NACS 2025: It’s Happening! (Implications & Fallout)

Sign up for CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and/or follow us on Google News!

Who would have guessed that Tesla’s proprietary Supercharger standard would become the true universally adopted charging standard for North America? It was previously accepted that the standard in North America would be CCS. Tesla’s fabulous Supercharger system used to be available only to Teslas. This made Tesla the only choice for EV owners who wanted worry free cross-country travel on US superhighways. If you wanted an EV and were planning to make cross-county trips, you really needed to buy a Tesla. This made a major selling point for Teslas. Tesla talked about offering Supercharger access to other manufacturers, but only Aptera accepted the invitation and Aptera hasn’t sold any cars yet.

I owned three Nissan Leaf EVs, so I understood well how limited charging options could be for non-Tesla EVs. I have homes in Utah and northern Wisconsin and I did planning exercises on driving my 150-mile range 2018 Nissan Leaf between my two homes. If you have read stories about early automobile trips across the US, it would have been almost like that. Unless I wanted to spend 10+ days doing the trip and hoping to charge at RV parks while I slept nights on a foam pad in my car, it wasn’t going to happen. Since I couldn’t live without having my brand-new EV in Wisconsin for the summer, I ended up shipping it across the country three times on a diesel-powered car carrier.

The last time I drove the Leaf was from Wisconsin to Minneapolis using the only available charger en route in Eau Claire when I traded it in at the Tesla dealer in Minneapolis. I picked up my 2019 Tesla Model 3 ten days later in Salt Lake City and have since made the cross-country run 11 times between my two homes with not a single worry about charging. It takes the same three days we previously took in our gas-powered Toyota Highlander and it adds only an hour or two per day to the trip. My wife is complaining more lately about the extra time for charging, but with bathroom, food, dog walking, and human walking breaks it doesn’t take that much longer. We’ve owned our Tesla Model 3 for going on 6 years and I can only think of a couple routes that interest me that I can only make with difficulty or cannot make with my Tesla because of lack of chargers. I will discuss them later.

To the surprise of many of us in June of 2023, Ford broke the logjam and adopted the NACS as their future standard. Ford promised to make an adapter to the NACS standard available soon and build their cars with NACS ports standard in the future. In the months that followed, every major automobile US manufacture jumped on board as well. Why not, if you wanted to access the only totally reliable charging network in the US that allowed worry free cross-country travel, it had to be Tesla Superchargers.

Where do we stand two years later? I’ve now seen Ford 150 Lightnings, Ford Mach E Mustangs, Rivian SUVs, Rivian pickup trucks, and a Volvo EV charging at Tesla Superchargers (see photos below).

What are the implications for non-Tesla EVs? Since the charging ports on most non-Tesla vehicles are not in the correct place for Superchargers, they sometimes have to take up two stalls or where possible drive up to the charger from the opposite side. Since most Superchargers have 8 or more stalls and often have multiple unused stalls, this is not usually a problem. The three photos below show a Rivian SUV parked on the wrong side of a Supercharger followed by a Volvo EV and a Ford F-150 Lightning also charging at a Tesla Supercharger.

The other problem is that non-Tesla EVs can only charge at the newer V3 250kW or V4 chargers. This means that non-Tesla EVs still don’t enjoy worry free charging on all major superhighway cross-country trips. For example: the five Superchargers at Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins, Laramie, and Cheyenne on I-80 across Wyoming are all the older V2 150kW chargers that can’t be used by non-Tesla EVs. I-70, including across Colorado, is well covered by Electrify America CCS chargers, so that route works fine for non-Tesla EVs. On the other hand, the North/South route from Salt Lake City to Saint George in southern Utah on I-15 has all new V3 Superchargers in Nephi, Beaver, and Cedar City. You can use Tesla Superchargers at 100-mile intervals or less from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and on to Los Angeles with a non-Tesla EV.

What about the converse, can Teslas use non-Tesla chargers? Before June of 2023, CCS was considered the North American charging standard for EVs. About that time Tesla made available an adapter that would allow Teslas to use CCS chargers. All Teslas made after October 2020 were then able to use CCS chargers with a $250 adapter. Unfortunately, Teslas made before then would require an update to use CCS chargers. Since my Model 3 was made in October of 2019, mine would require the update. Unfortunately, when I first enquired about the retrofit, it was not available. Apparently, the retrofit is now available for my Model 3. Unfortunately, I’m in northern Wisconsin now for the next 5 months and the nearest Tesla service center is 192 miles south of me in Madison, Wisconsin. Tesla has responded with a $348 estimate to retrofit the ECU and supply the adapter. It seems they want $330 for the ECU retrofit so they will give me the adapter for $18. It doesn’t make much sense. I know that the retrofit can be done by a Tesla mobile service person and I’ve requested on the Tesla app to have it done. However, I’m guessing that I am too far away for mobile service, so I will probably have to wait for my next trip to Madison.

Where would I like to go that is currently difficult with the Tesla Supercharger network we have now? We love to go north to the beautiful resort town of Bayfield, Wisconsin, on the coast of the biggest lake in the world, Lake Superior (see the two photos below).

It’s 154 miles north of me. However, there are no Superchargers on the route. When we have gone, we needed to charge for 6 hours at the destination charger at the Bayfield Inn before we made the return trip. That was assuming no Inn customer wanted to use the charger. This was dicey and certainly not convenient. In a photo above you see me illegally charging at a gazebo at a waterfront park in Bayfield. It cost me a $10 fine to use that charger. What has changed? There is a new Kwik Trip DC fast charger in Ashland, Wisconsin, perfectly placed on my route, just 23 miles south of Bayfield. Kwik Trip has opened numerous gas stations with gorgeous comprehensive convenience stores around the Midwest over the last years. Ten years ago, the one in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, had a level 1 (110 V) EV charger included. I was amused because at 4 miles/hour charging it would take several hours of charging if you came in empty and needed an emergency charge. Well, it’s happened — Kwik Trip is putting in useful DC fast chargers at their facilities now, as shown in the composite photo below.

The biggie — this is the first non-Tesla fast charger I have seen that has NACS plugs. It has 4. Therefore this is the first example I have seen where the converse is true. Not just non-Teslas being able to use Tesla chargers, but Teslas being able to use non-Tesla chargers. How do I know? I was doing a PlugShare search on my route to Bayfield and a Tesla compatible charger in Ashland came up orange. On closer inspection the information below came up.

It also contained the following note:

This means that you should be able to charge a Cybertruck at a rate of 324kW, which is faster than the commonly available Tesla V3 250kW chargers. The catch is that your Tesla must have been manufactured after October 2022 or have had the retrofit done. My Tesla Model 3 manufactured in October 2019 needs the retrofit. As mentioned above, I’m working on getting the retrofit done.

Where else would I like to go in my Tesla that has been out of reach for convenient travel up to now? I would like to travel from Saint George in southern Utah to Bryce Canyon National Park and the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. I will discuss these in a future article.

Referral Program

Tesla has reactivated its referral program. If you find any of my articles helpful to you, please use my referral link: https://ts.la/arthur73734 (Be sure to use it when you make your order). If you are buying a new Tesla and use my link, you’ll receive $1000 off your purchase price for Model S and X, or $500 off for Model 3 and Y. You will also get 3 months of Full Self-Driving. It is technically FSD Supervised and it will drive you automatically to any address you enter into the Navigation. Just be prepared to intervene immediately if it screws up.