Honda and Acura have made their decision regarding the adoption of the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS), and General Motors had a major part in the choice to bring the connector to new EV releases in the next few years.
Honda said last week in an interview with AutoBlog that it would adopt Tesla’s NACS connector as “it is quite important” in the companies’ transition to build competitive electric vehicles that will also have a plentiful number of charging stalls to gain range from.
“We also have to push NACS, as well. It is clear,” American Honda Motor Company President and CEO Noriya Kaihara said late last week.
Honda’s next two EVs, which are the Prologue under its brand and the ZDX under Acura, will share GM’s architecture — known as Ultium — when they eventually launch. The ZDX is set to launch before the Prologue and will initially be outfitted with the Combined Charging System (CCS) inlet.
“We clearly depend on GM,” he added. “Once they [switch to NACS], this will follow for ZDX, as well.”
In June, GM became the second automaker, following Ford, to adopt NACS.
“Our vision of the all-electric future means producing millions of world-class EVs across categories and price points while creating an ecosystem that will accelerate mass EV adoption,” GM’s Chair and CEO, Mary Barra, said.
The decision to adopt NACS and gain access to Tesla Superchargers was a simple one, according to Jay Joseph, American Honda’s VP of Sustainability and Business Development.
“If you look at what’s so great about the Tesla Supercharger network, it’s the maintenance. They stay on top of it, they’ve got someone onsite monitoring the equipment, they’re monitoring it electronically and remotely, and they fix it – fast. That’s probably the most important thing.”
Tesla has long garnered a reputation for having the most reliable and effective charging network among all companies involved in the space.
Not only has Tesla continued to expand its Supercharger footprint every quarter, but their availability and reliability are what make them truly stand out for EV owners. We have frequently written that, among all of Tesla’s advantages, the Supercharger network may be the biggest of all.
Last quarter, Tesla opened 318 new Supercharger Stations, equating to nearly 3,000 more connectors globally. Based on those figures, the automaker has 5,265 stations and 48,082 connectors across the globe.
12,000 of those will be available to the automakers that have committed to the NACS connector.
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