Tesla announced Friday that it was opening up its North American charging standard to others and renamed it the North American Charging Standard (NACS). 

“In pursuit of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, today we are opening our EV connector design to the world,” the company said last week. “We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port, now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), on their equipment and vehicles. NACS is the most common charging standard in North America: NACS vehicles outnumber CCS two-to-one, and Tesla’s Supercharging network has 60% more NACS posts than all the CCS-equipped networks combined.”

Tesla added that its charging standard “has no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful as Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors.”

How will it work? 

“Network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers, so Tesla owners can look forward to charging at other networks without adapters. Similarly, we look forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla’s North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks … As a purely electrical and mechanical interface agnostic to use case and communication protocol, NACS is straightforward to adopt. The design and specification files are available for download, and we are actively working with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard. Enjoy.”

The announcement comes at a time when Tesla CEO Elon Musk is occupied with his recent purchase of Twitter and Tesla’s stock has suffered. According to Bloomberg News, Tesla has seen its value drop by $644 billion this year. 

“It has been a rough year for Tesla Inc.’s other shareholders, with the stock having more than halved, wiping out $644 billion, which happens to be $600 billion more than what Musk and chums paid for the other thing,” the Bloomberg piece said. “Bear in mind that this doesn’t reflect a collapse in profits; far from it: Tesla’s net income doubled, year over year, in the latest quarter. Rather, it is just air being squeezed out of the price/earnings ratio … I think it’s safe to say the Twitter debacle — which, let’s not forget, includes Musk’s shambolic takeover “process” itself — cannot have helped.” 

Bloomberg NEF issued a report in October showing that more than half of all cars sold in the United States will be electric by 2030. This will in part be made possible by the passage earlier this year of the Inflation Reduction Act, which will invest $374 billion into an expanded network of charging stations. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.