Tesla has added several car 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 it would open its charging network, attracted by the huge sums promised in President Biden’s federal electric vehicle charging grants.
For a while, it seemed like a big success, as many thought that most of the industry had already gone for the SAE CCS, popular for fast 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 those things take time, and he’s had to put in the effort to redesign vehicles, create adapters, hold software negotiations, and come up with an official standard.
Now that the vital maximum portions are gone, brands have the Supercharger network, with Ford, Rivian, GM, Volvo, Polestar and Nissan already approved for use.
The rollout seemed to slow down for a while, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired the entire Supercharging team that had been blamed for the successful execution of this coup that could allow Tesla to take sustainable leadership in EV charging, and those layoffs caused general chaos and jeopardized the transition.
But now that the dust has settled, it looks like we’ll see a much larger influx of brands on the Supercharger network this year, and Tesla just made it official by updating its NACS “coming soon” page.
Yesterday, the page only showed Mercedes-Benz as “coming soon,” and that logo was added last June. Mercedes will still have access to the network in February and has announced that adapters will be available for $185 in the first quarter of this year.
Today, next year’s brand list is complete, with Korean brands (Hyundai/Kia/Genesis), BMW, Jaguar/Land Rover and Lucid all added today. Those brands can therefore be expected to be added to the network in the coming months, according to the initial 2025 schedule announced by most of them.
So far, most of those brands have not announced the availability of adapters or fast timelines, for Korean brands that are still in a position to do so.
The Korean inclusion is interesting, given that Hyundai and Kia’s 2025 models are the first vehicles to offer a native NACS port, allowing them to plug in to Superchargers without using an adapter. Drivers of earlier Hyundai EVs can get a free NACS adapter from Hyundai.
So you’d think that they ought to already be on the network – and some users report that 2025 Hyundai EVs do work on Tesla’s network already, though they’ll charge slower on Superchargers until V4 Superchargers roll out more.
We expect a formal announcement potentially within days by Hyundai, Kia or Tesla that these vehicles are officially added to the network.
Good news.
A standardized port is a fundamental element.
Less and less car owners will need 3 different adapters.
That new app where all chargers are mapped and you don’t have to search individually will help too.
They promise that charging will also begin immediately. Instead of logging in, setting up payment, confirming, and then still getting paid.
Turns out, those are small steps. But they are surely for widespread adoption.
My parents are 70 years old. They may not buy a car that needs three adapters and five more apps to refuel.
Rightfully so.
But now…
Now they can.
(Update: well, we got an update, almost immediately after this article was posted, and it turns out Kia’s Supercharger access 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 gain network access in June. That’s five months away, less time than Mercedes spent on the “coming soon” list, so we would have expected VW to be included in today’s update.
But then, given the highly variable amount of time brands can spend on the “coming soon” page (Mercedes will spend 8 months on it and Hyundai/Kia will potentially only be there for a few days), let’s assume the listing anyway, no It tells us a lot about the exact moment.
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Jameson has been driving cars since 2009 and has been covering vehicles, sustainability and Electrek’s policy since 2016.
You can contact him at jamie@electrek. co.