Rival automakers have been allowed to implement Tesla’s proprietary charging connector in their own vehicles since last November. Now Ford is shaping up to be one of the first to take advantage of the offer.
The Blue Oval announced on Thursday that its next-generation electric vehicles, which are expected to arrive from 2025, will feature built-in Tesla connectors, known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS). This will eliminate the need for an adapter when using one of the many Tesla Supercharger DC fast chargers.
As first announced by the White House in February, and later confirmed by Tesla, some Tesla-owned charging stations in the United States will be open to vehicles from rival brands, with Tesla in return getting a slice of federal money intended to build EV charging infrastructure.
Some locations have already opened, and Tesla has pledged to provide access to 7,500 personal chargers by the end of 2024, of which at least 3,500 will be high-speed superchargers located along highways. The rest will be slower Level 2 chargers, called by Tesla destination chargers, found in places like hotels and restaurants. Tesla is also adding the more general Combined Charging Standards (CCS) connector to its stations, so the availability of the NACS connector will not be required to use any of Tesla’s chargers in the future.
Tesla Supercharger connector – now called NACS
However, Ford, in its Thursday announcement, said it had reached an agreement with Tesla to provide its electric vehicle owners with access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in the United States and Canada. Part of the deal is for Ford to get API access to Tesla’s interface, which means Ford EV owners can use Ford’s app to activate charging at Tesla stations.
Add to that Ford’s own BlueOval charging network, which provides access to more than 10,000 public DC fast chargers, and Ford electric vehicle owners will soon have access to one of the largest fast charger networks on the planet.
Ford has been quiet about plans for its next-generation electric vehicle lineup, which will be based on a new modular electric vehicle platform, aptly called the Ford Generation 2 EV platform. At least one will be a pickup truck and another will be a large three-row SUV.
