For months, a battle over standards for electric vehicle charging interfaces has been raging across the auto industry, playing out headline after headline as one interface faces off against another for dominance and eventual merger into Uniform standards.

But put aside the electric car charging interface for now. The transition to another charging interface is underway, affecting more vehicles and exponentially more consumers. It's coming to you on the dashboard, center console or back seat.

How automakers handle USB interfaces can be an entry point into how they view their own customers.

Hi C! Goodbye, AUniversal Serial Bus (USB), USB-A was first developed in 1995. For a nascent industry, it established some order in the chaotic charging cable market. Over the next 15 years, the power would be at least five times, or even ten times, that of the original 1.5 watts. The amount of data is also growing exponentially, reaching up to 15Gb per second.USB upgrades have been underway around the world since 2014, with computer, mobile phone and electronic product manufacturers steadily upgrading to the new standard.25 years later, in today's era of miniaturization of electronic products, USB-A, which has a one-way connection and is limited by data and power, seems too large and outdated. USB-A is being replaced by rounded-corner USB-C, which is more powerful, versatile, and compatible.

How widespread is the switch to USB-C in the tech world?

Even traditional electronics hardware stalwart Apple is transitioning to the USB-C standard, in part to comply with European laws. But the fundamental reason is simple: USB-C has outstanding advantages, is smaller, is reversible and can provide more power and data.jeff Ravencraft, chief operating officer of the USB Implementers Forum, a non-profit organization founded in 1995 to promote and maintain USB technology, said: "Today, You get 240 watts of power and data transfer rates of up to 80G per second with USB-C, which is huge. By comparison, the first USB-A connectors from 1995 could only transfer 7.5 watts of power and 1.5Mb of data per second."

"We've been saying, this train has left the station. It's been a long time coming." Ravencraft said of USB-A, pointing out that the USB-C connector is rugged and has become more popular among various technologies. becoming more and more common. The Electronics Manufacturers and USB Implementers Forum stopped development on USB-A around 2010.

Transitioned from USB-A, which debuted in 1995, to USB-C, which was introduced in 2014. (USB-B never really caught on.) Car USB ports will also transition, but automakers are moving at different paces in the transition.

Rahman Ismail, chief technology officer of the USB Implementers Forum, said that although USB-C has been around for nearly a decade, it continues to evolve and improve. Ismail said the growth of USB-C in the automotive space is particularly important as the updated port is widely used in the tech world. Ismail is a senior engineer with chipmaker Intel Corporation and holds a number of patents.

The USB-A port, which has been used in automotive devices since 2006 and is mounted on a thin, rectangular hole in a plastic tongue, is being replaced by the smaller, more efficient USB-C.The automotive industry has much slower product development cycles than the tech world, so automakers have adopted different strategies as they transition from legacy USB-A to modern USB-C as they try to keep consumers Satisfaction and connectivity while moving into the future.Ismail said the way USB-C is configured allows automotive engineers to allocate different levels of power to different ports in the car, carrying enough data bandwidth to run multiple systems simultaneously. This is especially important as the automotive industry pushes its transition to battery electric power."USB-C provides a greener solution for automakers because they can control the amount of battery power delivered to each charging port in the car and do it very efficiently and with tiny, precise controls. ." Ismail said, "You can provide 100 watts of power to one port, 15 watts of power to another port, and so on. That's a huge efficiency advantage."

So, is USB-C the terminator of the data cable, the last solution besides inductive charging and Bluetooth connection?"Maybe," Ravencraft said. "USB-C is very rugged and designed with its longevity in mind. Still, if a disruptive technology comes along, the world will respond to the new technology. But we I believe that USB-C and power delivery through it is here to stay for years to come."Strategies of different car companiesAs the automotive industry slows product development cycles, the transition from legacy USB-A to modern USB-C has automakers adopting different strategies heading into the future.For now, at least, automakers are going their separate ways in the transition to USB-C.Some automakers, including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Toyota, are fully adopting the new standards when each of their model ranges revamps or redesigns their interiors. They went all-in on USB-C, and tossed the old USB-A connectors into the dustbin of history, next to those cassette tapes and CD players.Other automakers, including the Detroit Big Three Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, have taken a more cautious approach by hedging against technology. They take advantage of the powerful charging and data transfer capabilities of USB-C while still providing a USB-A port or two in the car, preventing tech-recalcitrant customers from completely losing their minds.A BMW spokesperson said that starting with the iX in 2021, all new cars will only offer USB-C ports, while Mini cars will offer both USB-A and USB-C ports, depending on equipment and trim. level and will transition to full USB-C ports. Mini claims that USB-C is compatible with "an increasing number of devices," is easy to connect, and offers improved performance.Hal Eubanks, Toyota Motor North America's cross-vehicle advanced technology manager, said Toyota made the decision in 2019 to transition to full use of the USB-C interface after an in-depth analysis of where the consumer electronics market was headed. Eubanks' scope of work includes autonomous driving and multimedia, including what kind of outlet the power cord plugs into.“Internal and external analysis shows that by the end of 2021, in the case of Apple’s iPhone, USB-C will account for 90.4% of users, and by the end of 2022, it will exceed 99%, with higher penetration of Android users,” Eubanks said. : "However, it is not an easy decision to transition 100% from USB-A to USB-C, because even this small group of people is important to us. But at the end of the day, smartphones using USB-C It’s too big a proportion.”Moving to USB-C has some clear advantages for Toyota. Using the car's non-data transfer-only charging feature, USB-C charging times are faster, Eubanks said. While most USB-A ports are limited to 7.5 watts, today's USB-C ports can charge at 15 watts or more. New vehicles from Toyota and Lexus, starting with the 2024 Toyota Tacoma, will see the automaker transition to 45-watt charging ports. That's more power than a current iPhone or Android phone can receive, but it "future-proofs" Toyota customers, Eubanks said.

The switch also saved Japanese automakers money, Eubanks said. "I can't go into detail on this, but we've lowered the price per USB port as they've moved from USB-A to USB-C. It's not that the price per port was particularly expensive to begin with, but Their prices have dropped significantly from what they used to be.”

Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at research firm Guidehouse Insights, said automakers likely kept USB- A port. "There are a lot of cables that people have been collecting for a long time, and if you have some USB-A power cables, you may want to keep using them for a while."

But he also said that "even the sticklers of USB-A will eventually switch to USB-C completely. With the launch of the next generation of models, they will probably switch to USB-C only."Ford spokesman Alan Hall said: "Ford uses both interfaces to facilitate our customers' transition to the latest technology as they update their electronic equipment."GM engineer Marvin Lewis said the company transitioned from the Cadillac Lyriq to fully using USB-C ports because the USB-A ports "wouldn't keep pace with future devices." Other vehicles are also being updated or redesigned to follow, he said.