Beginning with Ford’s announcement of moving to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS)—officially known as SAE J3400—last year, automakers began signaling their support for the charging port in droves. By the end of the year, nearly every major automaker with an EV on the planning board had made a similar announcement.
Recently, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted photos of Tesla filming at one of its Supercharger stations in California. But instead of just Tesla-branded vehicles, the shoot had vehicles from other automakers parked at charging stalls as well. Owners and enthusiasts speculate that Tesla may be filming a video to promote the ability for NACS-equipped non-Tesla vehicles to soon seamlessly charge at its Superchargers in the U.S.
The filming occurred last week at Tesla’s massive 62-stall Santa Monica Supercharging station. This location does not have Tesla’s Magic Dock superchargers, so it’s presumed that the filming has to do with the adoption of NACS across non-Tesla brands, as well as their interoperability on Tesla’s Supercharging network.
Present at filming were, of course, Tesla’s own fleet of EVs, including the Tesla Cybertruck. There was also a Ford Mustang Mach-E and GMC Hummer EV at the Supercharging station. Both Ford and General Motors have committed to adopting NACS in their future vehicles.
While it may be months or years before vehicle manufacturers actually equip their cars with a NACS inlet, most major automakers (such as BMW, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Jaguar Land Rover, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Stellantis, Volkswagen Group, and more) have already committed to doing so.
Large charging networks such as Blink, ChargePoint, and Electrify America, also plan to add NACS connectors alongside their existing CCS deployment.
For Tesla, large-scale NACS adoption is a big win. Not only is its existing fleet of cars going to get more support from other charging networks, but Tesla, which has the largest number of DC Fast Charging EVSE ports across the nation, will financially benefit from additional vehicles charging at its already well-established Supercharging network.
Meanwhile, Tesla is still waiting to find out if it can benefit from federal subsidies as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. The Federal Highway Administration sought comment last year to discuss how the rapid change from CCS to NACS should be considered when accounting for the $7.5 billion in EV infrastructure grant funding. If Tesla can benefit from grant funding, it could ultimately result in a better charging experience for EV owners, which, in the currently blossoming world of EV adoption, is very important for successful mainstream adoption.
