Cathie Wood's ARK Sees Tesla's Collaboration With GM Popularize Its Charging Standard

An analyst from Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management sees General Motors‘ GM decision to adopt Tesla Inc‘s TSLA North American Charging Standard (NACS) unleashing enough momentum to encourage more EV sellers to adopt it.

What Happened: Analyst Sam Korus said in a newsletter on Monday that the cost of deployment for Tesla’s superchargers is much lower compared to competitors in core geographies, making it an attractive choice for companies selling EVs.

Further, Tesla is likely to accelerate EV adoption and increase the capital efficiency of the EV industry by opening its charging network to rivals, the analyst said.

Why It Matters: Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra announced a collaboration with Tesla on a Twitter Spaces event with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. GM will integrate Tesla’s NACS design into its EVs starting in 2025 and expects it to increase access to charging for GM’s EV drivers at 12,000 Tesla superchargers across the U.S.

Last week, Musk said that Tesla’s design is "fundamentally better in every way for consumers."

Tesla’s charging connector is half the size and twice as powerful as its rival Combined Charging System connectors. 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 said in a blog in November.

EV charging equipment makers Blink Charging Co BLNK, ChargePoint Holdings Inc CHPT and Tritium DCFC Ltd DCFC have already said that they will add NACS connectors to their network.

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