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Transportation Power

GM Announces It Will Also Adopt Tesla's NACS Connector, Joining Ford 141

GM has confirmed that it will adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its future electric vehicles, following in the footsteps of Ford. Electrek reports: This is likely the next step in a domino effect that should solidify NACS as the new charging standard for electric cars in North America. When Tesla announced last year that it opened up its proprietary charging connector to try to make it the industry standard in North America, we thought it might be too little too late, despite agreeing that Tesla's plug was a much superior design than the current CCS standard. However, we were proven wrong last month when Ford announced that it will integrate the NACS in its future electric vehicles.

GM CEO Mary Barra confirmed that General Motors will also adopt NACS with the help of Tesla in future electric vehicles. Barra made the announcement with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter. She said that the first vehicles with the plug will come in 2025 and like Ford, GM EV owners will all have access to Tesla's Supercharger network starting in 2024 with a CCS to NACS adapter. Like Ford, GM's Bara referenced the more efficient design of Tesla's connector and the "robustness" of Tesla's Supercharger network as reasons to adopt the standard.
Barra said in a statement: "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. 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."
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GM Announces It Will Also Adopt Tesla's NACS Connector, Joining Ford

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  • If VW, Renault/Nissan and Toyota join, this will 'set the standard' regardless of what regulators (EU or otherwise) say.

    Given how much better/faster the Tesla charger works, that's A Good Thing for EV consumers.

    • by feranick ( 858651 ) on Thursday June 08, 2023 @07:15PM (#63587046)
      CCS will probably remain standard in the EU, as even Tesla uses it both in their cars and superchargers. There is no point in changing all that. the US will slowly adopt NACS. Japan will probably wait and see (as they are about 5 years behind).
      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Japan will probably wait and see (as they are about 5 years behind"

        LOL

        • They are. Show me they are not.
        • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday June 09, 2023 @03:00AM (#63587744) Homepage

          LOL yourself. This is widely accepted fact. Toyota and Honda, which together make up nearly 70% of Japanese auto sales in the US, are only just now, very reluctantly, getting started on BEVs, and their executives public statements sound veritably angry about having to do so (they've been betting on hydrogen). Nissan (less than 1/5th of Japense imports to the US) got an early start with the Leaf, but underinvested in technology (going with relatively primitive design approaches, such as passive cooling of large prismatic cells) for too long and has seen its BEV market share collapse, both in Europe and in the US. Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Subaru are practically no-shows when it comes to BEVs; they've done some technology demonstrators (Mitsibishi early on, with the i-MiEV), but never pushed on meaningful volumes; at least they do decent volumes on small-pack PHEVs. Subaru has announced their first mass-market BEV, the rather middling Solterra EV, which rather looks like a compliance car, but it's something. Suzuki is still in the concept car phase with the eVX (they have to go electric, and will, but it's embarrassing to not even have specific release plans announced at this time)

          The TL/DR is that Japan is a bit player in the BEV market relative to their share of the global auto market because they wavered and dug in their heels for far too long and made bad bets on hydrogen.

          • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday June 09, 2023 @04:44AM (#63587898)

            Exactly right. Japanese automakers lead by Toyota have royally fucked themselves by not investing in battery manufacturing and EV production when it mattered most and they are watching markets collapse beneath them. Meanwhile China is taking up the slack and making a fortune. At some point they're going to have to close factories or maybe even go bust and won't that be a fun recession for Japan?

            Anyway, regarding the Solterra, that and the Toyota's BZ4X, are the same car (a few cosmetic difference) and the general consensus is they suck, especially for the price point. I bet these companies actually lose money for each one they sell or have sitting around in inventory. That may explain why Toyota is basically outsourcing future EV production to a Chinese partner because they're incapable of doing it in house because they never invested the money that would let them do so profitably.

            • The Solterra certainly has too little range for the price, yet charging is also too slow, which is a bad combo. I hope they turn out to be relatively reliable so I can buy one used, except for the price it looks like pretty much what I'm looking for. (The range is OK for my use case.)

              • by DrXym ( 126579 )

                Apparently the BZ4X & Solterra have battery management software which deliberately gimps charge speeds to prolong battery life. I assume that's for their benefit and the warranty rather than for the consumer's. If I were splashing out $42,000 for an EV, there are better choices to be had around that price point.

        • by DrXym ( 126579 )

          Japan automakers still have their heads in the sand about EVs. Sales collapsing throughout China & Europe and no capacity to manufacture batteries or EVs. That is why Toyota, Honda et al have been spreading bullshit about hydrogen powered cars and paying $$$ to lobby politicians to water down emissions & EV adoption because they know they are fucked.

          As for the Japanese EVs that there are, they use CHAdeMO which is a very clumsy DC only protocol but China has a similar situation with GB/T and it hasn

      • by khchung ( 462899 )

        Japan will probably wait and see (as they are about 5 years behind).

        Not just behind, Japan is doubling down on hydrogen-powered vehicle instead of EV.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday June 09, 2023 @06:06AM (#63587994) Homepage Journal

        Japan will stick with CHAdeMO. Cars sold over there all come with CHAdeMO, except Teslas. The CHAdeMO dongle for Teslas is pretty much mandatory.

        China has adopted a standard that is very similar to CHAdeMO, and will stick with that as they already have a lot of infrastructure installed with it.

