Volkswagen Group is the latest automaker to announce it will adopt Tesla’s so-called North American Charging Standard (NACS), and one of the last major automakers to adopt what is now the de facto EV plug in the United States. It becomes.
The German giant announced on Tuesday that future vehicles from its brand portfolio, which includes Audi, Porsche and the group’s emerging EV business Scout Motors, will include NACS charging ports from 2025.
Volkswagen Group was one of the last holdouts, but its charging network, Electrify America, recently announced plans to adopt the NACS standard. This is a strong sign that automakers aren’t far behind.
The announcement comes at the tail end of a queue of other automakers jumping on the charging standard, after Tesla announced last year that it would open up access.
Ford started this trend in May 2023 by announcing that EV owners would soon be the first to have access to approximately 12,000 Tesla chargers through adapters. Ford added that its next-generation EVs will be integrated with Tesla’s charging ports, called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), starting in 2025. Since then, major automakers such as GM, Rivian, Honda, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, and recently Subaru have made their own announcements leveraging Tesla’s charging standards. Lucid, a small luxury EV company, announced in November that it would adopt the NAC standard.
Stellantis, the parent company of numerous brands including Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Peugeot, does not participate in the NAC standard. The company previously told TechCrunch that it was evaluating charging standards.
Source: techcrunch.com
