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The state of electric vehicle charging in North America is way too much like smartphone charging wars — but focused on much more expensive hardware. Like USB-C, the Combined Charging System (CCS, Type 1) plug is widely adopted by almost every manufacturer and charging network, while, like Apple and Lightning, Tesla uses its own plug but with wider availability across its Supercharger network.
But as Apple is forced away from Lightning, Tesla is on a different path where it’s opening up the connector, renaming it to North American Charging Standard (NACS), and pushing it to become the USB-C of electric vehicles in the region. And it might just work: Ford and GM lined up as the first two automakers to adopt the NACS port, which is also now being recognized by the automotive standards organization SAE International.
Europe solved this by forcing all companies to use CCS2 (Tesla included), while EV owners in the US, for years, have dealt with fragmented charging networks requiring different accounts, apps, and/or access cards. And depending on whether you’re driving a Tesla Model Y, a Kia EV6, or even a Nissan Leaf with the ailing CHAdeMO connector, you’d better hope the station you stop at has the cable you need — and is operational.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is leaving out a nice pool of $7.5 billion to give every major fast-charging network from ChargePoint to Electrify America the chance to build reliable EV infrastructure.
North America can become a great and convenient place to own an electric vehicle, but how long will that take? Find out by reading all the news about electric vehicle charging right here, so come back and plug in often.
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Volvo is the latest automaker, and the first one from Europe, to announce support for Tesla’s electric vehicle charging standard known as the “North American Charging Standard,” or NACS.
According to the announcement, this arrangement is similar to the ones Tesla recently reached with several other car manufacturers. Volvo owners will get access to 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations, and Volvo EVs will be manufactured with a NACS port starting in 2025.
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The standards organization known as SAE International is announcing support for Tesla’s EV “North American Charging Standard” or NACS port. SAE’s adoption will make it easier for electric vehicle charging station manufacturers and operators to implement the port while also making charging for EV owners more consistent and reliable. Tesla’s formerly proprietary charging port was opened up last year in a bid to become the de facto EV standard in the US.
The US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation has worked with Tesla and the SAE in an effort to expedite the Tesla plug as a standard to improve the country’s charging infrastructure.
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Tesla has had a very good month, at least when it comes to its EV charging standard. Washington state wants to require electric car charging companies to use Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) in order to be part of the state’s program to support electric vehicles, according to Reuters. The state’s proposed mandate would put Tesla’s technology in state- and- federally-funded charging sites in the future, though Washington hasn’t decided quite how that will look.
At the moment, the federal government requires at least four Combined Charging System (CCS) chargers at taxpayer-funded charging sites, and Tonia Buell, the alternative fuels program manager at Washington state’s Department of Transportation (DOT), told Reuters the state may require that at least two, or maybe all four, of the chargers also support NACS. CCS is the standard currently preferred by the federal government for cross-platform use.
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General Motors CEO Mary Barra joined Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a Twitter Spaces conversation Thursday to announce that the automaker is adopting Tesla’s electric vehicle charging standard, also known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS). The deal will make thousands of Tesla Superchargers available to owners of GM electric vehicles.
“In order to drive EV adoption, we need to have a robust charging infrastructure,” Barra said on the call. Barra also agreed with Musk that NACS is a better charger and should be the North American standard. After making the announcement, Barra cut the call short and didn’t stick around to answer questions from Twitter users.
Elon Musk and GM CEO Mary Barra are about to chat live, and I can guess what they’re going to say.Just days after Ford cut a deal for access to Tesla’s Supercharger network while agreeing to adopt its NACS standard for a charging plug, GM’s CEO is also going on a Twitter Space with Elon Musk. We’ll find out exactly what the deal is in just a few minutes.
Update 4:45PM ET — And now it’s confirmed, GM and Tesla have a deal to work together on charging too.
Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that in early 2024 more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers will be operational with Ford vehicles. Farley also announced that next-generation Ford vehicles would come equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) port, Tesla’s standardized version of its proprietary charging system.
“We don’t want Tesla superchargers to be a walled garden,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the Twitter Space call. According to Musk, Tesla wants Ford and other automakers to be on an equal footing when it comes to access to dependable EV charging.
Now your EV can grab a Big Gulp.7-Eleven says it plans to build one of the largest charging networks of any retailer in the US and Canada.
The company calls its DC fast charge stations 7Charge, with some already operating in Florida, Texas, Colorado, and California. You can find out if there’s one near you by downloading the 7Charge app. The chargers feature CCS combo and CHAdeMO ports, and could work with your Tesla if you have a working adapter.
TravelCenters of America is working with Electrify America to get much-needed EV fast chargers installed at its rest stops across the US. The agreement has Electrify America deploying a sizable 1,000 charging stalls across 200 TravelCenters of America (TA), TA Express, and Petro shopping center locations nationwide.
TA’s goal is to install the chargers over the next five years, with the first ones showing up in 2023. The first installations are slated for locations in Texas and Ohio, according to TA’s senior director of communications, Tina Arundel.
When electric vehicle owners take longer trips, they often rely on nationwide fast charging providers like EVgo, Electrify America, and ChargePoint to reach their destinations. So it can be more than a minor inconvenience for EV drivers if they arrive at a station with problems like damaged cables, disconnected modems, or annoying error codes.
This year, EVgo is looking to leave behind broken and unreliable EV chargers with its ReNew program that bolsters site maintenance efforts across its more than 850 fast charging stations with 1,700 or so charging stalls. It’ll also upgrade older stations with new hardware that enables up to 350kW charging for capable vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV.
Tritium and DC-America are partnering to build a nationwide EV fast charging network and have qualified for federal funding to make it happen (via Electrek).
The two companies are linking their tech to build easily deployable charging solutions, where Tritium provides the chargers and DC-America provides the station infrastructure.
Tesla owners will soon be able to charge their vehicles at EVgo charging stations. The EV charging company said it will partner with Elon Musk’s company to install Tesla’s proprietary connector at some of its 750 public charging stations nationwide.
The first connectors will be distributed at EVgo’s charging stations in San Francisco, with more to follow in 2020. EVgo says its new Tesla-supported chargers can provide up to 90 miles of charge in about 30 minutes “at one flat per minute rate, with no additional fees.” The DC fast charger network typically charges its users on two tiers: Pay-as-you-go and Membership.
BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford, and Volkswagen have entered into a partnership to create a network of high-speed charging stations for electric vehicles across Europe. The new chargers will be capable of doling out up to 350 kW of power — which would make them almost three times as powerful as Tesla’s Supercharging stations. The result will be “the highest-powered charging network in Europe,” according to a statement released by the manufacturers.
The automakers say that construction will begin in 2017 with “about 400 sites” being targeted, and that the network will have “thousands of high-powered charging points” available by 2020. Those four major conglomerates will be “equal partners” in the joint venture, but according to the statement they are encouraging other manufacturers to “participate in the network.”
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