Polestar Is The Latest Car Maker To Adopt Tesla's NACS Connector
Electric vehicle manufacturer Polestar announced today that it will adopt Tesla's NACS charging port on its new vehicles starting in 2025. This news comes on the heels of a similar announcement from its corporate sibling Volvo just two days ago. Polestar and Volvo are brands under the umbrella of the giant Chinese conglomerate Geely.
Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar, said, "This is a great win for our North American customers! We salute the pioneering work Tesla has done to speed up the adoption and increase the popularity of electric vehicles, and it's great to see the Supercharger network being made available in this way. With 12,000 charging points today, a number that will only keep growing, this move will greatly increase the rate of EV adoption in a key automotive region."
From 2025 onward, all Polestar vehicles sold in North America will feature the NACS charging port — often referred to as the Tesla plug since that brand developed it. In the meantime, adapters for existing Polestar drivers to access Tesla's Supercharger network will be available beginning in mid-2024.
Interestingly, once Polestar integrates the NACS port into its vehicles, the manufacturer will provide adapters to revert to CCS-style (non-Tesla Supercharger) charging stations if the owners desire.
The NACS is a self-fulfilling prophecy
After Ford's CEO Jim Farley announced that Ford EV owners would have access to Tesla's network of Superchargers back in May, several other automakers have followed suit, including General Motors, Rivian, and now the two Geely brands. The Tesla ecosystem uses a connector it pioneered, the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Although the connector's name sounds official, no governing body or regulatory agency actually decreed it as the standard bearer.
Still, the title is proving quite prescient, with an increasing number of OEMs jumping on Tesla's bandwagon, and it's no wonder. Tesla's 12,000-plus Superchargers in North America are the largest EV charging network by a wide margin, comprising 60% of all EV fast chargers in the United States. The alternative charging port — the Combined Charging System (CCS) — is still utilized (for now) by most foreign-made EVs, including those by Volkswagen, Porsche, Toyota, Hyundai, and BMW.
Polestar currently markets a compact car called the Polestar 2 that's a direct competitor to Tesla's Model 3, and the brand is tooling up to launch a luxury SUV called the Polestar 3 in early 2024. The Chinese-owned Swedish-American carmaker sold approximately 51,000 vehicles last year, a number that's expected to grow by 16% to 36% this year.