This will ensure that any supplier or manufacturer will be able to use, manufacture, or deploy the NACS connector on EVs and at charging stations across North America. Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Rivian, and several EV charging companies recently announced plans to adopt the NACS connector through adaptors or future product offerings.
The standardisation process is the next step to establish a consensus-based approach for maintaining NACS and validating its ability to meet performance and interoperability criteria. The US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation was instrumental in fostering the SAE-Tesla partnership and expediting plans to standardise NACS — an important step in building an interoperable national charging network that will work for all EV drivers.
"Standardising the NACS connector will provide certainty, expanded choice, reliability and convenience to manufacturers and suppliers and, most of all, increase access to charging for consumers," said Frank Menchaca, president, Sustainable Mobility Solutions, an innovation arm of SAE's parent company, Fullsight, which focuses on initiatives that lead to net zero transportation throughout mobility sectors.
The new SAE NACS connector standard will be developed on an expedited timeframe and is one of several key initiatives to strengthen the North American EV charging infrastructure. This includes SAE-ITC's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for cyber-secure charging. In close cooperation with National Labs, SAE also is contributing to reliability design for the national ChargeX consortium.
"Taken together," said David L. Schutt, CEO, SAE International, "these efforts will contribute substantially to SAE's commitment to secure, clean and connected transportation, accessible to everyone. We're delighted to do our part in aligning the excellent efforts of industry with those of government entities like the Joint Office to advance sustainable mobility on a national level."
