The North American Charging Standard (NACS) is an electric vehicle charging standard developed by Tesla, used on all North American market Tesla vehicles since 2012, and was opened for use to other manufacturers in 2022. Access to Tesla Supercharger stations was limited to Tesla vehicles for this 10 years period. After testing allowing non-Tesla's to use supercharger stations in Europe, Tesla began to roll out their proprietary Magic Dock connector at select North American Supercharger locations in 2022. Magic Dock allows for an EV to charge with either NACS or CCS1, giving almost all BEVs the chance to charge. However, most of Tesla’s North American Supercharger locations currently provide only NACS. Ford, General Motors, and Aptera have announced that they intend to use the NACS standard in the future.
Tesla developed a proprietary charging connector for the Tesla Model S in 2012, and used it on all of their mainstream EVs, including the Model 3, Model X, and Model Y. Tesla's business strategy was markedly different from other EV manufacturers and Tesla built a coast-to-coast charging network across the United States, and later built a substantial charging network in a number of developed countries where Tesla sold their cars.[1]
In July 2022, Steve Fambro & Chris Anthony, co-CEOs of Aptera, created a change.org campaign to try and get lawmakers to adopt the Tesla connector and charging standard.[2] The petition received over 42,000 signatures.
In November 2022, Tesla renamed its previously proprietary charging connector to "North American Charging Standard" (NACS), making the specs available to other EV manufacturers. The name was criticized, as at the time of the announcement the connector was not the standard in North America, with all other automakers using the Combined Charging System (CCS) connector. Tesla made the case that its NACS should become the connector of choice because it is more compact, Tesla vehicles outnumber CCS equipped vehicles by a margin of two-to-one, and that there were then 60% more NACS connectors installed than CCS connectors.[3][4][5][6]
In November 2022, Aptera officially announced that it would incorporate the NACS standard into its vehicles.[7][8] They had been showing the Tesla connector in the photographs of their prototypes.
In May 2023, Ford announced integration of the NACS system into their electric vehicles. New Ford electrics after 2025 will have native NACS charge ports on the vehicle. Legacy Ford electric models will be able to connect to the NACS system and its chargers by use of a CCS/NACS adapter, and will pay for their charge via the FordPass app beginning in early 2024.[9] Shortly after the Ford announcement, EV fast-charger company FreeWire Technologies announced plans to equip its battery-integrated Boost Chargers with NACS plugs by mid-2024.[10] On 8 June 2023, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced on a Twitter Spaces interview with Elon Musk that GM would adopt the NACS standard starting in 2025.[11]
Charging standards for high-power DC charging of electric vehicles include: the Combined Charging System (CCS) used in Europe (CCS2) and at non-Tesla charging stations in North America (CCS1), the CHAdeMO standard used in Japan, and the GB/T standard used in China. As of November 2021, Tesla/NACS was the largest charging network in the US, with the next-largest only ten percent of the extent of Tesla's network.[1]
In Europe, new Tesla vehicles and newer Tesla Superchargers now use standard CCS2 plugs, instead of the proprietary Tesla Type 2 plugs (European Tesla plug). However Tesla still sells vehicles with this proprietary connector, and support an adapter to CCS/Combo2. Older Tesla S/X vehicles can be retrofitted to support the use of this adapter.
In China, superchargers must use GB/T plugs.
CEO Arcady Sosinov in a conversation with Electrek: …we support Tesla in making steps towards opening their technology and network… FreeWire plans to make NACS connectors available on Boost Chargers by mid 2024…
GM, like Ford, will begin installing a charging port used by Tesla, known as NACS, instead of the current industry-standard CCS in its EVs starting in 2025.
