One of the problems holding back the widespread adoption of electric cars is a stupid problem to have: There’s no standard charger. Tesla vehicles use one plug type, while most non-Tesla electric vehicles (EVs) sold in the U.S. use a second. Additionally, a handful of other cars use a third.
Tesla’s charging stations have the Tesla plug. Most non-Tesla stations have the second plug, and some have the third. Some years, Nissan even built two different ports into its Leaf EV to give drivers better odds of finding a charger they could use.
RELATED: Electric Car Charging: Everything You Need to Know
It’s as if some gas tanks had a triangular filler hole, others had a square one, and drivers couldn’t count on being able to fill up at every gas station.
New technologies often have hurdles to adoption. But problems scale with adoption, so more users means more complaints. Ultimately, more complaints can mean more pressure to finally do something.
Tesla would like to do something.
Tesla Offers Its Tech to Other Automakers
On Friday, the company posted a proposal to its website — “We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port” on their chargers and cars.
The post is signed “The Tesla Team.”
Tesla renamed its plug the “North American Charging Standard” (NACS). The move may be premature, but it succinctly explains the proposal.
Related: How Much Does it Cost to Charge an Electric Car?
The company posted schematics for the NACS charging port for free, which might indicate that they’re not even asking other companies to pay licensing fees to use the design.
Most Popular Plug Is a Logical Choice
There are good, logical reasons why the rest of the industry might want to adopt Tesla’s design.
Tesla points out that its design is the most proven, “With more than a decade of use and 20 billion EV charging miles to its name.” It’s also mechanically simpler than the second-most-popular connector, the Combined Charging System (CCS).
We’ve driven many miles in electric cars and have often found that the CCS charger requires two hands and is quite heavy. The NACS charger is much smaller and easy to operate even with one gloved hand.
There’s also the simple matter of numbers — Tesla operates America’s largest charging network. The company has said it plans to open the network to use by other cars but hasn’t explained how it would make its chargers work with CCS plugs. The answer, perhaps, is that it won’t — it will just allow automakers to build Tesla plugs into their EVs.
Several companies operate nationwide charging networks for non-Tesla EVs, and most have plans to add the NACS plug to their chargers.
Because there are already millions of EVs on the road using CCS plugs, they won’t go away anytime soon, even if the rest of the auto industry takes Tesla up on its offer. But the offer would solve a real headache for EV drivers, leading to a day when every new electric car can use every charger, just like every gas-powered car today can use every gas pump.
