It may have been bold of Tesla to name the port and connector it invented in 2012 the “North American Charging Standard” — but after more than a decade, it’s beginning to live up to its name. CCS dominated at the time, and for a long while only Teslas used NACS, but that has changed over the past few months. So far, major manufacturers including Ford, GM, Rivian, Mercedes, Volvo/Polestar, and Subaru have committed to the standard.
Although it took a while, it’s easy to see why NACS has begun to take off. Elon Musk’s company made NACS “open source,” essentially allowing other manufacturers to implement it without having to pay any fees. Then there are its benefits; Tesla claims it can deliver more power, more efficiently, than CCS, which is becoming more important as charging wattages increase. It allows access to Tesla’s vast and ever-growing supercharging network too, which arguably eases one of the biggest issues standing in the way of EV takeup. Almost everyone seems to benefit from the switch to NACS. The biggest losers seem to be Tesla owners, who are set to lose exclusive access to what is arguably the best charging network in North America.