Subaru follows Toyota in adopting Tesla’s charging standard
Subaru wants in on Tesla’s Superchargers.
On Wednesday, the Japanese automaker said its electric vehicles will adopt Tesla’s charging port starting in 2025. The move ensures Subaru’s future vehicles will have access to Tesla’s network of “50,000+” chargers.
Toyota and Lexus also embraced Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) a couple weeks ago. Since Toyota owns a stake in Subaru, the latter automaker’s capitulation was all but inevitable.
Subaru has done the work to win over sporty lesbians and Crocodile Dundee fans, but it’s been slow to embrace EVs. There’s just one Subaru EV on the market today, the Toyota-built Solterra crossover. Still, it doesn’t look like Subaru will be the last to adopt NACS. Although Tesla has effectively sidelined the competing EV standard — the Biden-backed Combined Charging System (CCS) — two noteworthy holdouts remain: VW and Stellantis. Both companies have indicated they’re looking into the Tesla standard.
For folks who buy a Subaru with a CCS port, the company said it will also come out with NACS adapters in 2025. That’s around when other automakers say they’ll debut their own adapters.
Subaru said in August that it plans to offer eight EVs by 2028. Its expects EVs to account for roughly half of its vehicle sales by 2030. The automaker has a heck of a long ways to go before reaching its goal. So far this year, EVs accounted for just over 1% of Subaru’s total U.S. sales.
