Volvo Joins Tesla to Expand Charging Options for Its EVs

• Volvo announced today an agreement with Tesla to equip its future EVs with North American Charging Standard ports.
• The Swedish company plans to go all-electric by 2030.
• Volvo's contract follows similar agreements with GM and Ford to standardize chargers across North America.

Tesla’s mercurial CEO Elon Musk may be busy lighting up the Twitterverse, but his company has been forging alliances with other automakers left and right in the past couple of months. In May, Ford announced the EV juggernaut would give its customers access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers starting in 2024. Just a couple of weeks ago, GM said it was following suit and then upstart Rivian joined the fray. Now it’s Volvo’s turn, and it's the first non-American company to sign an agreement with Tesla.

The North American Charging Standard, or NACS, is the type of charger port Tesla models employ, which is different from the Combined Charging System (CCS) used by many other EVs in the U.S. and Europe. Volvo says its U.S.-market vehicles will be equipped with NACS charging ports starting from 2025.

“As part of our journey to becoming fully electric by 2030, we want to make life with an electric car as easy as possible,” Volvo CEO Jim Rowan said in a statement. “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.”

In February, White House officials announced that Tesla will make 7,500 of its charging stations available to non-Tesla EV drivers by the end of next year. Tesla also agreed to triple its U.S.-based network of Superchargers.

With GM, Ford, Rivian and Volvo on board with NACS, the rate of EV adoption has a strong chance of increasing exponentially. GM CEO Mary Barra told CNBC on June 8 that the company expects to slash up to $400 million from its $750 million planned investment in EV charging. With numbers like that, it seems ludicrous to leave a partnership on the table without at least considering its options.  

Edmunds says

Like the company or not, Tesla's Supercharger network is the one to beat. And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is a strategic move for Volvo and one that could help it boost its EV sales going forward.