Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

The inexorable rise of the North American Charging Standard continues unabated. On Tuesday, it was Volvo's turn to be the latest automaker to negotiate access to Tesla's Supercharger network for its customers beginning in 2024. But perhaps more importantly, SAE International will make NACS an official standard within the next six months. And that's probably just what the rest of the auto industry needs to make the jump.

Is this a flood yet?

NACS is Tesla's latest-spec charging protocol, which it opened up to other automakers in November 2022. At first, the sole taker was Aptera, but since that company still has not started selling cars, it remained a little theoretical.

It started looking a lot more real at the end of May. That's when Ford said that from 2024 , its EVs will be able to use the nearly 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in North America.

Enlarge / At a time when it seems like every automaker is making cars larger and more expensive, the EX30 is a welcome alternative to that trend. (credit: Volvo)

For a while now, Volvo has been teasing a new, smaller electric car. And on Wednesday morning, the company finally unveiled its latest creation. It's called the EX30, and it ticks a pair of boxes many readers want: it's small and affordable.

The headline figure is the starting price. At $34,950 here in the US, it's one of the most affordable EVs available (before taking into account any tax credits)—joining the Chevrolet Bolt twins , Nissan Leaf , Mini Electric , and Hyundai Kona Electric in the sub-$35,000 club. And as we noted previously, Volvo says this car will have the lowest carbon footprint of any car it has sold, at below 30 metric tons after 124,274 miles (200,000 km).

Small, safe, efficient—what's to dislike? (credit: Volvo)

And it's pretty compact, too. At 166.6 inches (4,232 mm) long, 72.3 inches (1,837 mm) wide, and 61.2 inches (1,555 mm) tall, it's a bit bigger than a Chevrolet Bolt but a bit smaller than a Chevrolet Bolt EUV. There's no baby-swallowing front fascia to be scared of, either—in keeping with Volvo's corporate ethos, this is a humane design.

Enlarge (credit: Volvo)

Next month, Volvo will show off its next electric vehicle. It's called the EX30, and it sounds like it will be what many readers have been asking for—a smaller EV. Volvo is keeping quiet about some of the car's details until it launches on June 7, but it is boasting about how much it has managed to reduce this new EV's carbon footprint.

In fact, Volvo says that at 200,000 km (124,275 miles), the EX30 will only be responsible for 30 tons of CO ₂ . And yes, that's a life-cycle amount, which includes the carbon emitted during the production of the car, not just the carbon emitted as a result of recharging it.

It's a 25 percent reduction on the life-cycle carbon emissions of Volvo's next-smallest EVs, the XC40 and C40 crossovers.

Enlarge / With a starting price of $26,500, it's no surprise that Chevrolet has sold a lot of Bolt EVs this year. (credit: General Motors)

As we're now in the second quarter of the year, automakers have been reporting their sales numbers. Tesla, which we covered on Monday , is far and away the leader when it comes to electric vehicle sales in the US. But as more and more automakers are bringing new EVs to market, Tesla's market share is eroding, from 72 percent at the beginning of last year to 54 percent now— and it may fall to less than 50 percent over the next few weeks . Which of those other automakers are managing to move metal? We took a look through the Q1 sales announcements to get an idea.

While most automakers have published their Q1 2023 sales, this is not a universal list. In particular, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, and Genesis have yet to reveal those numbers as of April 5. And the manufacturers don't all break out data in the same way, either lumping all EVs together (looking at you, General Motors) or grouping different powertrains together (as is the case with the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona).

It's also helpful to remember that, other than Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, all the other automakers have product lines other than battery EVs, so such a company probably isn't going out of business next week because it only sold 3,000 EVs in three months. Supply chains still aren't back to what was considered normal pre-pandemic, and it's worth remembering that in most cases, these are global products. There are severe penalties for automakers who don't sell enough EVs in Europe and China, unlike here in the US. So in cases of finite supply, those markets will receive priority when it comes to deliveries—every EV you sell in the US is an EV you can't sell in Germany, after all.

Enlarge (credit: Tom Williams / Contributor | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. )

Today, the Biden administration announced new standards for expanding the national electric vehicle (EV) charging network in order to encourage widespread EV adoption by providing a "predictable" user experience. All charging stations will soon be required to adopt the same connector types, payment methods, and data privacy assurances. These new standards have pushed Tesla, for the first time, to make part of its proprietary charging network compatible with non-Tesla EVs in the United States.

Joining other industry stakeholders in supporting Biden’s goal to build 500,000 EV chargers nationwide by 2030 , Tesla has pledged to make "at least 7,500 chargers available for all EVs by the end of 2024," Biden’s announcement said. This will include 3,500 new and existing 250 kW "superchargers" along highway corridors and 4,000 slower “destination chargers” at hotels and restaurants in urban and rural areas.

Any EV driver should be able to use the Tesla app or website to access these charging stations, but it’s currently unclear how Tesla will adapt its charging network to comply with new connector-type standards. The most widely used connector type is the Combined Charging System (CCS) , and Reuters reported that any company hoping to secure a portion of $7.5 billion in federal funding for Biden’s EV initiative would have to adopt the CCS standard. A White House official said that Tesla would be adopting the CCS standard, already has "a hardware and a software solution" to do so, and could qualify for state funding to retrofit its charger network, Reuters reported . Earlier this year, InsideEVs reported that Tesla’s solution could be a mysterious “Magic Dock” to retrofit Tesla charging stations to charge non-Tesla EVs. No one's sure exactly how the Magic Dock would work yet.

Enlarge / The styling changes to the Volvo XC60 as part of its midlife refresh are much more subtle than the engineering changes. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Back in 2018 we tested the Volvo XC60 plug-in hybrid , Sweden's midsize electrified crossover. A handsome thing, it has mostly supplanted the trusty Volvo station wagon, as car buyers prefer the loftier driving position but want to keep a generous cargo capacity and a handy rear hatch. Last year, Volvo gave the crossover its midlife refresh, adding a hefty bump in battery capacity—and therefore electric driving range—in the process.

At the time, I wrote that the XC60 made a compelling case for itself, but is that still true five years later?

Visually, the Volvo's facelift appears extremely subtle. The XC60 was already a handsome-looking machine—I find most of the current Volvos to be easy on the eyes—but to be honest I would struggle to tell you what has changed when comparing photos of the older and newer cars. It's perhaps a case of "don't fix it if it's not broken."