Tesla will open its fast-charging stations to Ford drivers

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Ford has reached a deal to give its drivers access to 12,000 fast-charging stations in 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 doubled the number of fast-charging stations in Ford’s North American charging network. Ford owners will get access next spring via an adapter that converts electrical connectors to Tesla’s Superchargers for use in Ford Mustang Mach-E or F-150 Lightning pickup trucks.

Ford CEO Jim Farley announced the deal along with Elon Musk, the billionaire head of TeslaTwitter and SpaceX, in a surprise event on Twitter Spaces, the social media site’s live audio streaming feature.

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

Tesla already intended to do this partially open its network of 45,000 chargers for all electric car models by the end of 2024, at the urging of the White House and to gain access to $7.5 billion in subsidies. The EV maker will open at least 7,500 chargers to drivers of any EV model, including 3,500 along U.S. highways.

Biden administration wants to make 500,000 chargers nationwide by 2030, up from about 130,000 available now, as it races to expand IV adoption.

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

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

Long distances traveled in the US have led to “range anxiety” among drivers, who fear being stranded far from a charging station. The fear has led US automakers to push for batteries that can travel further on a single charge, even if this in turn drives up 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 these huge batteries and I think maybe that’s not the right approach,” Farley said. “We should make the battery as small as possible. . . but we have a really great fast charging experience combined with that, so we don’t have to drive around $20,000 worth of extra battery.

Musk and Farley joked, traded compliments and exclaimed about the challenges of building cars during the 30-minute live stream that attracted more than 100,000 listeners. The head of the Michigan automaker ruefully shared a story about driving in California with his kids, needing to recharge his car, and passing one Tesla station after another.

“My kids kept looking at me, ‘There’s another Supercharger, can you stop here? How about I-5, Dad?’” he recalled. “I was like, ‘No, you have to go behind this other building.'”