TESLA’S charging stations are undergoing a massive change that will impact electric vehicle drivers in the US.
A new partnership with Ford will bring thousands of charging stations to EV models outside the Tesla brand.
Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, wrote in a LinkedIn post that the brand’s Mustang Mach-E and F150 Lightning EVs can now use Tesla chargers.
“This will improve the EV ownership experience,” Farley wrote in the post.
“I’ve tested it myself and it works great. Making something this easy to use takes a lot of hard work behind-the-scenes, so congrats to the Ford and Tesla teams for making this happen.”
Farley teased the announcement earlier this week on social media.
Ford also offered free adapters for current EV owners, now ready to order on the company’s webpage.
Tesla, which owns around 500,000 public chargers across the US, is undergoing a massive shift.
Only Tesla vehicles were allowed to use any of the brand’s chargers.
The EV company’s CEO, Elon Musk, previously touted the exclusivity of Tesla chargers for the brand’s cars.
But Tesla announced plans to pivot from exclusivity last year, allowing other car companies to plug into their stations and potentially pay a premium rate for the energy.
The company is set to open charging stations for GM EVs in the coming months.
To use the charging stations, Tesla said EV drivers must download the Tesla app and use vehicle plug-in adapters.
Tesla has spent billions of dollars as early adopters in the vehicle charging market.
The company, which started building its Supercharging network in 2012, has more stations than any other private or public company.
Currently, Tesla Superchargers represent around a third of the charging stations in the US.
Musk’s company is still making further investments in charging station heading into the future.
The company’s plans to build the largest charging station in the world, replete with pull-through stations and solar panels, leaked in public documents earlier this month.
Tesla’s plugs have adopted a name that further showcases the company’s EV market power.
The plugs, previously called the SAE J3400 charger, are now colloquially named the North American Charging Standard (NACS).
Tesla is set to earn billions in new revenue from the move, CNBC reports.
However, Tesla drivers have expressed some reservations about the new deal.
“I already notice how lines and waits for charging stations for Tesla is long with just Tesla,” one driver wrote in an X post about the deal to onboard other EV manufacturers into the network.
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