Ford EV will use Tesla’s charging plug from next year

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Elon Musk just announced that all 12,000 Tesla Superchargers will be operational with Ford vehicles by early 2024. Farley also announced that next-generation Ford vehicles will be equipped with the NACS port, Tesla’s standardized version of its proprietary charging system.

Elon Musk said, “We don’t want Tesla superchargers to become a walled garden,” during the Twitter Space call. According to Musk, Tesla wants Ford to be on an equal footing when it comes to a charging network.

The Twitter Space stage was stable this time, following the disaster that was Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential announcement speech yesterday.

The talk between the automaker’s two CEOs comes as EV competition continues to intensify. Tesla has enjoyed its dominance at the top of the growing electric car industry, but other manufacturers are finally bringing more variety and alternatives to Tesla’s best-selling Model Y. Tesla has slashed prices several times this year to boost sales, driving the Model Y 3 sedan under $40,000.

Price reductions don’t just happen at Tesla. Ford had also slashed prices and other manufacturers are closing in on an industry-wide EV price war.

Ford has some of the best-selling EVs (number two to be exact), but the company was crippled by manufacturing problems, including faulty batteries that could catch fire (that problem was fixed, but it stopped Lightning production for a while). Production of the Mustang Mach-E was also halted for weeks as the company improved processes at the plant.

Ford restructured the company a year ago to run separate businesses for its highly profitable gas-powered vehicles, now called Ford Blue, and its electric efforts under the Ford Model E — which, incidentally, was the original intended name for Tesla’s Model 3 (they even had to change the Model 3 logo to avoid infringing Ford’s trademark).

Farley has praised Musk before, but he’s also thrown some punches. Last year, Farley once praised how the Ford F-150 Lightning was already in production and put on the road while Tesla’s Cybertruck was nowhere to be seen (and it still isn’t). “Take that, Elon Musk,” Farley said at the time.

Both Tesla and Ford have also joined the National Charging Experience Consortium, a partnership that brings together national labs, EV equipment OEMs and automakers to improve the reliability of charging infrastructure.