Volvo to use Tesla’s NACS charging port in the US
Volvo Cars is the first European car manufacturer to install Tesla’s charging port in electric cars for the North American market from 2025. Through the cooperation with Tesla, drivers of Volvo’s electric cars will have access to Tesla Superchargers in the USA, Canada and Mexico via an adapter from the first half of 2024.
Via the adapter or later the permanently installed NACS charging socket, the electric Volvos will be able to charge at the currently 12,000 Supercharger fast charging points in the three countries mentioned – or even more charging points as Tesla continues to expand the Supercharger network. Since charging at CCS1 charging points will also be possible later on via an adapter, Volvo talks about the new Tesla charging points complementing “Volvo drivers’ existing access to tens of thousands of fast charging points”.
In the announcement, Volvo cites its two current electric models, the XC40 Recharge and C40 Recharge, as vehicles that will support the NACS – as well as the EX90 and EX30, which have already been unveiled but have yet to be launched.
Tesla has previously struck similar deals with Ford, General Motors and Rivian. Volvo is now joining as the fourth carmaker and as the first European manufacturer. But the Swedes also have a strong US connection, operating a plant in Ridgeville, near the port city of Charleston in the state of South Carolina.
“As part of our journey to becoming fully electric by 2030, we want to make life with an electric car as easy as possible,” says Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars. “One major inhibitor to more people making the shift to electric driving – a key step in making transportation more sustainable – is access to easy and convenient charging infrastructure. Today, with this agreement, we’re taking a major step to remove this threshold for Volvo drivers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.”
Whether Volvo drivers will actually need the mentioned adapter for charging at CCS1 charging points in practice is still unclear. In mid-June, several charging point operators announced that they would also set up charging points with NACS charging cables in the future or retrofit them to existing points. One of these operators was ChargePoint. The US company has now announced that the NACS option is available for newly ordered and already installed chargers of the models CP6000, Express 250 and Express Plus. The Express 250 and Express Plus are DC charging stations, while the CP6000 is a charger for fleet customers that is scheduled to go on sale in early 2024. The CPF50 and Home Flex wallboxes will also be available with NACS, ChargePoint said. Customers will thus be able to choose (for the DC pillars) between CCS1, CHAdeMO, NACS and the AC connection J1772.
Even though Tesla calls the NACS a “standard”, it is not yet one, as it is a Tesla in-house development and has not gone through the usual certification procedures. The CCS organisation CharIN recently pointed out this fact and announced its intention to initiate such a procedure with a working group of 51 companies. Now the standardisation organisation SAE International has also announced that it will standardise Tesla’s NACS connection. This is to ensure that “every manufacturer and supplier can use, make or deploy the NACS connector in electric cars and at charging stations across North America”. The SAE announces an “accelerated timeframe” for the development – but this timeframe is not described in more detail.
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