Volkswagen and all of its American brands, including Porsche, Audi, and the upcoming resurrection of Scout, will use the Tesla…
Volkswagen and all of its American brands, including Porsche, Audi, and the upcoming resurrection of Scout, will use the Tesla charging plug for their electric vehicles (EVs) starting in 2025. If that sentence makes no sense to you, we’ll explain.
The move leaves Stellantis (parent company of Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and others) as the only major automaker holding out against a long-needed industry standard.
The Problem: Three Different Plugs
Manufacturers sell several dozen EV models. But they don’t all charge from the same type of plug.
Since most EV owners do most of their charging at home, that’s not always a problem. But EV drivers on a road trip can be stuck hunting not just for a public charger, but for a public charger with the right kind of plug.
Tesla’s EVs use their own proprietary plug. Tesla calls its plug the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. Until this year, though, none of the three major plugs could be called standard.
Most other EVs on the market in 2023 use a different plug known as the Combined Charging System (CCS). It is virtually standard in Europe. The Nissan Leaf uses a third, ChaDeMo, which is close to standard in Asia.
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They’re not all created equal. Tesla has built a massive nationwide charging network, making its chargers by far the easiest to find. Ever the boastful marketing team, Tesla calls them “Superchargers,” though they’re no faster than anyone else’s.
It’s also the smallest of the three and the easiest to connect with one hand.
Until recently, the Supercharger network was open only to Tesla owners. That gave Tesla a huge competitive advantage. You might test many EVs and find that you preferred a different vehicle, then buy a Tesla because common chargers made it so much easier to live with.
But, in 2023, all of that changed.
Industry Quickly Standardizing
In late May, Ford negotiated an agreement that saw Tesla open its charging network to owners of Ford EVs. Ford plans to give owners adapters to make charging at Tesla stations possible starting in 2024 and build the Tesla NACS plug into its cars starting in 2025.
One by one, nearly every automaker followed suit.
Rival charging networks – including Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary – have begun adding the NACS port to their chargers.
SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers) has agreed to administer the NACS standard.
No Agreement for 2024
Some other automakers’ moves will kick in earlier.
Along with Ford, GM and others have negotiated the right for their owners to use Tesla chargers in 2024. They’ll need adapters to hook up to a Supercharger, but they will be allowed to. Starting in 2025, the automakers will build the NACS port into cars in 2025.
Volkswagen’s announcement instead says, “Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi are exploring adapter solutions for existing vehicles to access the Tesla Supercharger network, starting in 2025.” So, owners of their products may have to wait a year longer than most.