Ford Reveals EV Drivers Will Be Able to Access Tesla’s 12,000 US Supercharger Stations
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America’s second-largest automaker revealed on Thursday that drivers of Ford-made electric vehicles (EV) would be able to charge their automobiles at Tesla’s Supercharging stations beginning next year. Tesla’s stations had previously been usable only by Tesla owners.
The agreement will see drivers of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, and E-Transit customers receive a Supercharger adapter and software integration, as well as activation and payment via FordPass or Ford Pro Intelligence.
Beginning in 2025, Ford will also offer a built-in North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector, which will allow drivers to access Supercharger stations as well.
Ford CEO Jim Farley made the announcement during a Twitter Spaces appearance with Elon Musk, who owns both Twitter and Tesla.
“We’re really excited about that. We’re ramping production, and we think this is a huge move for our industry and for all electric customers,” Farley told Musk. “We love the locations, we love the reliability … It’s pretty amazing what you and your team have done for the customers.”
“We don’t have as many EV customers as you do, but we still have plenty, and for them to be able to have this benefit early next year already and not have to buy a new car is, I think, a real statement by you and the Tesla team to be really prioritizing the customer’s experiences,” Farley told Musk.
Tesla has a network of more than 45,000 Superchargers around the globe, 12,000 of which are in the United States. Previously, those stations had been accessible only to Tesla drivers, as the stations required a special plug that was proprietary to Tesla.
16 February 2023, 17:36 GMT
Telsa’s Superchargers are known for their rapid charging time and the long range of their car batteries, matched perhaps only by Tesla's major Chinese competitor Nio, which operates a novel network of battery switch-outs for its EV drivers.
Building National EV Network
The deal has been in the making for years, with real motion coming late last year.
“We invite charging network operators and vehicle manufacturers to put the Tesla charging connector and charge port, now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), on their equipment and vehicles,” Tesla wrote on its blog last November.
Then in February, Musk signed a deal with the White House to open some 7,500 of its Superchargers to other users by the end of the year.
The Biden administration has earmarked $7.5 billion to help establish 50,000 EV charging stations across the country as part of its bid to wean American drivers off petroleum-powered cars to stem the pollutive effects of their carbon emissions. The network is required to share common standards of reliability, identification, and payment, as well as the common NACS plug.
Up & Down for Tesla
Shares of both companies jumped more than 7% on Friday on the heels of the announcement, which also received praise from US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
"Tesla has built an extraordinary network,” he told US media. “For them to be part of this effort I think is terrific news.”
However, the news comes as Tesla’s brand has seriously suffered over the previous year. An Axios Harris Poll of US consumers’ attitudes about brand reputations showed earlier this week that the EV maker slipped by an astonishing 50 spots since last year, reaching number 62 on the list. The survey covered all US brands, not just auto makers. Ford was number 32 on the list, a nine-spot jump from 2022.
While Tesla’s stock has climbed out of its December lows, which came two months after Musk bought Twitter and began working full-time to overhaul the internet company, it still remains well below its recent high in September 2022 of $309.
Last month, Tesla investors penned a letter to Musk castigating him for ”jeopardizing its [Tesla’s] long-term value.” It came after a first-quarter earnings report that revealed net income decreased more than 20% from the prior year, as well as after a SpaceX StarShip rocket exploded in mid-air; Musk also owns the space travel company.
Then earlier this month, a group of seven US senators also wrote a letter to Musk urging him to to end the company’s use of forced arbitration clauses in employee and customer contracts. Last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, revealed it had found cause against Tesla in cases involving harassment of Black and female employees.
