Honda, Acura EVs will adopt Tesla's NACS charging port

CARMEL, Calif. — As more and more automakers pledge to install TeslaÂ’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports on their electric vehicles, Honda says that it, too, will hop on the bandwagon. Future EVs from Honda – as well as its luxury division, Acura – will have NACS charging setups, giving these cars access to TeslaÂ’s huge network of Supercharger stations.

"It is quite important," American Honda Motor Co. President and CEO Noriya Kaihara said in an interview Friday. "We also have to push NACS, as well. It is clear."

As for when this will happen, Honda is currently at the mercy of General Motors. The Japanese automaker’s next two EVs – the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX – use shared architecture with GM, leveraging The General’s excellent Ultium battery technology. The ZDX will launch first, and have the traditional CCS port that isn’t compatible with Tesla’s chargers, but it will switch to the NACS design in 2025 or 2026.

"We clearly depend on GM," Shinji Aoyama, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Co., said during Friday's interview. "Once they [switch to NACS], this will follow for ZDX, as well."

Looking to the future, Honda is part of a joint venture with seven other global automakers that will see the installation of more than 30,000 EV fast-charging stations across the United States and Canada. The chargers are still in development, but Honda says the companies are all aligned on the core values that are needed to make this charging network successful. 

"The software needs to be really reliable and really open infrastructure so it communicates with every OEM's software," Jay Joseph, American Honda's Vice President of Sustainability and Business Development, said in Friday's interview. "The hardware needs to be capable of the highest levels of charging. It needs to be secure, it needs to be reliable, it needs to be accessible."

Joseph said the current public charging companies know and understand the shortcomings with their systems, and that TeslaÂ’s Superchargers set an example of how to do chargers right.

"If you look at what's so great about the Tesla Supercharger network, it's the maintenance," Joseph said. "They stay on top of it, they've got someone onsite monitoring the equipment, they're monitoring it electronically and remotely, and they fix it – fast. That's probably the most important thing."

All the more reason for Honda – and other automakers – to switch to the NACS charging setup as quickly as possible.

By Steven J. Ewing