Mazda EV has announced that it will use the North American Charging Standard (NACS), also known as Tesla’s charge connector, on its upcoming electric vehicles in Japan. The Japanese automaker had already announced that it would adopt NACS for its electric vehicles in North America, like all other automakers in North America, after Ford got the ball rolling.
But this new announcement is about Mazda bringing the NACS connector to Japan.
Mazda wrote in a press release today:
Mazda Motor Corporation (Mazda) today announced an agreement was reached with Tesla, Inc. (Tesla) to adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for charging ports on the company’s battery electric vehicles (BEV) launched in Japan from 2027 onward.
This is will give Mazda EV owners in Japan access to Tesla’s Supercharger network.
The automaker says that NACS will be standard on its electric vehicles in Japan, and that to access non-NACS chargers, owners will need adapters:
Mazda BEVs will be compatible with other charging standards besides NACS with the use of adapters.
Mazda is actually not the first automaker to bring the NACS, which now might need a name change, to Japan.
Last year, Sony Honda Mobility’s AFEELA EV brand also announced plans to deploy its EVs in Japan with the NACS connector as standard.
Electrek’s Take
It makes sense. Japan doesn’t have a standard connector, and like in North America, Tesla has used its own connector in the market. CHAdeMO had its moment as a connector in Japan, and a few other markets, but it is getting phased out.
It would make sense for the entire Japanese market to adopt NACS.
Considering AFEELA is just getting started, I didn’t think it would create a snowball effect, but Mazda might now get the ball rolling.
Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
Ehhh. . . It’s not quite that simple. CHAdeMO has been the standard for DCFC in Japan, and it was supposed to be replaced by ChaoJi, which is effectively CHAdeMO 3.0 with a different (much improved) connector that incorporates AC charging as well. This was a joint project between CHAdeMO Association and the China Electricity Council. It was pitched as the next-generation connector for both Japan and China, which would of course be huge.
The specs were published four years ago, and it would be interesting to dissect exactly what has happened—and not happened, and why—with ChaoJi since then. It for sure doesn’t appear to have made much progress or gotten any traction.