General Motors Co. is joining rival Ford Motor Co. in making a deal to give its electric vehicle customers access to Tesla Inc.’s network of 12,000 fast chargers.
GM CEO Mary Barra and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced GM will adopt the North American Charging Standard starting in 2025 during a live event Thursday on Twitter Spaces, which is part of the Twitter social network owned by Musk. Current GM owners will be able use the superchargers starting next spring with an adapter.
Access to enough reliable public chargers has been one of the biggest hurdles to EV adoption among American motorists.
“I think we have a real opportunity here to really drive this to be the unified standard for North America, which I think will enable more mass adoption,” Barra said during the space, “so I couldn’t be more excited.”
Musk hailed the partnership as a step toward greater EV adoption in the United States.
“I think this will really help put people’s mind at ease and focus on one standard,” he said. “And it’s really going to be great for consumers. They just won’t have to worry about which plug, which socket, which charging station. It’ll just work seamlessly.”
The announcement by the two CEOs comes two weeks after Musk and Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley announced during a live event on Twitter Spaces that starting next year, Ford’s EVs will gain access to Tesla’s Supercharger network.
That arrangement will give Ford customers access to more than 12,000 Superchargers, more than doubling the number of EV fast chargers they currently can use.
“We’re ramping production and we think this a huge move for our industry and for our all-electric customers,” Farley said during the May 25 announcement . “Widespread access to fast-charging is absolutely vital to our growth as an EV brand.”
khall@detroitnews.com
bnoble@detroitnews.com