Tesla will open fast charging stations for Ford electric cars in the US – 05/26/2023 – Market

Ford has struck a deal to give its drivers access to 12,000 fast-charging stations on Tesla’s network, in a bid to combat range anxiety that could discourage car buyers from purchasing one of its electric vehicles.

The deal more than doubles the number of fast charging stations in Ford’s North American charging network. Ford vehicle owners will have access to it starting in the second quarter of 2024, via an adapter that converts electrical connectors from Tesla Superchargers for use in the Mustang Mach-E or Ford’s F-150 Lightning pickup truck.

Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley announced the deal alongside Elon Musk, the billionaire boss of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, at a surprise event on Twitter Spaces, the social media site’s audio livestream function.

“We’re really excited,” Farley said. “We are ramping up production and we think this is a big step for our industry and for all EV customers.”

Tesla was already planning to partially open its network of 45,000 charging stations to all electric car models by the end of 2024, at the behest of the White House and to gain access to $7.5 billion. billion) in subsidies. The electric vehicle maker will open at least 7,500 charging stations for drivers of any electric vehicle model, including 3,500 along US highways.

The Biden administration wants to have 500,000 chargers available across the country by 2030, compared with about 130,000 currently available, as it races to expand EV adoption.

“We don’t want Tesla’s Supercharger network to be like a walled garden,” Musk said.

When Ford’s second-generation electric vehicles become available in 2025, they will be built with the same connector Tesla already uses, eliminating the need for an adapter, Farley said. The adapter would cost in the “hundreds of dollars range,” Musk said — not “super expensive.”

The long distances traveled in the US create “range anxiety” among drivers, who fear being stranded far from a charging station. That fear has led US automakers to scramble to get batteries that can travel longer distances on a single charge, even though that in turn increases the cost of the vehicle. Electric vehicles already cost more than comparable vehicles with traditional engines.

Ford sees fast chargers as a way around the problem.

“Our industry is obsessed with huge batteries, and I think maybe that’s not the right approach,” Farley said. “We should make the battery as small as possible… but with a really great fast charging experience combined with that, so we don’t have to drive with an extra $20,000 battery.”

Musk and Farley talked, exchanged praise and spoke about the difficulties of building cars, in the 30-minute livestream that attracted more than 100,000 listeners. The director of the Michigan automaker ruefully told a story about driving in California with his kids, and needing to charge the car on a highway lined with Tesla charging stations.

“My kids kept looking at me, ‘Hey, another Supercharger. Can you pull over there? How about I-5, Daddy?'” Farley recalled. “I had to say no, we could only refuel at the back of that other building.”

Translated by Paulo Migliacci