- BMW reveals plans to integrate Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) starting in 2025, allowing owners of Mini, BMW, and Rolls-Royce models to use Tesla’s Supercharger network.
- The German automaker will maintain plans, along with six other automakers, to develop a separate fast-charging network in the US and Canada, with the first stations due in 2024.
- Since early summer, several major automakers, including Ford and GM, have revealed plans to adopt Tesla’s NACS in the next two years, via adapters and charging ports as standard items.
The BMW Group became the latest automaker to reveal plans to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), joining Ford, GM, Jaguar, Volvo, Nissan, and others.
As the BMW Group includes Mini and Rolls-Royce, this means these two brands will also “gain access to designated Tesla Supercharger stations” in early 2025 in the US and Canada, alongside BMW models.
Likewise, the BMW Group will plan to adopt the NACS standard for its new models sold in Canada in the US, also starting in 2025.
This timeline will place BMW a bit behind those automakers that will be able to use Supercharger stations earlier, starting in 2024, before beginning to install NACS ports by 2025. But it’s close enough.
“With six fully electric BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce models now available in the U.S. market, and more to come, it is our top priority to ensure that our drivers have easy access to reliable, fast charging,” said Sebastian Mackensen, president and CEO, BMW of North America.
Even as the BMW Group gets aboard the NACS train, the automaker will still follow through plans, announced along with six other automakers, to create a new charging network in North America.
Announced in July, BMW along with General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, MercedesBenz Group, and Stellantis plan to install at least 30,000 charge points along highways and in urban locations, planned to be accessible to cars wit CCS and NACS ports alike, with the first stations set to open in the summer of 2024.
The effort by seven automakers to team up and build an entirely new fast-charging network likely reflects a growing exasperation among automakers regarding the current charging experience offered by a variety of third-party networks, as it concerns both reliability, geographic coverage, and convenience.
The planned stations will feature canopies where possible, and will also be positioned close to food service and restrooms—factors that have not always been observed in the early days of EV station construction.
The adoption of NACS ports by BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce in North America, as well as by other automakers, will take advantage of one of Tesla’s uncontroversial aspects—a network that has been built over the course of over a decade, as Tesla was the first automaker to invest in a nationwide fast-charging network from the start. Others, like Rivian and the VW Group, had begun to build their own networks much later, and on smaller scales.
By the time BMW vehicles begin to feature NACS ports as standard items, the automaker will have added a few more models to its EV lineup.
Will access to Tesla Superchargers motivate more people to choose EVs over ICE models, or will this have a negligible effect on EV adoption in the US? Let us know what you think.
Jay Ramey grew up around very strange European cars, and instead of seeking out something reliable and comfortable for his own personal use he has been drawn to the more adventurous side of the dependability spectrum. Despite being followed around by French cars for the past decade, he has somehow been able to avoid Citroën ownership, judging them too commonplace, and is currently looking at cars from the former Czechoslovakia. Jay has been with Autoweek since 2013.
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