General Motors CEO Mary Barra held her own Twitter Spaces event on June 8 featuring Tesla CEO Elon Musk. As with Ford's event with CEO Jim Farley from late last month, GM announced it will join Tesla using the North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug to charge its electric vehicles.
"When you think about what's happening in our industry, and I've been in it for 40 years, this is the most exciting time when we look at this transformation to EVs. I think this is one of the great inflection points in vehicles, it's incompatible to really the moving production (assembly) line," said CEO Barra in the event.
Tesla optimistically renamed its charger in November of 2022 to NACS even though it was one of the few EV brands that used the standard. However, with adapters for Ford and GM, available early next spring for GM, those makes will be able to use the more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in the United States. Additionally, with the amount of Tesla vehicles on the road, it is technically the most common charging standard.
"For the customer that's skeptical about EVs, I think this really helps them out," said Barra.
GM will start installing the NACS port in its cars from the factory in 2025. It currently has four EVs on sale including the GMC Hummer, Cadillac Lyriq and Chevrolet Bolt. The Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox EVs are on the way, as is the flagship Celestiq from Cadillac.
"What's even more exciting is that our existing EV customers can leverage the Tesla fast chargers early next spring so I couldn't be more excited about what this is going to do for customers and for EV adoption" said Barra "And we're incredibly excited to partner with you on this. It'll just make for a fantastic electric vehicle experience, whether somebody is driving the car from GM or from Tesla," said Barra.
Musk went on to explain that the NACS port can automatically detect whether it's on alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) power and automatically adjust. He also said the charger is lighter and easier to handle than the current CCS standard.
"I think is one of the key reasons why we're so excited to be making this change because of the design and performance of the North America Charging Standard, from an ergonomic perspective and from a reliability and durability perspective, it's better for customers. It's better for the company and better for the industry," said Musk.
Musk repeated what he said in his Spaces event with Ford CEO Farley about the charging experience being seamless between brands. Tesla's vehicles are already integrated into that system, which has charged speeds ranging from 90 to 250 kilowatts (kW), but it still may take some time for Ford and GM vehicles to work as effortlessly as the Model S, X, Y and 3.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jake Lingeman is the Managing Editor for the Autos team at Newsweek. He has previously worked for Autoweek, The Detroit ... Read more
