Tesla’s NACS charging connector for electric vehicle charging has been on a tear as of late. Several manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors, Rivian, and Volvo, have announced that they’ll be switching to Tesla’s charging standard soon. Some national EV charging companies have also announced a switch. These mass adoptions are a testament to the good design of the NACS plug as well as the veracity of the Tesla Supercharger Network itself–still the largest and most accessible network nationally.
Now the Society of Automotive Engineers has announced that it will be creating standardization for the NACS system to make it easier for others to follow. This will complement, rather than replace, the J1772 standard that is used for many charging stations and EVs now. It will also open the door to international adoption alongside the CHAdeMO standard used in Europe and parts of Asia.
The SAE’s standardization will give a consensus-based approach for maintaining NACS and for creating chargers outside of the Tesla network that use the standard. SAE says that the standardization process will be expedited for NACS, but did not give a timeframe for completion. The standardization will also bring Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for cyber-secure charging under NACS.
