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By Joe Edwards
On the 8th of June 2024, General Motors corp. announced a collaboration with Tesla to integrate the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector design into their new model electric vehicles beginning in 2025. More immediately, this collaboration will allow GM’s electric car drivers the ability to access any of the over 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations already in operation (across North America). GM’s electric car drivers can now use the facilities today, even here in Canada, but their hook-ups will initially require the use of a specialized adapter.
Last year, in June 2023, SAE International made big news when they formally recognized the superiority of NACS and announced how they would begin the process to formally standardize the system across the continent. On July 11, 2023, SAE created a task force to handle further development of this standard and to publish it under the SAE J3400 moniker.
GM will also adopt the SAE J3400 plug which links EVs to charging stations in their new vehicle models. While this move could be viewed as GM turning their backs on their own ideas and research, experts have long predicted this would happen as Tesla has the largest market share and, some might say, the most transmissible vision for the future of the industry.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra is quoted saying, “our vision of the all-electric future means producing millions of world-class EVs across categories and price points, while creating an ecosystem that will accelerate mass EV adoption.”
She added, “this collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers. Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard.”
North American Charging System (NACS)
North American Charging System (NACS) is is an electric vehicle (EV) charging connector system developed by Tesla. It’s not the only charging system, nor is it the absolute fastest, but it’s what the majority of Canadians already use because Tesla is the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in North America.
NACS connector is one of several connector types that enable fast charging of EVs. There’s also the Combined Charging System (CCS1) and CHAdeMO. Tesla’s NACS connectors can also be used for AC Level 2 charging and they are compatible with the J1772 connector with an adapter. It’s also worth noting that NACs is backwards compatible with all Tesla connectors made before 2021.
NACS to be standardized as SAE J3400
NACS has been used in North America by Tesla vehicle drivers since 2021 and was opened for use by other manufacturers in November 2022. Electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) port is also referred to as a charging port. The EVSE port provides power to charge one vehicle at a time, even though it may have multiple connectors at the charging post.* The mounted hardware which hosts the EVSE ports is sometimes called a charging post and is a stanchion which can have more than one EVSE port.
The NACS / SAE J3400 system dispenses lots of power in a short period of time. There are a maximum of 277 Volts (V) of Alternating Current and anywhere between 500 to 1,000 Volts of DC current. The power is delivered at 650 amperes (A) which is why the charge time is so quick. Installing these professional systems requires skilled and experienced electricians with specialized training. Readers can see JML Electric’s previous work Installing Electric Vehicle Charging Stations across Ontario on our EV Charging Station Installation page.
Ford has already adopted NACS
In May 2023, Ford Motor Company became the first large automaker to announce that it would use NACS with its electric vehicles. The company announced that starting in 2025, all new Ford electric vehicles will have native NACS charge ports and prior models will be able to connect to NACS chargers by use of a NACS to CCS1 adapter. Ford’s announcement began the shift in the electric vehicle industry towards NACS.
Stellantis was the final domino to fall before Tesla’s NACS connector could be declared ubiquitous. Ford said it would add the newer connector to its electric vehicles in May. Since then, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Honda, the Hyundai Group, Toyota, BMW, and Volkswagen have made similar announcements.
