Ford EV owners to get access to Tesla Supercharger network next spring

All of Ford Motor Co.’s current and future electric cars will have access to about 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations in the United States and Canada starting next spring.

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the agreement Thursday during an audio chat on Twitter Spaces.

We think this is a huge step for our industry and for all electric customers,” Farley said.

Musk said he doesn’t want the Tesla network to be a walled garden and that he wants to use it to support sustainable transportation.

Our goal, Musk said, is to do everything we can to support Ford and make Ford equal in Tesla Superchargers.

There will be a cost to Ford owners, Farley said, possibly a monthly subscription, but he didn’t elaborate. No details of any financial arrangement between Ford and Tesla have been announced.

Initially, existing Ford electric cars will need an adapter to connect to Tesla stations, which have their own connector. Farley said Ford will switch to Tesla’s standard North American charging connector with its second-generation electric vehicles beginning in 2025.

Ford said the Tesla connector is smaller and lighter than the connectors used by other automakers.

Farley said Tesla’s superchargers have great locations.

We love websites. He said we like reliability. He said they will join Ford’s Blue Oval charging network of nearly 10,000 fast charging stations.

Musk said Ford EV owners will be able to access Tesla chargers seamlessly through the Ford app.

Tesla has about 17,000 Supercharger stations in the United States. There are about 54,000 public charging stations in the United States, according to the Energy Department, but many of them charge much more slowly than Tesla’s.

The Ford-Tesla deal is separate from a plan to open part of Tesla’s charging network to all electric vehicles.

The White House announced in February that at least 7,500 charging devices from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger network will be available for non-Tesla electric cars by the end of 2024.

The conversation between Musk, who bought Twitter last fall for $44 billion, and Farley came without the technical blips that plagued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Wednesday announcement that he was running for president.

With Musk, DeSantis released the news that he would be seeking the Republican nomination, but the chat was delayed by glitches for nearly half an hour. Musk blamed server fatigue because too many were trying to listen in.

The Farley-Musk conversation had a much smaller audience than DeSantis, about 18,000 listeners at the start.

The number on DeSantis’ chat exceeded 420,000, far from the millions who watched the televised presidential ads. After the problems were resolved, the audience was still less than 500,000.