Tesla has the best EV charging network so Volkswagen looks to adopt its NACS port and connector

According to a new J.D. Power study, Tesla offers electric vehicle owners the most reliable charging network with five times less downtime than non-Tesla chargers. In the first quarter of the year, just 3.9% of people who approached Tesla Superchargers or destination chargers found them not working, compared to the whopping 21.6% on other charging networks.

Moreover, in the January-March period there were no less than 1,292 Superchargers installed, while the next largest DC fast charging network - EVgo - added only 250 ports. The speed of Supercharger deployment and the quality of the network that Tesla monitors in real time are characteristics that are already paying off for Elon Musk's automaker.

After companies like General Motors, Ford, Rivian, Volvo, and Polestar announced that they will be adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) port and connector for their own vehicles, the international standardization body SAE is now developing NACS into a global standard, too.

There are still NACS holdouts like Hyundai which are a bit hesitant to adopt it as their electric vehicles are built on the ultrafast 800V system, while Tesla's Superchargers are comparatively slow still. They aren't saying no, though, and Hyundai mentioned that it is in talks with Tesla to see if and how it can provide more powerful Superchargers.

The latest feather in Tesla's NACS cap, however, may be its biggest ever. That's none other than the giant Volkswagen, the world's second biggest automaker after Toyota. According to an official VW statement, "Volkswagen Group and its brands are currently evaluating the implementation of the Tesla North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its North American customers."

VW's Electrify America, one of the last holdouts among competing EV charging networks, announced that it is going NACS and will add Tesla connectors together with the CCS ones it is offering now, too. According to one analyst, the Supercharger network has the potential to become a US$100 billion business for Tesla and the latest developments around the adoption of its open-source NACS standard only make that claim more credible.

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