Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler, has announced that select battery-electric vehicles will adopt the proposed North American Charging Standard (NACS) next year. The company is also making adapters available for vehicles with the Combined Charging System (CCS) port, so drivers in North America can use “a growing private and public” number of NACS charging ports, Stellantis said.
That’s a big win for Tesla, who’s been on a long drive to make its charging plug the industry standard. NACS, also known as as SAE J3400, is a connector developed by the EV maker. In an effort to standardize its system, the company opened its port design to charging stations and vehicle manufacturers around the world in November 2022.
“Customers win when the industry aligns on open standards,” Ricardo Stamatti, senior vice president of global energy and charging at Stellantis, said in a statement. “We are happy to announce our backing and adoption of the SAE J3400 connector, a milestone for all customers on the path to open and seamless charging.” Stellantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Quartz.
Stamatti added that the adoption of NACS is part of reaching Stellantis’s Dare Forward 2030 plan to become a carbon net-zero company by 2038.
Stellantis is the last major Western automaker to commit to NACS, after Volkswagen announced in December it was adopting the charging port in its vehicles beginning in 2025. Ford was the first US automaker to adopt NACS last May, and was followed by major car companies like BMW and Toyota, along with EV startups Rivian, Polestar, and Fisker.
In June 2023, Stellantis and six other automakers including General Motors and Mercedes-Benz formed a joint venture to create the IONNA charging network, which aims to have at least 30,000 charging stations with NACS and CCS across North America by 2030. The company said today’s announcement on its adoption of NACS “builds upon the IONNA charging network joint venture.”