Volkswagen Joins Elite Group: Now Supporting Tesla Supercharger Network

We’re well on our way to unified charging ports for all-electric vehicles in the United States. Tesla made its charging port free to use for any car maker that wanted to use it through the NACS standard, and lended its network of Superchargers to all cars using NACS whenever those land in the market. It’s a huge step forward in fixing what’s probably one of the biggest hold-ups with electric vehicles until now. Volkswagen is the latest car maker to commit to the standard.

The Volkswagen Group, which comprises mainly the Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley brands, has announced that it intends to adopt Tesla’s charging standard, with the first cars rolling out with the new charging port due to release starting in 2025. This is the same timeline other companies have promised, which means that you can expect the transition to NACS to happen with all car makers at roughly the same time. The Volkswagen Group was one of the biggest holdouts throughout, as companies like Ford and GM announced their plans to adopt the charging port that same year.

Out of Volkswagen Group’s brands, only Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi currently make EVs—Bentley and Lamborghini have already shown some EV concepts, but have yet to release a commercial EV. It’s safe to assume that if any of the company’s brands release their first EV after 2025, they will be using the NACS charging port and will, thus, be compatible with Tesla’s network of Superchargers, which is the main advantage of all this, given Tesla says it has 45,000 Superchargers worldwide and 12,000 in the United States. Other charging providers, including ChargePoint , will also follow suit and add NACS support eventually.

With this, the only real holdout remaining appears to be Stellantis, which owns brands such as Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Fiat and has been one of the biggest holdouts together with Volkswagen Group until this point. We’ll have to see when the company finally folds to pressure, but with this seemingly being an industry trend, it seems like a matter of time. By the time 2025 rolls around, we might actually have unified charging ports across all new EVs.

Source: The Verge