When it involves charging your EV within the US, Canada and Mexico, the one two connector varieties obtainable aren’t cross-compatible. Tesla has its J1772 connector, which within the firm’s protection was developed when Tesla was nonetheless the one EV recreation on the town. Everybody else makes use of the present North American commonplace, the Combined Charging System (CCS). Tesla apparently hopes to upend that dynamic, announcing Friday that it’s “opening our EV connector design to the world.”  

Tesla is releasing its specs and production designs for the J1772 connector, which it’s rebranding because the North American Charging Standard (NACS), in hopes that charging networks like Electrify America and Chargepoint will incorporate the corporate’s {hardware} of their stations. The NACS accommodates “no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful,” as the choice, Tesla argues. 

The firm presses that these networks ought to undertake its know-how as a result of, “NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla’s Supercharging network has 60 percent more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined.” I imply, positive, however that is sort of ignoring that these numbers are a direct results of the multi-year lead that Tesla held over its competitors in coming to market, a capitalization lead that’s quickly shrinking because the business’s marquee manufacturers like GM, Honda and Audi pivot to electrification and Chinese makers like BYD dominate the EV space in Asia’s largest market.

Tesla claims that “network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers,” with out specifying which networks are doing so and at what scale. The firm “looks forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla’s North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks.”

We can solely speculate as to why Tesla has determined that proper now — at the same time as Elon Musk sinks sooner than Artax into the quicksands of Twitter possession — is the most effective tiime to open up their commonplace to the remainder of the business. Tesla, and now Twitter too, doesn’t make use of a public-facing PR group, so your guess is nearly as good as any blue verify’s.