THE INDUSTRY RALLIES AROUND TESLA

By Éric Descarries

The big news this week in the electric car industry is that several automakers are adopting the North American Charging Standard (NACS) configuration put forward by new giant Tesla. Ford set the ball rolling a few weeks ago by announcing that it would adapt the charging of its electric cars to Tesla’s charging stations thanks to the NACS configuration, Tesla’s charging stations being much faster than those of Level 2, which can take up to eight hours to recharge a battery. GM and Rivian followed suit, and many others have since done the same, including, most recently, Volvo. Hyundai, Volkswagen and Stellantis, among others, have also announced that they are currently evaluating the situation.

Most recently, the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers International) has finally endorsed the movement, while Tesla has announced that it will not “charge” any fees other than those for normal use of its charging stations to users of brands other than its own. As a result, the move towards socket standardization seems to be well underway, and could spread rapidly around the world.