Tesla invites other automakers to use its EV charging connector

Tesla plug, which is called the North American Charging Standard, or NACS for short, has been designed by Tesla and as such was only available on Tesla cars and Tesla charging stations. This is about to change.

Tesla announced that it will share the design of the connector with charging infrastructure providers and other automakers in order to spread its use even wider across the US. Thanks to Tesla’s huge sales numbers and extensive network of Superchargers, its NACS connector represents more than 60 percent of the market.

That market dominance skews the numbers in favor of Tesla but the company realized this is about to change. Other manufacturers and charging stations use CCS plugs, the commonly known standard in Europe. WHile the production of other EVs is still slow and the roll out of charging stations takes time, eventually CCS would have taken over. Once GM and Ford reach their production goals, NACS would have lost market dominance in a matter of months.

Market dominance is not the only drive though, arguably the NACS plug design is slimmer, the plug itself is much smaller and the socket for the vehicle takes less space as a result. That’s a very important point when it comes to designing a car - a smaller socket is easier to hide neatly.

Then there is the claimed superiority of the NACS, according to Tesla the smaller plug can handle as much 1 MW of DC power and it can use both DC and AC through a single connector - CCS is so large because it incorporates separate connectors for DC and AC. Simpler sockets and plugs mean huge savings in production costs, spending $20 less on connectors doesn’t sound like a lot of money but when you consider GM and Ford want to manufacture 1 million cars per year eventually - $20 million goes a long way.

If other EV charging station providers accept NACS it will benefit Tesla drivers as well, it will mean much wider access across the US and no need for relying just on Tesla branded chargers or additional accessories such as the recently announced CCS Combo 1 adapter.

Tesla made the design and specifications of its connector publicly available and according to an official report, the company is working with “relevant standard bodies” to turn the NACS into a public standard.

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