Ford electric vehicles will use Tesla’s charging socket from next year

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that by early 2024, more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers will be operational with Ford vehicles. Farley also announced that next-generation Ford vehicles will be equipped with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) port, Tesla’s standardized version of its proprietary charging system.

“We don’t want Tesla’s superchargers to be a walled garden,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the Space Twitter call. According to Musk, Tesla wants Ford and other automakers to be on a level playing field when it comes to access to reliable electric vehicle charging.

According to Ford, Tesla will develop an adapter that will be provided to customers who purchase any of Ford’s electric vehicles, including the F-150 Lightning truck, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit delivery van. Like the vast majority of electric vehicles in North America, Ford electric vehicles are compatible with electric vehicle chargers with CCS (Combined Charging System) outlets.

The adapter will allow Ford electric vehicles to connect to Tesla’s superchargers, including version 3 chargers that have just started rolling out. And Ford’s next-generation EV platform, coming in 2025, will be compatible with Tesla’s North American Charging Standard port. Tesla announced it would open up its charging standard to other automakers last year – and now Ford is one of the first companies to adopt it.

Ford will also continue to support its “BlueOval” charging network, which will develop an additional 1,800 DC fast charging stations by early 2024.

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Earlier this year, Tesla’s Supercharger network, once exclusive to Elon Musk customers and only Elon Musk, began opening up to non-Tesla electric vehicles. The company, which has been allowing other companies’ electric vehicles to use its chargers in Europe for months, is now doing the same in the US – under instructions set out in the Biden administration’s $7.5 billion plan. to expand electric vehicle charging options to more Americans. .

Tesla superchargers in the US use a proprietary connector – it was Tesla’s “competitive divide”, the thing that provided protection against other automakers. In order to allow non-Tesla vehicles to access the chargers, the company installed a device called “Magic Dock”, in which a CCS adapter is applied to the connector. CCS is the agreed standard that most electric vehicle manufacturers in North America have adopted for DC fast charging.

The conversation between the two automaker CEOs comes as competition from electric vehicles continues to increase. Tesla has enjoyed its dominance at the top of the growing electric vehicle industry, but other manufacturers are finally offering more variety and alternatives to Tesla’s best-selling Model Y. Tesla has lowered prices several times this year to boost sales, bringing the Model 3 sedan to under $40,000.

Price cuts aren’t just happening at Tesla. Ford has also slashed prices and other manufacturers are closing in on an industry-wide electric vehicle price war.

Ford has some of the best-selling electric vehicles (number two, to be exact), but it’s been crippled by manufacturing issues that included faulty batteries that could catch fire (this issue has been resolved, but it’s blocked the production of Lightning for a while). Mustang Mach-E production was also stalled for weeks as the company improved factory processes.

Ford restructured the company a year ago to operate separate businesses for its highly profitable gasoline vehicles, now called Ford Blue, and its electric efforts under Ford Model E – which, by the way, was the name originally planned. for Tesla’s Model 3 (they even had to change the Model 3 logo to not infringe on Ford’s trademark).

Farley has praised Musk before, but he also threw punches. Once last year, Farley boasted that the Ford F-150 Lightning was already made and on the road while Tesla’s Cybertruck was nowhere in sight (and still isn’t). “Take that, Elon Musk,” Farley said at the time.

Tesla and Ford have also joined the National Charging Experience Consortium, a collaborative effort that brings together national laboratories, electric vehicle OEMs and automakers to improve the reliability of charging infrastructure.