Kia will adopt the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) port for its electric vehicles (EVs) in late 2024. The move is hardly surprising — Kia is closely affiliated with Hyundai, which made the same move last week.
New Kia models built in the fourth quarter of 2024 will have the NACS port built in. The company says it will “make available” adapters that let existing Kia EVs charge at Tesla stations “through Kia dealers starting in Q1 2025.”
Kia’s announcement did not specify whether dealers will charge for the adapters. We have asked for clarification and will update this story when we hear back.
Industry Standardizing
The two become the latest in a long string of automakers to adopt Tesla’s charging system, which is quickly becoming the industry standard in North America.
That will likely prove to be an important development in the history of cars. Until this year, the EV market was confusing, in part, because not every charger could charge every car.
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Most EV owners do most of their charging at home. But charging in public can be more complicated.
Different manufacturers used different shaped plugs — Tesla with its own NACS standard, most others with a second called the Combined Charging System (CCS), and the Nissan Leaf with a third connector common mostly in Asia.
To make matters worse, EV drivers face a patchwork of different charging networks, each with separate operators and payment systems. It’s not particularly complicated to pull into a Shell station to refill with gas and then, next time, use an Exxon station. But, EV owners using unfamiliar networks often have to download new apps to control them and sign up for additional services.
Not every charging network operator takes consistent care of its chargers. One study found that more than a fifth of all attempts to charge in public end in failure thanks to broken chargers.
Tesla owners are mostly spared that annoyance. The company operates the nation’s largest charging network, and the same study found it more reliable.
Related: How Much Does it Cost to Charge an Electric Car?
Tesla’s plug is also easier to use — small enough for most drivers to connect with one hand, where many CCS chargers are so large they require two.
A Few Holdouts Remain
Earlier this year, Ford and Tesla negotiated an agreement that let Ford install the Tesla port on its cars. Many other automakers have followed suit, from General Motors to Mercedes.
Kia’s move doesn’t mean the entire automotive industry has adopted the Tesla plug. A few holdouts — notably global giants Toyota and Volkswagen — haven’t yet signed on.
And it doesn’t mean all public chargers nationwide will be operated by Tesla. Other charging systems have begun adding the Tesla NACS cord to their chargers, but charging networks will remain like gas stations owned and operated by many companies.
Six large automakers are working together to build a nationwide charging network, and some electric utilities are building their own.
But the move brings us closer to the day when filling up with electricity is almost as simple as filling up with gas, with owners seeing largely the same experience everywhere they go.
