First built-in NACS ports spotted on KIA EV6 and Ioniq 5 at a Supercharger as Tesla sues adapter maker

In a sign of the escalating battle over EV charging standards and compatibility, Tesla is suing a Chinese company for selling a "dangerous" third-party charging adapter that lets non-Tesla vehicle owners plug into its Superchargers.

The lawsuit was filed in California federal court earlier this week, and Tesla stipulates that the Chinese adapter is not up to specs and may injure its users or result in charging infrastructure malfunction.

Tesla sells both its own adapter and universal wall connector that allow any other EV to be charged at home or on the road.

There are also cheaper alternatives from reputable companies like the Lectron adapter over at Amazon, which allow charging of your electric Ford, Hyundai, or Kia at Superchargers. There are also plenty of suspiciously cheap adapters there, too, and some of those have apparently gotten in the crosshairs of Tesla's legal team.

The adapter song and dance will be a thing until all other EV makers that pledged to install native Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports in their vehicles start doing so.

Most of the pledges are for 2025, but a Hyundai Ioniq 5 and a KIA EV6 are the first electric cars spotted with what seems to be a built-in NACS port plugged directly into a Tesla Supercharger. The only ho-hum part is that Hyundai's port is on the opposite, passenger side of the vehicle, just like on the recently announced Rivian R3. On Teslas, they are on the driver's side, and thus even shorter cables like those on its V3 piles don't presuppose taking two spaces while charging.

Hyundai was reluctant to join NACS, and wanted to see if Tesla is willing to upgrade its charging infrastructure first. After all, Hyundai and its Kia subsidiary make modern electric vehicles with 800V electric architecture, while most of Tesla's cars but the Cybertruck are still on 400V.

Tesla has thus no incentive to provide charging piles that are more powerful than its V3 Superchargers that output 250kW, and even its V4 Superchargers that are rated for 350kW speeds, are still housed in 250kW V3 cabinets for now.

Tesla's Supercharger network, however, is the world's most widespread and ubiquitous EV charging infrastructure, so Hyundai begrudgingly agreed to equip its electric cars with NACS ports. The latecomers, however, could become the first to release a non-Tesla electric car with a native NACS port, judging from these camouflaged Ioniq 5 and EV6 tests in the field.

Tesla will still only deliver up to 250kW to Hyundai and Kia cars, which hold the fast charging EV record in North America, but at least their owners won't need to lug a pesky adapter around.