From 2025, General Motors will rely on Tesla’s charging port in the USA and Canada – exclusively. GM wants to provide adapters so that all cars equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) can also charge at CCS stations. This makes GM the second major US carmaker to commit to Tesla’s charging standard: Ford had already signed a similar agreement with Tesla at the end of May. 

As early as next year, GM drivers will have access to Tesla’s approximately 12 000 Superchargers in the US and Canada. Initially, an adapter will be needed, the press release says. “GM will begin integrating the North American Charging Standard (NACS) in new EVs starting in 2025.”

It is unclear whether GM plans to integrate the Tesla charging port into vehicles from the 2025 model year onward or into vehicles launched from 2025 onward.

GM CEO Mary Barra says the collaboration will accelerate the “mass adoption of electric cars”. “This collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers.”

“Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard,” Barra added.

North American Charging Standard

The GM CEO thus adopts the NACS designation created by Tesla, as Ford has done before, but in her statement, she goes even further than its domestic rival by holding out the prospect of NACS becoming a uniform standard in North America.

Tesla released the design of its proprietary Supercharger connector in North America in November 2022, and invited car manufacturers and charging network operators to use Supercharger plugs and sockets in the future to make its system the charging standard in North America.

CCS compatible

And it seems to be working. However, it should be noted that the US government had only recently made using the CCS fast-charging standard a condition for its charging infrastructure funding.

Tesla then announced that it would make at least 7 500 of its Superchargers and Destination Chargers “available to all electric vehicles” by the end of 2024, and began equipping Superchargers in the US with CCS adapters in March.

As already mentioned, Ford had already signed a similar agreement with Tesla at the end of May. One key difference: Ford had not announced whether it would also continue to install a CCS port from 2025 onward.

GM is very clear on this – there will be no additional CCS port. Instead, the manufacturer will “make adapters available to drivers of NACS-enabled vehicles in the future to enable charging at CCS-enabled fast-charging stations”.

Expanding as rapidly as possible

GM will also integrate the Supercharger network into its vehicle and mobile apps, similar to Ford, adding to the more than 134 000 charging stations already available to GM customers through its own Ultium Charge 360 service. So access to the Superchargers is right off the bat through its own ecosystem beyond the Tesla app.

In addition to the deal with Tesla, GM aims to expand the charging infrastructure with other providers in North America. For example, with Pilot Company and EVgo. There is talk of collaborations “adding more than 5 000 DC fast chargers to the nearly 13 000 existing DC fast chargers in North America”.