Stephen Edelstein
When the North American Charging Standard was announced by Tesla in November 2022, the name was pretty ambitious, considering that it was not controlled by a standards body or available on any electric vehicle other than those wearing Tesla’s stylized T. But a lot has happened since then, as one automaker after another has signed on, negotiating access to Tesla’s robust charging network as part of the deal. Today, Nissan revealed it’s the latest convert.
“Adopting the NACS standard underlines Nissan’s commitment to making electric mobility even more accessible as we follow our Ambition 2030 long-term vision of greater electrification,” said Jérémie Papin, chairperson of Nissan Americas. “We are happy to provide access to thousands more fast chargers for Nissan EV drivers, adding confidence and convenience when planning long-distance journeys.”
Ford started the flood in May, followed since then by General Motors, Rivian, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, and Polestar. Charger manufacturing companies are building NACS plugs into their hardware, and networks like ChargePoint, EVgo, and Electrify America are adding NACS, too.
This is actually Nissan’s second time changing its DC fast-charging plugs. An early pioneer of EVs with the first- and then second-generation Leaf, it chose the CHAdeMO standard for those models, which is popular in Japan but never really caught on elsewhere.
But when Nissan built the Ariya crossover as its third-generation EV, it dropped CHAdeMO for CCS, which appeared like it was going to win the charging standard war by dint of having every OEM onboard other than Tesla.
CCS may have had the power of numbers in terms of OEMs, but EVs from all those makes are still heavily outnumbered on the road by the sheer mass of Models 3 and Y, and it’s hard to argue with the superiority of Tesla’s Supercharger network, either in terms of reliability or number of deployed chargers.
That said, a lot still needs to be resolved between now and 2024 when all these new EVs will be able to charge at Tesla sites with an adapter.