Tesla has added several brands to its NACS “coming soon” page, indicating that a flood of new brands is about to hit Superchargers in North America.
In 2022, Tesla announced that it would open its charging network, lured by the gigantic sums promised in President Biden’s federal EV charging grants.
For a while, this seemed a bit of a hail mary, as many believed that maximum of the industry already committed to the SAE CCS popular for rapid charging.
But then, in 2023, Ford announced that it would adopt Tesla’s “NACS” connector and all the dominoes fell. Very quickly, the entire sector announced its transition to Tesla’s charging standard.
But these things take time, and the industry had to work on redesigning vehicles, building adapters, organizing software handshakes, and building out an official standard.
Now that the vital maximum portions are over, the brands have the Supercharger network, with Ford, Rivian, GM, Volvo, Polestar and Nissan already approved for use.
The rollout seemed to be slowing down for a time, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly fired the entire Supercharging team which had been responsible for successfully executing this coup that could see Tesla gaining a lasting lead in EV charging, with those firings causing total chaos and jeopardizing the transition.
But now that the dust has settled, it looks like we’ll see a much bigger influx of brands to the Supercharger network this year, and Tesla has made it official by updating its NACS page “coming soon. “
Yesterday, the page only showed Mercedes-Benz as “coming soon”, with that logo having been added last June. Mercedes will in spite of everything have access to the network in February and has announced that adapters will be to be had for $185 in the first quarter of this year.
Today, the coming soon list is positively packed with brands, with the Korean brands (Hyundai/Kia/Genesis), BMW, Jaguar/Land Rover, and Lucid all being added today. So each of these brands can expect to be added to the network in the coming months, in keeping with the original 2025 timetable announced by most of them.
So far, most of these brands haven’t announced availability of adapters or precise timelines, with the exception of the Korean brands who are basically ready to go already.
The Korean inclusion is interesting, given that the 2025 Hyundai and Kia models are the first cars to offer a local NACS port, allowing them to connect to Superchargers without an adapter. Drivers of older Hyundai electric cars can download a free NACS adapter from Hyundai.
So you’d think they deserve to be on the network already, with some users reporting that Hyundai’s 2025 EVs are already running on Tesla’s network, though they’ll rate more slowly into Superraters until the V4 Superraters roll out more.
We’re expecting an official announcement, potentially within a few days, from Hyundai, Kia, or Tesla that those cars will be officially added to the network.
Good Tidings.
A standardized port is a basic element.
Fewer and fewer car owners will need three additional adapters.
This new app will also be useful to you, where all the chargers that you don’t want to search for are mapped.
They promise that charging starts immediately too. Rather than, plugging in, setting up payment, confirming, and then charging finally begins.
These appear to be small steps. But, are absolutely critical for mainstream adoption.
My parents are 70 years old. They may not buy a car that needs three adapters and five more apps to refuel.
Justly.
But now. . .
Now they can.
(Update: Well, we got an update, almost without delay after this article was published, and it turns out that access to Kia’s Supercharger has been delayed)
Another attractive point is the lack of VW. VW has not been added to Tesla’s “coming soon” list, announcing last week that it would have access to the network in June. There are five months left for it, less time than Mercedes has dedicated. on the “coming soon” list, so we would have expected VW to be included in today’s update.
But then, given the wide range of time brands can spend on the “coming soon” page (Mercedes is about to spend 8 months there and Hyundai/Kia will potentially be there for a few days), we’re guessing that list anyway. It doesn’t tell us much about the exact moment.
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Jameson has been driving cars since 2009 and has covered vehicles, sustainability and Electrek policy since 2016.
You can reach him at [email protected].