BC Hydro readies to adopt NACS plugs at charge stops in Canada
Canada’s BC Hydro says it will add connectors for Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) at its EV charging stations across British Columbia. In a tweet, BC Hydro said it was working with suppliers to see when NACS connectors will be available for future charging stations.
There is also talk of BC Hydro working on a way to retrofit their existing stations, which would make a real difference to Tesla drivers in Canada as BC Hydro EV covers areas without many Superchargers.
The network is among the oldest networks in Canada, started in the summer of 2013, and has grown to over 70 fast charging stations along the province’s highways. While many of these are 50kW DC fast chargers, the utility behind the network started installing 100 kW and 150 kw stations, with plans to expand their network to 194 sites.
BC Hydro EV is one of six main charging networks in British Columbia, alongside ChargePoint, Flo, Greenlots (for fast chargers), Petro-Canada, and Tesla. Combined, they offer 2,500 charging stations, according to BC Hydro EV.
ChargePoint is already considering adding NACS plugs to its charging stations in future. However, the other players in the province have not announced such a move.
Others have, however. Mercedes and Volvo will offer their cars with NACS plugs from 2025. US carmakers Ford, General Motors, and Rivian struck similar deals even sooner.
On the CPO side, Electrify America by Volkswagen was perhaps the most surprising company to jump on the Tesla train – it is unclear if and when Electrify Canada may make a move.
Still, it is worth mentioning other arguments made by ADS-TEC Energy, for example. While the company says that “it is open to supporting all options for charging system standards” and wonders “whether NACS will displace the Combined Charging System Combo 1 (CCS1) standard in North America,” it also weighs in on the debate on whether adopting NACS is a good idea. “Even though Tesla has the largest installed base of fast chargers, they have been designed for 400 volts, to date, and more and more 800-volt vehicles are coming to the market”, the company states. So technical updates will have to be made for the standard to support fast charging for future EVs. “So why not just switch to CCS1?”
Even though Tesla calls the NACS a “standard,” it is not one yet. Tesla developed it in-house and has yet to complete the usual certification procedures. The CCS organisation CharIN recently announced its intention to initiate such a procedure with a working group of 51 companies. And the standardisation organisation SAE International also says it will standardise Tesla’s NACS connection to ensure that “every manufacturer and supplier can use, make or deploy the NACS connector in electric cars and at charging stations across North America”.
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