or a Magic Dock stall, plus app and vehicle enablement. It is not every Supercharger and not every car.
Do I need an adapter? If the stall’s connector does not match the car’s inlet, yes. Direction is not symmetric. CHAdeMO does not grow a Supercharger path by wishing.
Is NACS faster than CCS? No. Speed is the car’s DC peak and the stall’s ceiling. This catalog’s Tesla CCS and Tesla Supercharger examples both list 250 kW.
Is CCS going away? Not in this file, not under NEVI, and not under AFIR. 1,285 available rows still list it.
Does Europe use NACS? Public DC is CCS2. Tesla’s European cars in this catalog list CCS, not Supercharger.
Sources
- SAE J3400_202409, North American Charging System (NACS), 30 September 2024. https://saemobilus.sae.org/standards/j3400_202409-north-american-charging-system-nacs-electric-vehicles
- Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, SAE J3400 charging connector (TIR December 2023; RP 2024; NEVI CCS1 rule; Magic Dock). https://driveelectric.gov/charging-connector
- DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Electric vehicle charging stations (CCS = J1772 combo + two DC pins; J3400 all levels). https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity-stations
- CharIN, CCS Basic implementation guide; connectors worldwide white paper (24 May 2024); 12 June 2023 statement on NACS and ISO 15118 / DIN 70121.
- EU Regulation 2023/1804 (AFIR), Annex II: public DC Combo 2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32023R1804
- 23 CFR 680.106: funded DCFC ports need permanently attached CCS Type 1.
- Tesla, Opening the North American Charging Standard, November 2022 (archived).
- evstats.org catalog extract, 5 September 2026, 1,372 available rows,
charge_portsfield.