GM and Ford are adopting Tesla's EV charging connector, all but killing CCS in North America

Rival auto manufacturers GM and Ford have signed on to use Tesla's NACS charging connector for their future electric cars in North America, a decision that has effectively signed the death certificate for the competing CCS1 charging connector standard.

We're still in the early days of electric vehicles, but the rate of adoption is rapidly increasing as more manufacturers produce EVs in different shapes and sizes and prices, and as customers buy them up with vigor. And so there is a lot of jockeying happening not just for buyers, but for infrastructure to support them. The most interesting bifurcation has happened in charging standards with the division led primarily by Tesla.

Back in 2012 when Tesla unveiled its all-electric Model S sedan it did so with a new charging connector. At the time it was a proprietary connector, but it was already much more impressive and elegant than the highly engineered J1772 standard connector or almost comically bulky CCS1 and CHAdeMO standards that also offered DC charging. Tesla's connector did all of that in a fraction of the footprint, with far less complexity in design or use. Yet, for the past decade, Tesla's been trucking along with their own connector in North American markets while all other manufacturers remained committed to CCS1.

(Tesla was mandated by law to use the Type 2 IEC 60309 and CCS2 connectors for cars sold in Europe, and the GB/T connector in China)

Tesla accounts for more than half of DC fast chargers in the USA — surely a selling point for Ford and GM

This led to the bifurcation of the US EV market, with Tesla leading in electric car sales ever since their first cars went on sale, and leading in the deployment of chargers with their expansive but exclusive Supercharger network. Tesla's head start in charger installation gets us to where we are today, with Tesla's Superchargers accounting for more than half of the DC fast chargers installed in the USA.

That's all started to change. It began with the relatively quiet November 2022 announcement from Tesla that they were opening up the Tesla charging connector to other manufacturers as the NACS — the North American Charging Standard. But the big news arrived late last month with Ford switching to the Tesla NCAS connector in 2025. And now today, chief American rival GM revealed they are also adopting NACS. Both plan to make adapters for the existing CCS-equipped chargers, and Tesla already sells their own CSS adapter, and also has equipped a handful of its own Tesla-plugged charging stations with adapters to support CCS vehicles.

Tesla, Ford, and GM today account for roughly 3/4 of all EV sales in the USA and the top three sales spots. This is a tipping point for EVs in the USA and thus North America — in the span of a few months Tesla's NACS connector went from proprietary to the winning option. There are still other EV manufacturers that remain publicly committed to the CCS connector, including VW, Mercedes, Kia, and Rivian. Ford and GM are huge swings for NACS and will almost certainly lead to other companies adapting the standard.

Certainly, charging companies like Electrify America and ChargePoint are also going to race to install NACS connectors in the next two years so that the fleets of differently receptacled EVs can utilize their currently CCS-only chargers. Tesla will also have to invest in upgrading their existing charger stations with longer cables, though, since they're basically the only manufacturer placing their charging port at the corner of the car. Charging a Ford F-150 at one of those adapter-equipped stations didn't go so well because of the short Supercharger cables.

GM's adoption of NACS signals the end of the line for CCS1. The standards body made some angry noises when Ford jumped ship, but the loss of GM means they no longer have America's largest auto manufacturer and popular and well-known brands like Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac. Alas, CCS1, few people even knew your clunkiness. NACS will reign supreme from here on out.

A coalition of American car manufacturers has formed an alliance to build a charging network to rival Tesla's Superchargers, and that's good news for everyone.

It hasn't been long since the first domino fell in the switch away from the CCS1 plug, but in relatively short order the plug that used to be proprietary to Tesla is the new standard for American electric cars.

EV truck maker Rivian will start building vehicles with the NACS connector in 2025, adding another company to Tesla's Supercharger-compatible network. Meanwhile, practically every company that builds EV chargers is also adopting the connector.

Some of the biggest oil companies in the world have acknowledged that the future of surface transportation will largely be electric, and they don't want to miss out on that rapidly expanding pie.

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