Toyota announced that it signed a deal with Tesla to adopt the NACS connector and get Supercharger access for its future EV owners.
NACS has already become the defacto standard for EV connectors in North America. It took a while, but too many automakers have announced that they will adopt it, on top of the fact that Tesla already has it on all its vehicles, representing the vast majority of EVs in North America.
There are still a few laggards that haven’t announced plans to adopt the standard. However, these represent such a minority of the EV fleet that it is almost irrelevant, and they will have to eventually come on board if they don’t want to be left behind.
Toyota was one of them, but today, the Japanese automaker finally announced that it reached an agreement with Tesla:
Toyota Motor North America, Inc. (TMNA) today announced it has reached an agreement with Tesla, Inc. to adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) on its battery electric vehicles (BEVs) beginning in 2025. In line with Toyota’s vehicle electrification strategy that offers a plethora of options for electrified powertrains, Toyota and Lexus customers will have convenient access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across North America.
Top comment by t_newt
In June of 2022, Aptera petitioned the US government to make the Tesla connector the standard. Some of the comments in Electrek were brutal "This is at least 3-5 years too late, but good luck!" (I mentioned that EVs in the US were still in their infancy).
A year and a half later, Tesla opened up the standard, creating NACS, and, less than a year later, just about every automaker and charger company has plans to switch over.
I have to admit, I did not see that one coming.
With Tesla opening the NACS connector as a standard, automakers don’t really need an agreement with Tesla to adopt the connector, but such an agreement is still necessary to use Tesla’s proprietary Supercharger network, which is a big incentive to adopt the standard.
Like other automakers, Toyota confirmed that the move to NACS will happen on new Toyota and Lexus EVs in North America starting in 2025.
However, there’s a difference with Toyota’s deal. Instead of getting an adapter next year, the press release mentions that it is coming in 2025:
Toyota will incorporate the NACS ports into certain Toyota and Lexus BEVs starting in 2025, including the all-new, three-row, battery-electric Toyota SUV that will be assembled at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK). Additionally, customers owning or leasing applicable Toyota and Lexus vehicles equipped with the Combined Charging System (CCS) will be offered access to an adapter to enable NACS charging starting in 2025.
It might be due to Toyota coming on board with NACS later than other automakers. But it’s not like the Japanese automaker has a significant number of EV owners in North America waiting for the adapter.
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