For years, it was assumed by many in the car industry that concerns about the charging network were the sole reason why Tesla was seeing such runaway success. After all, Tesla had successfully convinced its customers that its cars and charging network came with almost no compromises—that they could be used just like gas vehicles. And if other EVs couldn’t offer the same experience, they were essentially destined to fail.
This is kind of the whole reason why we’ve got a switch en masse to Tesla’s power plug, known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS). A few deals and handshakes a couple of years ago, and now virtually every EV brand has made the switch to the plug, with the goal of gaining access to Tesla’s Supercharger network.
Charging could then be seamless, everywhere, powered by a slimmer plug instead of a bulky CCS unit, and actually work on the first attempt. Finally, I wouldn’t have to hear anyone say they’d never buy an EV until they could use the “Tesla Plug”. Here you go, damn you, every collective automaker told consumers who were on the fence about buying an EV. We even gave it a big award here at InsideEVs last year.
And yet, as the initial crop of NACS-equipped cars makes their way to roads, and we get our hands on them for more than just an afternoon drive, I don’t know if the change was as dramatic as everyone insisted it’d be. This month, I’ve driven three cars with native NACS plugs: the Lucid Gravity, the 2026 Nissan Leaf and the updated Kia EV6. And I am not convinced that NACS is the lifesaver we thought it would be.
In fact, it made things a bit harder.
My first run-in with native NACS outside of Tesla came via the new Kia EV6 facelift. It’s not just a new plug, either. Kia went out of its way to make sure it’s Tesla Supercharger-ready, moving the rear-mounted port from the passenger side to the driver’s side, like on a Model Y or a Model 3.
I had the EV6 press tester delivered from Detroit to Ohio, where I live. And as I usually do, I asked the fleet drivers not to recharge it during the trip so I could do my own 10% to 80% charging test later.
Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs
Yet, about 45 minutes before the EV6 was to show up at my door, I got a call.
The driver of the EV6 got nervous. About 30 miles away from my house, he called asking if I knew of a place where he could charge. He was at about 21%, enough to make it to my front door, but I can understand why the lack of range would cause trepidation for a fleet driver driving freeway speeds.
After a short conversation, I ascertained that either Kia or the fleet company itself had only given him a NACS to J1772 charging adapter. That would allow him to plug the EV6 into any slower, Level 2 charger, but he’d need a different adapter to use a non-Tesla DC fast-charger—and he didn’t have one.
There was a Tesla supercharging station somewhat on his journey, but he had no Tesla app account and would have needed to pay with a special corporate card that wasn’t set up for Tesla Supercharging.
I told him to take it slow and continue to drive. With luck, he got the EV6 to me at 8%; not bad, but I can only imagine how nerve-racking that was.
This may sound like a narrow and very specific use case, the kind of thing that won’t happen to most EV drivers. In reality, it’s more of the same: be prepared. Know where your stations are. Make sure you have the right equipment, which in this case is various adapters. Is that really any easier than before? Plus, there’s the fact that not all Tesla Supercharger stations are open to all non-Tesla EVs; you won’t know this until you fire up the app, but many stations remain exclusive to the home team.
While in my possession, the EV6 was locked out of all my traditional DC fast charging test spots, forcing me to either go significantly out of my way to a new Ionna charging station or use a Tesla Supercharger. Also, the EV6’s famously high charging speeds are limited when using the Supercharger; tack on an extra 10 to 15 minutes of charging time if you do.
Photo by: Patrick George
Most drivers do (and should) use Level 2 charging, either at home or in public, and reconfiguring a car’s charging port to cater to what is kind of a niche experience for most EV owners seems weird. I shudder to picture the confusion of a NACS-native car that pulls up to a J1772 Level 2 charging station from ChargePoint or something, only to realize they can’t plug in.
It sounds silly, but stuff like this adds friction and points of pain and confusion for drivers. We’re already having issues getting people to buy these things in the first place, so this just seems like it would make it worse.
It appears that on some level, Nissan agrees with me, too. The latest 2026 Nissan Leaf famously has two ports: a Tesla NACS-port for DC fast charging on one side, but also a J1772 port for Level 2 charging on the other side. It’s weird, and clearly a stopgap meant to satiate the new NACS-native push that came as a prerequisite for access to the Tesla Supercharging network.
But Nissan kept the standard port on purpose. “If you look at Level 1, Level 2 charging, the most common ports are the J1772. So instead of delaying the vehicle to be able to have AC and DC commonized into one port, we decided that in this transition period that it would be best for the customer to just have both,” said Jeff Tessmer, a senior R&D engineer at Nissan.
And he’s right. I miss my Mitsubishi i-MiEV, but my example famously did not have any DC fast charging. (Believe it or not, that was an optional add-on, once.) Before my car went to the great big graveyard in the sky, it did 75% of my daily driving. I had a routine of known charging stations that I’d frequent; Level 2 was always enough for my driving needs, since the car would be sitting for hours. I’d wager that smartly-placed Level 2 charging stations would be all anyone ever needs, save for the one-off road trip where DC fast charging would come into play.
Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs
Now, this isn’t just me deriding NACS. I think the plug shape itself has a significantly more ergonomic design compared to the bulky and unwieldy CCS. Most NACS plugs I’ve used are dead simple and easy to plug in.
And this also, unfortunately, highlights the advantage Tesla still has with charging. It’s one plug that does it all, from Destination to Superchargers. I suspect the vast majority of Tesla owners only really ever mess with J1772 adapters sometimes. Why bother with CCS when you have Superchargers everywhere? For the rest of us, we’ll still be stuck in App and Adapter Hell a bit longer.
I just am not convinced this will be the industry-saving innovation that brands and EV enthusiasts really think it will be. Sure, thousands of drivers now have access to Tesla Supercharging, but I’d wager that most real EV drivers won’t really ever use them. Because you kind of don’t need it.
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
