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Tesla won the plug war. Enter the age of the EV charging adapter

The auto industry is embracing Tesla's charging technology in order to share its vast Supercharger network. This is going to be a slow transition — expect to see a lot of adapters.

When Tesla set out to make a mass-market electric vehicle, the company knew drivers would want to easily charge on road trips, and invested heavily in its own network of high-speed chargers.Together, the car and the charger became what some call a "walled garden" — a standalone, proprietary ecosystem. A spokesperson from Electrify America wrote in a statement to NPR that the charging industry is still in its "early stages," and that the company "has remained focused on driving customer satisfaction," including by replacing more than 800 chargers in 2024. "Building out an ecosystem of charging locations to allow drivers to get to where they need to go is a cornerstone of increasing EV adoption," Rivian vice president Paul Frey told NPR in a statement.

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