Tesla's Push for Standardisation

In a bit of clever thinking, Tesla has opened up the designs for its electric charging connector to the wider industry, and have begun trying to position their patent as the North American standard.

They've even renamed the connector to NACS - or the North American Charging Standard - which you would think is a bit over-confident, but electric vehicle infrastructure is the Wild West right now, and this move is actually pretty savvy.

The current standard is the CCS connector, and the hardest part about trying to replace it is that it's been almost globally adopted at this point. But Tesla's NACS connector is not only sleeker, and more efficient - it's got name recognition.

Tesla’s NACS connector in comparison to the larger CCS connector.

And that might be the answer to why Tesla hasn't tried this before now. Industry critics have been quick to point out that Tesla likely was attempting to control EV charging infrastructure with their proprietary tech up until the recent regulation changes in the States required Tesla charging stations to at least carry CCS adapters.

And, yeah. Tesla's a company, and companies want to make money, this isn't a new concept people. But much its much more likely that Tesla wants to take advantage of all the new funding from the American government.

Specifically, there's a section about the funding for EV stations which specifies that funding can only be given to stations that work with EVs from more than one automaker. 

And making a push for other EV companies to adopt their tech - instead of adapting to older, less efficient designs - is a VERY Tesla move.

And it's not just Tesla pushing for this.

A smaller EV company called Aptera launched a supporting petition to the American Congress earlier this year that's gotten around 40 thousand signatures so far. That's not nothing in an industry that's as relatively small as this is.

But for now, we'll have to wait and see if this ploy works. Generally, industry standards live and die based on the early adopters. Tesla is easily the biggest name in electric vehicles, and they're not above working with other companies if they need to get something done.

Given that the Tesla NACS connector is just an overall improvement over the CCS, we might see this campaign pick up steam - and congressional support - over the next year or so.