All the news about EV charging in America

The electric vehicle charging situation in North America is a lot like the smartphone charging wars — but it’s focused on much more expensive hardware. Like USB-C, the Combined Charging System (CCS, Type 1) plug is widely adopted by almost every manufacturer and charging network, while like Apple and Lightning, Tesla uses its own plug but uses its own Supercharger. With wide availability in the network.

But just as Apple has had to move away from Lightning, Tesla is on a different path where it’s open-sourced the connector, renaming it the North American Charging Standard (NACS), and making it the way USB-C will power electric vehicles in the region. Motivating for. And it just might work: Ford and GM are lined up as the first two automakers to adopt the NACS port, which is now also being recognized by automotive standards organization SAE International.

Europe solved this by forcing all companies to use CCS2 (Tesla included), while EV owners in the US have, for years, dealt with fragmented charging networks requiring separate accounts, apps and/or access cards . And depending on whether you’re driving a Tesla Model Y, Kia EV6, or even a Nissan Leaf with the bad CHAdeMO connector, you’d better hope the station you stop at has the cable you need. – and it’s on.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is leaving a cool $7.5 billion pool of funding to give every major fast-charging network from chargepoints to Electrify America a chance to build reliable EV infrastructure.

North America could be a great and convenient place to have an electric vehicle, but how long will it take? Keep reading for all the news about electric vehicle charging right here, so come back and plug in often.