Volvo Cars announced today it will join Ford, General Motors and Rivian Automotive in adopting Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS).
As part of Volvo Cars’ aim to be a fully electric car maker by 2030, the company is the first European car maker to sign an agreement with Tesla, giving current and future electric Volvo car drivers access to Tesla’s vast Supercharger network across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Under the agreement future Volvo cars, starting from 2025, will be equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) charging port in the region.
The arrangement gives fully electric Volvo drivers access to 12,000 new fast-charge points, a figure that is expected to grow as Tesla continues to expand its Supercharger network in the region.
These new charging points come in addition to Volvo drivers’ existing access to tens of thousands of fast-charge points.
“As part of our journey to becoming fully electric by 2030, we want to make life with an electric car as easy as possible,” said Jim Rowan, CEO at Volvo Cars. “One major inhibitor to more people making the shift to electric driving – a key step in making transportation more sustainable – is access to easy and convenient charging infrastructure. Today, with this agreement, we’re taking a major step to remove this threshold for Volvo drivers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.”
Drivers of Volvo Cars’ current line-up of fully electric cars, from the XC40 and C40 Recharge to the recently revealed EX30 and EX90, will be able to find charging locations through the Volvo Cars app and are anticipated to be able to use the Supercharger network with an adapter from the first half of 2024.
Drivers of future Volvo cars equipped with the NACS charge port that wish to continue charging in the Combined Charging System (CCS) of chargers will be able to continue doing so with an adapter provided by Volvo Cars.
With the Volvo Cars app, drivers of fully electric Volvo cars in the United States and Canada will be able to find tens of thousands of public charging stations, get real-time information on availability of chargers, and pay for their charging session through one single interface, making charging a Volvo car easy.