Ford Adopts Tesla’s NACS
In a truly monumental turn of events, automaking giant Ford has announced that they will be adopting Tesla’s proprietary charging connector - the North American Charging Standard, or “NACS”.
In a Twitter Spaces event held on May 25th, Ford CEA Jim Farley joined Tesla CEO Elon Musk to outline the plan for total adoption of the NACS into the Ford fleet of electric vehicles - a surprising announcement that has the potential to turn the entire industry on its head.
According to Farley, the plan is to begin providing Ford electric vehicle owners with adapters in early 2024. These adapters will allow the CCS port-equipped Ford vehicles to access every Tesla charging station - not just the ones Tesla is converting for public use.
Then, by early 2025, Ford says they will start building their vehicles with the NACS ports as standard - completing their transformation, and giving Ford owners unlimited access to Tesla’s massive North American charging network across the US and Canada. Farley laid it out plainly during the Spaces event, saying:
“[Ford owners] will have unprecedented access to the largest network of fast-chargers in the U.S. and Canada with 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers [...] Widespread access to fast-charging is absolutely vital to our growth as an EV brand, [...]”
On Tesla’s side of the deal, they are reportedly going to be supplying Ford with those adapters, and then of course the parts for the ports themselves - but they’ll also be providing Ford with access to their mobile app API - the code used to operate the Tesla app that owners use to find nearby charge stations. That’s some pretty significant support - and it’s not hard to see why Tesla is going all-in here.
Tesla has put a lot of work into their charging technology - rightfully so, their whole business relies on the availability of charging stations, and no one was stepping up to build those before Tesla decided to step up. They even renamed their charging port design to the “North American Charging Standard” in an effort to get it accepted as such in 2022.
That particular campaign began when a smaller electric company called Aptera decided to adopt Tesla’s charging port for its solar-powered vehicles. Aptera actually started a petition to get the US Congress to adopt the NACS over the clunky CCS connector type.
And it’s pretty obvious that the NACS is the best option here. For starters, Tesla has been so successful in North America, that their NACS-equipped vehicles outnumber CCS-standard vehicles by almost 2 to 1. And while that shouldn’t necessarily be the reason to make the switch - the NACS is also about half the size as the bulkier CCS charging head, and way more powerful.
These are great arguments for switching to Tesla’s system, but to sweeten the deal, Tesla has released the specifications of their connector in an effort to encourage more manufacturers to adopt their design. And it seems like it worked with Ford at least.
It’s pretty easy to see what Ford gets out of this deal. Like a lot of the older automotive companies, Ford was very slow to adopt the electric car - which is ironic considering Henry Ford invented an electric car himself back in 1914. But now that it’s pretty clear the world can’t procrastinate on the Fossil Fuel problem anymore, most companies are spending a lot of money trying to develop their own, proprietary tech.
Ford’s answer to this problem up until now has been similar. They developed their F-150 Lightning, and the Mustang Mach-E on their own - but none of the big companies had much thought to building the charging stations they’d need to replace the system of gas stations that actually make private car ownership a possibility.
It’s probably the smartest decision any company in Ford’s position could make. Tesla (and the government) have spent a lot of money setting up these big charging stations. Tesla has done the work of setting up the infrastructure - all Ford has to do is buy in.
And we’re sure that as far as Tesla is concerned - whatever Ford is paying isn’t the most important part of this deal. Ford is a giant - one of the only major American automotive companies left from the industrial revolution. To have them take on Tesla as a partner is a huge signal to the other companies that if they don’t do the same - or develop something better - they’re going to get left behind.
And that’s the biggest implication of this deal. Ford signing on to use the NACS is what will likely get the ball rolling on Tesla’s charging tech becoming the actual North American standard. It’s hard to think that other major companies won’t be lining up to make a similar deal after this - which leaves the governments of North America stuck with supporting Tesla’s charge station infrastructure.
Tesla really hit the jackpot here.