Enlarge / GM is the second American automaker to decide to ditch the CCS port (pictured) for Tesla's design. (credit: Cadillac)

Tesla's Supercharger network is about to get more crowded. On Thursday afternoon, General Motors CEO Mary Barra joined Tesla CEO (and Twitter's owner) Elon Musk to announce that GM is signing on to what Tesla calls the North American Charging Standard (NACS) and will integrate those ports into its electric vehicles from 2025. The move follows a similar agreement between Tesla and Ford, announced two weeks ago .

"This collaboration is a key part of our strategy and an important next step in quickly expanding access to fast chargers for our customers. Not only will it help make the transition to electric vehicles more seamless for our customers, but it could help move the industry toward a single North American charging standard," Barra said in a statement.

GM EVs will gain access to the Supercharger network of over 12,000 chargers starting in 2024. As with the Ford news, GM EVs will initially require an adapter to connect the NACS cable to their CCS1 charging ports.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Skepticism about electric vehicles—and there's a lot of it out there—is really more of a concern about infrastructure than the EVs themselves. After all, EVs are more efficient, quieter, more refined, and usually much quicker than an otherwise-identical fossil-powered vehicle. But the charging problem is not something EV advocates can dismiss as a simple inconvenience.

While it's true that most EV owners recharge their EVs overnight at home, as adoption increases, EVs will be purchased by people without garages or carports from which to charge , increasing the importance of widespread and reliable public chargers. And we'll need many more public chargers, according to a report from S&P Global Mobility.

As regular readers will no doubt be aware, there is plenty of investment going into charging infrastructure. In March 2021, US President Joe Biden set a goal of adding half a million new EV charging stations by 2030 . In 2022, President Biden followed up with a $5 billion plan to build DC fast chargers along the interstate highway network, with at least four chargers every 50 miles.

Enlarge / Mercedes wants its charging hubs to be safe and well-lit and to offer a charging experience that befits its range of luxury EVs. (credit: Mercedes-Benz)

On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz announced that it is entering the DC fast-charging arena for electric vehicles. The German automaker is in the midst of an electrification push and a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2039, and it evidently doesn't believe that the current charging infrastructure is as good as its new EVs , so it's doing something about the situation. Mercedes says it plans to deploy more than 10,000 fast chargers around the world, starting in North America.

The new network is separate from and independent of Ionity, the European fast-charging network backed by Mercedes, BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen. Here in the US, Mercedes is partnering with the charging company ChargePoint and MN8 Energy, a solar and battery-storage company. Together, they will deploy more than 2,500 DC fast chargers at more than 400 sites around the US by 2027.

"Mercedes-Benz customers deserve a compelling charging experience that makes electric vehicle ownership and long-distance travel effortless, and that’s why we are launching a global high-end charging network that will offer a charging experience to match the extraordinary Mercedes driving experience," said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. "We are excited to start right here in North America with two strong and experienced partners, ChargePoint and MN8 Energy."

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

A significant factor that scares people away from electric vehicles is confusion over charging. Every gas station in the land is fitted with nozzles that will fill any gasoline-powered car's fuel tank. But not all EVs use the same plug, and then there's the matter of alternating current (AC) versus direct current (DC) systems. And what do the different levels of charging mean?

The good news is that it's not that complicated, and we're here to explain everything you need to know.

EVs require electricity to charge, as the "E" in EV suggests. But that electricity can be AC, like the appliances in your home, or DC, like a USB device, only many times more powerful.

Enlarge / The Cadillac Lyriq is one of a new range of EVs built by General Motors using a new common battery and motor platform. (credit: General Motors)

General Motors is in the process of transforming itself into an electrified automaker, as entire brands like Cadillac and Hummer switch their lineups to entirely electric vehicles. To help the process of EV adoption, the automaker is also investing in charging infrastructure around the country. On Thursday, it announced that it is working with the Pilot Company to install 2,000 DC fast chargers at Pilot and Flying J travel centers around the US.

The chargers will be operated by EVgo, which has already partnered with GM on a fast charger expansion program— initially 2,700 and now 3,250—to be completed by 2025.

The travel centers should have at least four charging machines each—GM and Pilot say that in total, they intend to place 2,000 chargers at up to 500 locations. And the companies say that many of the installations will have canopies to shield EV drivers from the elements and will be designed to work with EVs towing trailers.

Enlarge / On a positive note, the charging stations were busy when we visited them. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Electric vehicles are, in many regards, clearly better than the internal combustion engine-powered relatives they will eventually replace. They're quieter, they rattle and vibrate less, they accelerate faster, and they're much more efficient because they can recover energy under braking. And their batteries should last for the life of the car as well as a gasoline engine does. But I'm increasingly convinced that EV adoption is going to run into real problems if we can't get a handle on charger reliability.

Even the biggest EV evangelist can't ignore the fact that it takes a lot longer to recharge a battery than fill a tank with liquid hydrocarbons—not even when that battery is connected to a very high-voltage DC fast charger. For about two-thirds of American car buyers—those who have somewhere at home to charge overnight—this isn't a problem, most of the time. On average, people only drive 29 miles a day , and so even short-range EVs should actually meet the needs of most drivers .

That's the purely rational take, anyway.