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If you were busy grilling burgers and playing yard darts for the past few days, you may have missed some interesting EV news. Ford’s Jim Farley and Tesla’s Elon Musk came to an agreement that starting soon, Tesla’s North American Supercharger network will be open to Ford vehicle owners. That means that Ford now has the very best EV charging network in America.
“This is great news for our customers who will have unprecedented access to the largest network of fast-chargers in the U.S. and Canada with 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers plus 10,000+ fast-chargers already in the BlueOval Charge Network,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO. “Widespread access to fast-charging is absolutely vital to our growth as an EV brand, and this breakthrough agreement comes as we are ramping up production of our popular Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, and preparing to launch a series of next-generation EVs starting in 2025.”
Superchargers were paid for mainly by the shareholders of Tesla. Having Tesla invent, finance, and build out the network for Ford was an amazing accomplishment. Mr. Farley is clearly the wisest auto executive in the galaxy, after this move. It is hard to imagine how any other automaker could have done what he did.
The Supercharger network is America’s single-best network of EV chargers. They are located in all the smart places, and they offer wicked-fast charging. Existing Ford EV owners will be given a cludgey adapter to shlep around, but it will work just fine, and Ford and Tesla are promising bug-free software to make the charging session just as simple as it is now for Tesla owners.
Related Story: Powering an EV With A Tesla Supercharger Costs Double that of Fueling a Prius With Gas
The only real downside to charging at a Supercharger is that it is one of the most expensive ways to power an automobile. The cost per kWh is often around $0.50 now, and will likely rise with the declining value of the dollar and ever-increasing cost of electricity. However, most owners of EVs charge at home most of the time, so they won’t mind paying through the nose for the ability to charge up when on a road trip.
Speaking of road trips, we happened to be on one this holiday weekend, considered one of the most popular driving weekends of the year. We cruised into a popular rest area north of Boston on US Rt.93 to see how many spots were open at Ford’s new Supercharger station were available. It turned out all of them were. Zero EVs charging. We looked across the highway to the station on the other side, and it was also almost empty. We spotted a couple of Teslas charging there. Ford owners will be pleased to have this option available.
Ford is a distant second to Tesla in terms of EVs delivered in America of late, however, Ford has a lot of EVs for sale (in theory). There is the class-leading e-Transit van, the popular Ford Mustang Mach-E, which is either first or second in its segment depending on whether you include the much more expensive Model Y in that segment. And finally, the F-150 Lightning pickup. We think the Lighting is the top-selling EV truck in America. We would tell you for certain, but Rivian won’t talk to the media or investors about how many of its EV trucks it is delivering. We know for sure that Hummer is not the top seller. If memory serves, GM shipped 2 last quarter.
Ford owners will soon be elbowing Tesla owners aside at their own Supercharger network. We can't wait to report on that once it starts.
Ford Supercharger Image by John Goreham.
John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can follow John on Twitter, and TikTok @ToknCars, and view his credentials at Linkedin
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