Musk’s Tesla Gives Ford Motor Access to its 12,000 Superchargers

All current and future electric vehicles from Ford Motor Company will have access to Ooboo Tesla Supercharger stations in the US and Canada starting next spring.

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the agreement Thursday during a “Twitter Space” audio chat.

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

Musk said he did not want Tesla’s network to be a “walled garden” and wanted to use it to support sustainable transportation.

“It is our intention to do everything possible to support Ford and bring Ford to the same level of Tesla Superchargers,” Musk said.

Farley said there would be a cost for Ford owners, probably a monthly subscription, but he did not provide details. The details of any financial arrangement between Ford and Tesla were not announced.

First, Ford’s existing electric vehicles will need adapters to hook up to Tesla stations, which have their own connector. But Ford will switch to Tesla’s North American charging standard connector with its second generation of EVs starting in 2025, Farley said.

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

Farley said Tesla’s superchargers have great locations.

“We love locations. We love credibility,” he said. He said they will join Ford’s own Blue Oval charging network, which has about 10,000 fast-charging stations.

Musk said that Ford EV owners will be able to seamlessly access Tesla chargers with Ford’s app.

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

The Ford-Tesla deal is separate from Tesla’s plan to open up part of its charging network to all EVs.

The White House announced in February that at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger networks would be available for non-Tesla electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

The talks between Musk, who last bought Twitter for $44 billion, and Farley came without the embarrassing technical glitch that irked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that he is running for president.

Along with Musk, DeSantis released the news that he would seek the Republican nomination, but the chat was delayed for about half an hour. Kasturi blamed it on the stress on the servers as so many people were trying to listen.

The Farley-Musk chat had a much smaller audience than DeSantis’, initially with around 18,000 listeners.

The number on the DeSantis chat has topped 420,000, far outstripping the millions of people who have watched the president’s announcements on TV. After the problems were fixed, viewership remained below 500,000.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – associated Press,