SAE International will standardize Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector as support grows for the electric vehicle (EV) platform after Volvo Cars signed an agreement to support the technology.
The move continues the wide-reaching support for Tesla’s fast-charging tech, which gained even more popularity after American carmakers Ford and General Motors (GM) adopted the technology to broaden access to EV chargers across the U.S. Soon after, nearly all EV charging companies and software vendors announced support for NACS standard.
Volvo will be the first European car maker to sign an agreement with Tesla giving it access to 12,000 fast-charge points across North America. The chargers will be in addition to Volvo’s existing tens of thousands of fast-charge points.
This will apply to current as well as future Volvo cars that are sold in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Volvo cars such as the XC40 and C40 Recharge will be able to find charging locations through the Volvo Car app and will be able to use the Supercharger network with an adapter from the first half of 2024. Future Volvo cars will be equipped with the NACS charge point as well as the combined charging system (CCS) chargers.
The move is part of Volvo’s plan to be a fully electric car maker by 2030.
Standardizing NACS
SAE International, the global standards body responsible for most automotive engineering, said it will standardize the NACS connector due to the recent support it has garnered in the automotive industry. The next steps will be to “establish a consensus-based approach” for NACS and to validate the ability of the standard to “meet performance and interoperability criteria,” the organization said.
“Standardizing the NACS connector will provide certainty, expanded choice, reliability and convenience to manufacturers and suppliers and, most of all, increase access to charging for consumers,” said Frank Menchaca, president of sustainable mobility solutions at SAE affiliate Fullsight.
Additionally, the standard will help to strengthen access to North American EV charging infrastructure including SAE’s public key infrastructure for cyber secure charging.
Why it matters
In North America — at least in the short term — automotive OEMs are lining up to get as much infrastructure for EVs as possible due to increased demand and government mandates to switch to more climate friendly vehicles.
The quickest way to do this is to adopt Tesla’s 12,000 fast chargers that are already installed as well as use chargers installed by either automotive OEMs or third-party vendors. Ford, GM, Rivian and now Volvo have signed agreements with Tesla and it is likely there are others who will sign their own deals moving forward.
In other regions — particularly in Europe where EVs are growing faster than North America — additional developments are likely to happen as companies look to grow their EV fleets substantially in the next few years. Tesla owns about 10,000 Superchargers in Europe so deals may be happening soon there as well.
What remains to be seen is if this is a short-term solution for these companies until they can fully develop their own infrastructure and push out their own proprietary networks. Or if it is a long-term development with these automotive OEMs fully committing to Tesla’s NACS technology or at least supporting it in future vehicles.
With SAE standardizing the tech, it will at the very least be included in future discussions or technology for years to come. But the impact of all these companies signing on to support NACS is continuing to be felt across the automotive industry.
