How Tesla's NACS plug won over automakers

When Tesla offered its proprietary charging connector as an open standard for electric vehicles in late 2022, there were few takers.

Only Aptera, a small startup, said it would use the slim plug and corresponding port, which Tesla unilaterally named the North American Charging Standard.

Tesla's big rivals, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, showed no public interest in switching from the Combined Charging System connector that non-Tesla EVs had been using in North America for a decade.

That would change six months later when Tesla offered something that its competitors actually wanted: broad access to the EV maker's vaunted Supercharger network.

"When Tesla announced the North American Charging Standard, most everyone in the industry scoffed and said 'who are they to say this is a standard,' " said Matt Teske, CEO of Chargeway, which makes an EV charging app. Tesla's design was objectively superior, but non-Tesla brands were already wedded to the Combined Charging System, Teske said.

Bigger and better

The Tesla connector is the most common in North America because the company has the most EV sales and the biggest charging network. But the CCS is a certified standard, allowing automakers and charging networks to freely use it.

Tesla, however, had something more to offer. There were more Supercharger units than all the fast chargers using CCS together. And Tesla's chargers were considered the gold standard for ease of use and reliability.

"The impetus behind the switch to NACS was not about the connector," said Loren McDonald, CEO of the consultancy EVAdoption. "It was about the better charging experience across the Supercharger network."

Ford, GM and every other EV maker, McDonald said, were facing intense pressure from customers who found CCS networks, such as Electrify America, unreliable. Independent testing confirmed those concerns.

Ford cuts a deal

The first automaker to cut a deal with Tesla was Ford. On May 25, 2023, Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a joint appearance on Twitter, now called X, using an audio conference feature.

The CEOs said Ford would get access to most of Tesla's Supercharger network in the first quarter of 2024 through a CCS to NACS adapter. Ford, in turn, agreed to build the Tesla system natively into its future EVs, starting in 2025. Tesla also agreed to make a CCS to NACS adapter in the meantime.

Farley said he personally reached out to Musk after being disappointed with CCS networks on a 2022 California vacation while driving a Ford F-150 Lightning. Farley's kids noticed Superchargers functioning along their road trip route while the CCS experience was less than ideal.

"I just realized, 'wow, that is a big advantage for them,' " Farley said in a May 2023 interview on the State of Charge YouTube channel. "I'd always intellectually understood, but I didn't really understand it as a consumer."

Ford's Supercharger deal with Tesla created a domino effect across the industry.

Musk and Barra talk

On June 8, 2023, Musk held a conference call on Twitter with GM CEO Mary Barra. GM's deal was similar to Ford's. The automaker would get access to Superchargers, more than doubling the total fast chargers available to its customers in North America, and it would adopt NACS for future vehicles.

Following Ford and GM, most automakers selling EVs in North America reached similar agreements with Tesla over the course of 2023. Brands being granted Supercharger access include Acura, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Lincoln, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo.

In response, engineering nonprofit SAE International said it would begin the process of standardizing NACS, ensuring that any supplier or manufacturer could make and deploy the connector on EVs and at charging stations. SAE's name for the public standard is J3400.

"The automotive industry last year decided this is the direction they're going," said Christian Thiele, director of global ground vehicle standards at SAE International. "What Tesla did so well is they maintained their system."

SAE said in December that it took a key step in the standardization process with the release of a technical report.

While the real prize for EV makers was access to the Supercharger network, analysts said there are concrete advantages to the North American Charging Standard connector over its Combined Charging System counterpart.

Tesla's plug is smaller and can be used for DC fast charging on a public network and AC slow charging at home. For non-Tesla vehicles, the bulky Combined Charging System plug is used for fast charging and a smaller J1772 connector is used for AC charging.

"The more uniform you can make the charging experience with every vehicle and every charging location, the better for consumers," said Teske. The Tesla plug is more like a gasoline nozzle in terms of size and maneuverability, creating a more familiar experience for consumers transitioning from an internal combustion engine vehicle to an EV.

CCS isn't going away. In fact, Tesla uses the standard in its cars and Superchargers in Europe because of government regulations. In North America, there are more than 20,000 fast chargers using CCS and more than 63,000 using the J1772 plug for AC charging, according to the U.S. Department of Energy website.

Over time, McDonald said, public chargers using CCS will transition to the J3400 connector, but it will take years. Automakers will go through a similar transition with their vehicles. In the meantime, there are adapters for non-Tesla drivers to use Superchargers and for Tesla drivers to use CCS chargers, if they so choose.

"It's going to be adapter hell for now," McDonald said. "But as the quality of the customer experience improves across the board and the connectors are standardized, then we get to a more gasoline station-like experience in the future."