Tesla owners learned late last month that they’ll have to share sometimes crowded Tesla Supercharging stations with anyone driving Ford electric vehicles. Today they learned that GM’s EV customers will be able to use the recharge spots, as well.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his GM counterpart, Mary Barra, made the announcement today at a Twitter Spaces event.
Many Tesla owners have already been complaining that some stations are too congested—even without an influx of drivers with competing EV brands. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tesla drivers frustrated by the crowds and dreading the possibility of Tesla opening the charging network to rivals.
For Tesla, opening the network helps it qualify for a share of billions of federal dollars on offer to improve the experience of charging EVs in America. In February, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging, the White House announced a “set of actions aimed at creating a convenient, reliable, and made-in-America electric vehicle charging network so that the great American road trip can be electrified.” It said that Tesla would for the first time “open a portion of its U.S. Supercharger and Destination Charger network to non-Tesla EVs.”
Under the deal announced today, GM drivers will get access to Tesla’s 12,000 or so Supercharger stations early next year. That mirrors the news from Ford.
Both GM and Ford also agreed to adopt Tesla’s connector standard, the North American charging standard (NACS), in a blow to the current industry-standard CCS. Musk replied today to a tweet reading “RIP CCS” with:
“Thank goodness! North America will have a way better connector for charging cars than rest of world.”
A key barrier to more widespread EV adoption in the U.S. is a dearth of charging access, so the Ford and GM arrangements with Tesla will likely spur growth in the sector.
“Excited for what this partnership means for our customers and the industry,” Barra tweeted today.
But as one Tesla owner in Seattle told the Journal, “That’s the one thing that concerns me—whether it might add to congestion…They really need to put more Superchargers in.”
Of course, Tesla continues to expand the network; many people primarily charge at home; and not all stations suffer congestion. But Tesla drivers can expect some longer wait times as unfamiliar vehicles join them at stations early next year.
