Ford and Tesla: conspiracy of decade about electric car charge
Ford and Tesla have announced a partnership to charge electric vehicles. This is stated on the website of Ford. As part of the joint project, Ford electric vehicles will have access to more than 12,000 chargers in North America, and future Ford electric vehicles will use a Tesla outlet, effectively doubling the number of fast chargers available to Ford electric vehicle users and being one of the biggest changes for electric vehicle users in North America in the last decade.
Charging networks was one of the biggest problems of electric vehicles in the United States. We are talking about "networks" because there are two of them : the Supercharger network for Tesla, which is numerous and functional, and a bunch of different third-party chargers for any other car, which is less numerous and full of bugs.
These networks were completely divided. They use different physical outlets (Tesla outlets vs. combined charging system or CCS), as well as different chargers and software. For years, Elon Musk verbally emphasized the opening of the Tesla network, but didn't actually do so until US and European legislation pushed him. The inflation reduction act opened up a huge pile of subsidies for Tesla as long as its chargers worked with all cars.
Ford's announcement is an important step towards combining the two networks, which will greatly help eliminate charging issues and get the most out of the existing charging network instead of duplicating the Supercharger network for all other electric vehicles.
It's also the first large-scale proof that Tesla is ready to open up its network to another company. And this is a huge win for Ford electric cars which immediately become more attractive to buyers who expect frequent use of public charging networks.
Ford's electric motors released before 2024 have a CCS outlet, but Ford says Tesla will release an adapter that they can buy to access the Supercharger network starting next year.
Starting in 2025, Ford electric vehicles will be equipped with a Tesla outlet, which already has an adapter for using CCS fast chargers.
Despite a lot of criticism, Tesla and its Supercharger network have consistently held one of the strongest positions in sales and truly innovative developments. If Tesla delivers the same smooth and reliable performance with other car brands as it does with its own, opening up Superchargers to more electric vehicles could be the most significant event of this decade for electric car drivers.