Washington state plans to require companies to support Tesla’s electric vehicle charging plug in order to tap into federal funds. The pending rule is the latest domino to fall in favor of the automaker’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), following a similar move from Texas earlier this week.
An official for Washington’s Transportation Department, Tonia Buell, said the mandate would help future proof the state’s infrastructure. Buell — who leads Washington’s alternative fuels program — told TechCrunch that the department will “present the recommendation to Washington’s Interagency Electric Vehicle Coordinating Council for final review and approval.”
Buell added that the “exact number of [required] NACS connectors is still TBD.”
The report comes just a month after Tesla signed a 245,619-square-foot warehouse lease in Marysville, which is about an hour’s drive north from Seattle. It’s not clear if the lease had any influence on Washington state’s implicit endorsement of the …
