Hyundai confirmed that it is considering adopting Tesla’s NACS connector for its electric vehicles in North America, but it is not ready to pull the trigger as it wants to “look into it from the customer’s perspective” first.
After both GM and Ford announced that they would adopt NACS as the standard connector in their future electric vehicles, it became crystal clear that the connector is on its way to becoming the standard connector in North America with now the three biggest American EV automakers behind the standard.
Since GM’s announcement, virtually all charging station manufacturers and operators have announced that they will support NACS.
We anticipated that GM’s announcement would also create a domino effect with automakers producing electric vehicles for the North American market, but it has yet to happen.
Several of them, like Stellantis, have confirmed that they are considering it, but they are not ready to jump on board.
Now it is Hyundai’s turn to comment, and the Korean automaker also confirmed that it is considering it, but it claims it still needs to make sure it is in the interest of customers (via Reuters):
Jaehoon Chang, who is also Hyundai’s president, said the company would consider joining the alliance of automakers shifting to Tesla’s standard, but that it would have to determine that was in the interest of its customers.
Chang said that they are still doing that. One of their concerns is that Tesla’s Superchargers don’t support 800v charging like its Ioniq 5 and 6:
“That’s what we will look into from the customer’s perspective.”
The executive said it would need to talk to Tesla.
Electrek’s Take
Honestly, this is an open-and-shot case from a customer’s perspective.
It’s the Supercharger stations that currently don’t have an output as high as Hyundai’s EVs, but NACS supports up to 1000v.
Top comment by Johnny Vector
If Tesla gets a neutral standards body to take it up, that'll be the final push. I can see not wanting to rely on them to follow through with that promise until it's a done deal. The "standard" that any joe like me can download now is incomplete. Here's what it says about communication:
4.5.1 For DC charging, communication between the EV and EVSE shall be power line communication over the control pilot line as depicted in DIN 70121.
4.5.2 The North American Charging Standard is compatible with “plug and charge” as defined in ISO-15118.
I'm not versed on the details of 15118, but given the difficulties various cars have with it, I'm fair certain that you need to do more than just say "compatible with ISO-15118" to fully specify the NACS. At the very least you need to spec a version.
None of this is terribly difficult to resolve, but until it is, I could see being hesitant.
With adapters available, NACS would only give Hyundai EV owners more charging options to choose from.
It is also compatible with vehicle-to-X technology, which is also important to Hyundai.
I really thought that the GM announcement would create a snowball effect and that any delay would just be automakers having to go through the motion of talking with Tesla, but it sounds like some are really reticent.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that if those automakers have an alternative that includes investing in their own or a new fast-charging network, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
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