Ford and Tesla to Partner on Electric Vehicle Charging

Rival automakers Ford (F) and Tesla (TSLA), may compete for electric vehicle (EV) market share but are teaming up to make EV charging more accessible, as the Biden Administration’s push for American-made EV solutions takes shape.

What Does It Mean For Ford EV Owners?

Current owners of Ford EVs will gain access to more than 12,000 Tesla superchargers in the U.S. and Canada, Ford CEO Jim Farley, and Tesla’s Elon Musk announced Thursday.

Models such as Ford F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit vehicles fitted with the Combined Charging System (CCS) port will need a Tesla adapter to use the company’s V3 Superchargers.

Next-generation Ford EVs would come equipped with a Tesla-compatible charging plug, removing the need for an adapter, Ford said.

Counter-Intuitive But Not Surprising

Farley said last month that he wants to surpass Tesla as the global leader in EVs, while Tesla rocked the industry this year with a series of price cuts aimed at protecting its market share.

However, as counter-intuitive as this EV charging partnership seems, it’s not entirely surprising.

In February the White House said Tesla would open up 7,500 of its chargers to rival firms in exchange for subsidies.

The Biden administration is providing grants in order to build a “Made in America” network of 500,000 vehicle chargers across the United States. The government’s bipartisan law committed $7.5 billion to electric vehicle charging infrastructure and wants the chargers in place by 2030.

Ford’s CEO discussed charging during a Morgan Stanley conference, suggesting automakers should collaborate on infrastructure, CNBC reported. 

“It seems totally ridiculous that we have an infrastructure problem, and we can’t even agree on what plug to use,” Ford said.

A Plug In America survey in February cited a lack of sufficient, or broken charging stations as one of the key obstacles to owning or maintaining an electric vehicle.