Tesla’s charging connector may become the new standard

On Saturday, automaker General Motors announced what would be remembered for a large part of history for a whole lot of varying reasons— but it must be noted that if the entire auto making industry starts to manufacture the similar switch to Tesla’s Charging Connector for North America, it will have a rampaging effect. The astonishing part is that all of it started a few weeks ago with Ford.

It was only a few weeks ago that Ford Motors announced the incorporation of Tesla’s charging connector in it’s vehicles, which it calls North American Charging Standards (NACS). This move came a few months after Tesla already announced to eventually open the network to all other EVs, as per the plan with the US administration, however, it seems Ford didn’t want to waste more time or maybe, wanted to be the first in line.

Before we move ahead, there is more history concerning this move. Long before the Biden administration drew out a plan for automaker Tesla to find a way to make its Supercharger compatible with all other electric vehicles, Tesla worked to get its charging connector and charging standards to be known as the official North American Charging Standards (NACS), but the plan was rejected by the government.

In a meeting with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Ford CEO Jim Farley spoke about the Blue Oval incorporating the former’s charging standard. Moreover, Farley added that it would be a hard decision for other companies to consider. It was not long hence, when General Motors Chief Mary Barra initiated this discussion with Musk, following Ford’s suit with the Tesla CEO.

GM CEO Barra has confirmed that the company’s future EVs will adopt Tesla’s NACS, giving GM owners access to the giant, 12000 unit strong Tesla Supercharger Network, that is ought to begin in spring next year.

”What’s even more exciting is that our existing EV customers can leverage the 12000 Tesla fast chargers early next spring with an adapter”, said Barra.

This is a significant step as it implies the simplification of the charging process by eliminating the requirement to resort to a third party access to charge EVs.

The relationship between Musk and Farley, Tesla and Ford, is often envisaged to be warm and friendly. However, the same is not true for Barra and the Tesla chief. Irrespective of all those things, now Ford and Tesla have become the initial auto makers to join the string of incorporating Tesla’s charging standards. It will be interesting to see how other companies draw out plans for what they would do next. If they all follow the same suit as that of GM and Ford, Tesla’s connector would soon become the standard automatically.

Elon Musk’s Tesla currently accounts for most of the EVs on the road in the United States, while Ford and General Motors too, are huge companies racing ahead with advanced EV plans for both present as well as the time to come.

It is interesting to note that FLO has already mentioned that it will make NACS connector available on its public EV charging stations.  Other charging networks will need to be aware in order to remain in the competition. The rollout of the entire plan is highly anticipated by analysts and public in general.

Roughly, Tesla had a 60 percent share of all the electric car sales in the US in the first quarter of 2023.