Fisker adopts Tesla’s NACS for North America
Fisker is the next electric car manufacturer to rely on Tesla’s fast charging system. Fisker customers will initially be able to access the Supercharger network in North America via adapters from the first quarter of 2025. Fisker thus has a different timetable than other carmakers who plan to switch to the NACS.
So far, Ford, General Motors, Volvo Cars, Polestar, Rivian, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz announced that they would adopt Tesla’s NACS for their electric models for the North American market. So far, the timeline has always been the same: from 2024, charging at the Superchargers will be possible via an adapter, then from 2025, with full NACS integration – i.e. a NACS charging socket in the vehicle.
As Fisker now announces, charging via adapter will only be possible for its EVs from Q1 2025. Later (Fisker has yet to define this more precisely), Fisker will install Tesla’s charging port in its vehicles and provide a CCS adapter.
Whether by adapter or via the integrated system, Fisker customers can use the 12,000 Supercharger charging points currently available in North America. In addition, charging at third-party charging points will continue to be possible. Whether the announced CCS adapter will be necessary remains to be seen: Numerous charging providers have already announced that they will add NACS cables to new and existing stations.
A Fisker representative is not quoted in the relatively brief media statement. Nor does it explain why the company wants to switch to NACS – it only announces that an agreement to this effect has been signed with Tesla.
However, the reasons are likely similar to those of the other carmakers: Tesla’s Supercharger network is well-developed in North America, even in more rural areas. In addition, the Superchargers (unlike many of the CCS1 charging stations in North America) are considered extremely reliable ad thus have a high customer acceptance. In a cost-benefit calculation, it is probably cheaper to “buy” access to the Superchargers via the NACS integration in addition to the CCS charging stations than to build about 12,000 own and reliable fast chargers.
Tesla released the design of its proprietary charging plug in November 2022 and has since dubbed the system the ‘North American Charging Standard.’ The slim plug and the compact charging port in the vehicle enable (single-phase) AC charging and DC fast charging – the latter for a long time exclusively at Tesla’s own Superchargers.
Even though the NACS is not yet a certified standard – both the CharIN and the SAE have announced corresponding procedures – with the advances of the major manufacturers and now also the charging industry, the NACS could become a de facto standard that no manufacturer in North America will be able to bypass – before the certification procedure has even been completed.
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