By Jarrett Renshaw and Hyunjoo Jin
(Reuters) -Texas said it will require electric vehicle charging companies to include both Tesla’s NACS standard as well as the CCS standard if they want to be part of a state program to electrify the state’s highways using federal dollars.
The move comes in response to GM, Ford and Rivian adopting the Tesla standard and shunning efforts by the Biden administration to make CCS the dominant charging standard in the United States.
“The decision by Ford, GM, and now Rivian to adopt NACS changed requirements for Phase 1. Each Direct Current Fast Charge port will be required to have 1 CCS connector and 1 NACS connector,” the Texas Department of Transportation said in an email to Reuters on Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this year said that charging companies must provide the combined charging system, or CCS, to be eligible for up to $7.5 billion in federal funding to build new, high-speed chargers on 7,500 miles (12,070 km) of the nation’s busiest highways. The move was to prevent Tesla’s proprietary North America Charging Standard from dominating the network.
The federal dollars are flowing through the states, which are empowered to tailor their own guidelines as long as they meet minimum federal standards. States are expected to award the first round of funding through the remainder of the year.
Since then, major automakers Ford, GM and Rivian adopted the NACS standard and the top U.S. charging companies like ChargePoint and EVgo said they would look to add the same standard to their U.S. chargers.
Others states like California, Iowa and Michigan are reviewing the shifting charging market.
California Energy Commission told Reuters last week: “We are still evaluating the effect of recent charging standard announcements.” And at least one other state is considering giving applicants bonus points on applications if they include the Tesla charging ports.
Texas – home to Tesla’s headquarters and its car factory complex – is the first state which will mandate Tesla’s charging standard, giving a boost to Elon Musk’s hope of making it the national charging standard.
Tesla shares rose 1.2% in extended trade, after closing up 5.3% on Tuesday.
Tesla said in the U.S. there are approximately 2,000 Supercharger locations and more than 21,000 Supercharger stalls, which represents approximately 60% of the fast-charging plugs operational in the country.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
