Almost a year ago, GM began selling adapters, allowing existing electric vehicles to use standard North American charging plugs with Tesla Supercharger Stoles. EV owners were delighted with new freedoms.
Currently, GM is unveiling three more adapters. Additional adapters that help GM customers access EV chargers at different charging rates and standards are a win for flexibility, but at the expense of simplicity. There is a complete possibility that two EV households can own four different adapters.
A few years ago, the majority of US EV models used the Composite Charging System (CCS) standard. That is, except for Tesla. In 2022, the automaker opened the design of charging connectors and charging ports to help network operators and automakers adopt the technology and make it a new standard in North America.
And they did. Today, almost every car manufacturer offers adapters to access Tesla’s supercharger stations. They even integrate NACS designs into their vehicles.
“GM is already essentially committed to moving its entire EV portfolio to NACS,” Tim Ash, director of hardware products at GM Energy, told TechCrunch. “We believe that by moving to that unified standard, we simplify our customer experience.”
However, this shift has produced troubling transitions and abundant adapters.
In addition to the existing NACS-to-CCS adapters for fast charging, GM will sell the J1772 adapter from NACS for level 2 charging. (The J1772 is part of a CCS plug that handles slower charging speeds.) For future GM EVs built with NACS ports, the automaker will create NACS dongles from the J1772-NACS adapter for level 2 charging and CCS for fast charging.
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The new adapter “make sure your vehicle has essentially access to any charging wherever you need an EV driver,” Ash said.
This is not just GM. Hyundai, for example, sells the NACS-equipped 2025 IONIQ 5 EV with two adapters. One is for Level 2, with a CCS-equipped charger for fast charging. However, this is a sign that the transition between EV charging standards will lead to more confusion before public charging improves.
Currently, for most of today’s charging sessions, it is unlikely that the adapter will sow confusion. Most EV charging occurs at home or at work. This is where the charger becomes predictable.
However, once you charge it, it can get complicated quickly. Drivers should plan to hide the adapter in the vehicle to avoid getting stuck or inconvenient. For those who have an incompatible charger in their home, they may want to buy duplicates for convenience. Unfortunately, most adapters cost over $200.
Automakers aren’t completely denounced the number of adapters.
CCS and NAC are similar enough that a simple dongle is sufficient for each charging speed, but the simplification differs in an unlikely, important way. With NAC, electricity passes through two large pins, regardless of the charging speed. However, with CCS, it passes through one set of pins at level 2 speed, while another set provides fast charging. Merging Level 2 and fast charging capabilities into a single charger could require power electronics that significantly increase the price.
The controversy over the new plug standard is not new. Apple sells iPhones with three different connector types, and the product has not yet celebrated its 20th birthday.
However, appliance cadence is much faster than a car, and costs much lower. A typical smartphone owner pays between $500 and $1,000 and buys a new device every two to three years. The dongle costs around $30. A 30-pin dock cable from a 12-year-old iPhone 4? It has been forgotten for a long time.
The average car or light truck is not so easy to trade. The price of new vehicles has skyrocketed to nearly $50,000, part of the reason the average car and truck on US roads is over 12 years ago.
The automakers have begun a transition, but they don’t seem to be in a hurry to finish it. So far, GM has announced two EVs using NACS charging standards: the 2026 Cadillac Optiq and the 2027 Chevrolet Volt. Automakers do not place timelines on a timeline that will move the remaining 12 EV models to the new standard.
In other words, get used to the dongle. The transition was acknowledged that it would take a while.
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