        • by _merlin ( 160982 )

          China and Japan are both talking about transitioning to ChaoJi [wikipedia.org], replacing the Chinese GB/T and Japanese CHAdeMO standards. On top of that, there's already talk of a "Super ChaoJi" variant with additional pins to support very high charging rates for special vehicles. Standards aren't really settled yet.

      • Slowly?

        80+% of the market will be on NACS next year.

        Teslas (2/3 of EVs) obviously use NACS/Superchargers, and Ford + GM (12% of EVs combined) will all have access to Superchargers next year.
        There's no way Kia and VW (each 6% of EV sales in 2023q1). All other brands are individually 3% or less of the market. There's no way they won't be switching over as well just from the POV of customer satisfaction.

        Also, if you look at the cost of these plugs, NACS is a significant savings over CCS. They are smaller, ligh

    • More likely Europe is going to remain standardized on CCS2, and a connector war where the user will be the biggest loser will happen in North America and other unregulated markets.

      • From what I've read, NACS is easier to use and more durable. If so and it wins in the USA, that makes the users in North America the winners and the Europeans stuck with the larger, weaker, harder to handle plug the losers.

        • That's a big IF. I think it's more likely that North America be stuck with at least two competing connectors for years. Every EV will need to carry at least one adapter for the other type of charger, or will only be able to use half the chargers out there.

          And even IF NACS wins, they could make NACS2 in 10 years which will be even more "durable and easy to use" and fragment the market again.

          It's usually better to have an imperfect standard than no standard.

          • And even IF NACS wins, they could make NACS2 in 10 years which will be even more "durable and easy to use" and fragment the market again.

            From what I've read, NACS has a LOT of potential still left in it, wattage wise. It can push enough juice to charge electric semis well enough.

            And if NACS2 is so much better than NACS that the company is - remember, they own a lot of chargers, replace all those chargers with the future connector, it has to have enough benefits to justify that. In which case it'd be a win.

      • by DrXym ( 126579 )

        CCS type 2 was done and dusted in Europe years ago. Every automaker knew it was coming and planned accordingly. Tesla was even a willing participant in all this. So it's not going to change any time in the foreseeable future.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "Given how much better/faster the Tesla charger works..."

      That is NONE better/faster. It is smaller, nothing else.

      • This came up when Ford announced. I've seen testimonies from people that work on both that the NACS ports are smaller, lighter, yet more durable and easier to use.

        If true, the USA is winning this standardization war.

      • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday June 09, 2023 @03:04AM (#63587750) Homepage

        I use CCS-2 daily, and whenever I go to the US I rent a Tesla with NACS. NACS wins hands-down. It's smaller, lighter, easier to insert (aka, disability-friendly), higher power capability, universal autopayment, and of course has a MUCH better network in the US. The locking mechanism is inside the vehicle (aka, you can release it yourself with your car's emergency release) rather than in the connector (emergency releases have to be done by the station maintainer). The internals, as per Munro, are simpler and cheaper. And of course the majority of high-power connectors in the US on vehicles are already NACS.

        • The main differing issue is AC charging:
          NACS would not work in europe due to the fact that most homes in europe have 3 phase home installations with which means up to 12kW with only 16A via the 3-phase CCS2 connector (and could go up to 22kW if the onboard charger supports it).
          NACS on the other hand can only deliver a single phase which would make it all but unusable in europe but would work in the US where there is mostly just one (or maybe two) phases in a single home
          So yeah, NACS is maybe a nice connecto

          • by Rei ( 128717 )

            Tesla didn't use NACS in Europe. Before Europe basically mandated it out of existence, Tesla's European connector was a variant on the Menneckes connector, which Europe mandated that all EVs have (and which forms the upper part of the CCS-2 combo connector). They modified it so that they could run DC through the different AC phase pins and beefed up the connectors and wiring, and were getting similar charge performance to CCS-2 (combo) with its dedicated DC pins.

            I'm not sure why you think that having three

  • For example, could Electrify America change all their existing stations to Tesla style? Or at least build their own? Or do they have to license the design?

    • Tesla has made NACS available for free, so there’s nothing stopping EA or anyone else from using it, legally speaking. In fact, you should expect them to announce that they are switching to NACS in the future.

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      Yes, they can. Freewire [electrek.co] has already announced plans to update their chargers to include NACS.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday June 09, 2023 @03:28AM (#63587774)

    ... for not mandating an electric vehicle charging standard. After all, who doesn't love a pointless drawn out format war involving the shape of some socket and handshake protocols baked into $30,000+ vehicles. Meanwhile over in Europe, every new car, including Tesla's use CCS type 2.

    • The path is the goal, not the destination. In Europe the result was achieved by using socialistic methods, that practically invalidate the results. Can't have that type of communism in the good ol' US of A.
  • We were in Amsterdam (Vermeer exhibit) and our pickup at the airport was driving a Volvo S-60. Since that's what my wife has, we got to talking about cars. I asked about EVs. He said, "I had a Ionic, but I was spending an hour or 2 each day charging it, and that really cost me a lot of business." My friend with an EV (a Tesla) said, "Well, maybe he's not being very efficient about when and how he charges." But even if that's true, the perception that it takes too long to charge an EV is significant. Th

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