The Charging Interface Initiative (CharIN) has issued a response to Tesla’s proposal to have its charging connector design adopted as the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for electric vehicles. CharIN noted that while Tesla should be lauded for its effort to move electric mobility forward, adopting the NACS would “lead to further consumer confusion and delay EV adoption.”
CharIN shared its stance in a press release:
“CharIN applauds Tesla for including DIN 70121 and ISO 15118-02 communication standards for the NACS proposal. We also appreciate Tesla’s effort to move the e-mobility market forward even faster than it is moving now.
“However, we encourage stakeholders to investigate ways to focus on market acceleration rather than the creation of yet another form factor alternative, which will lead to further consumer confusion and delay EV adoption. CCS has gone through many years of rigorous standardization processes, which is a required activity for any new standard proposal. After a decade of collaborative work, the domestic and international EV industry has aligned around CCS,” CharIN wrote.
CharIN highlighted that nearly 300 domestic and international CharIN members are using or investing in CCS. The industry association also highlighted that worldwide, CCS far outnumbers Tesla’s Superchargers, with 61,000 DC fast chargers using a CCS connector and only 40,000 Superchargers using Tesla’s NACS. In North America, CharIN noted that there are 18,880 CCS connectors compared to 18,405 Tesla Supercharger connectors, and 178,926 J1172 connectors compared to 15,529 Tesla destination chargers.
The industry association further noted that Tesla’s proposal would have to face hurdles for the NACS to be standardized. Through this, the EV industry could be disrupted since electric car makers would have to divert their energy and resources to integrate and implement a new charging standard for their cars, according to CharIN.
“We strongly encourage Tesla, as a CharIN member, to work with CharIN’s membership base, the standards organizations, and others to accelerate the adoption of a fully interoperable EV charging solution to transition to electric vehicles more quickly. Ecosystem-driven collaboration is a proven method to create true standards accepted and adopted by a multitude of stakeholders, as well as a testing and conformance infrastructure to guarantee interoperability in the field. This is how CharIN, an inclusive, industrywide coalition representing nearly 300 leading e-mobility stakeholders, seeks to accelerate the e-mobility market in North America,” CharIN wrote.
Tesla, for its part, noted in its announcement earlier this month that the North American Charging Standard (NACS) has numerous advantages over CCS. Apart from offering both AC charging and up to 1 MW DC charging, the NACS is half the size and twice as powerful as CCS connectors.
“With more than a decade of use and 20 billion EV charging miles to its name, the Tesla charging connector is the most proven in North America, offering AC charging and up to 1 MW DC charging in one slim package. It has no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful as Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors.
“In pursuit of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, today we are opening our EV connector design to the world. We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port, now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), on their equipment and vehicles. NACS is the most common charging standard in North America: NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla’s Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined,” Tesla wrote.
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Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
