Volkswagen is in talks with Tesla about adopting its charging technology

German automotive group Volkswagen is in talks with US electric carmaker Tesla about adopting its car-charging technology. Volkswagen’s Electrify America division, which operates a charging network, has already agreed to use the system. Tesla’s charging technology is not yet the US standard, but according to a group of engineers from SAE International, which assesses industry standards, it is heading in that direction. Volkswagen had less than a two percent share of the US market in the first quarter.

Tesla calls its technology the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Recently, a number of automakers and charging infrastructure providers have adopted it, including Ford, General Motors (GM), Volvo and ChargePoint. They do not want to lose customers by offering only the Combined Charging System (CCS), which has prevailed until now.

„The Volkswagen Group and its brands are currently evaluating the deployment of the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) for their North American customers,“ Volkswagen said.

Electrify America has more than 850 charging stations with approximately 4,000 chargers in the United States and Canada. During the transition to the NACS system, it will continue to offer the widely used CCS connector. Tesla has also added this connector to the offering at some of its charging stations. The White House made it a condition for federal subsidies worth billions of dollars. President Joe Biden’s administration had previously sought to establish CCS technology as the main US standard.

According to the US Department of Energy, Tesla’s Supercharger stations, where charging a car for a range of 200 miles (322 km) typically takes 15 minutes, account for approximately 60 percent of all fast-charging stations in the United States.

Most consumers who use both types of connector would choose Tesla’s, believes Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Guidehouse Research. The CCS connector is much more difficult to handle and plug into vehicles than the NACS connector, he says. He sees automakers’ shift to Tesla’s charging technology as the slow demise of the CCS adapter.