| The CEOs of Ford and Tesla, Jim Farley and Elon Musk, announced via Twitter Spaces that Ford's existing and new customers will have access to the Tesla Supercharger network using the Ford app. Farley also revealed that starting in 2025, the next generation of Ford electric vehicles will be equipped with North American Charging Standard ports. "We don't want the Tesla Supercharger network to become a walled garden. We want it to be something that is supportive of electrification and sustainable transport in general," Musk said during the announcement. Currently, Tesla has 17,711 Supercharger stations in the U.S. (surpassing 45,000 globally in April), 60% of the country's public fast chargers. Tesla has been adding upwards of 3,000 Superchargers globally to its network for the past four quarters, installing 4,947 stations and 45,169 connectors in Q1.
Tesla began to open its Supercharger network to other brands at the end of February, starting in New York, enabling non-Tesla EV owners to connect to CSS ports via a Magic Dock. Tesla plans to gradually open locations through the end of 2024, which would qualify for a $7.5B incentive program under the Inflation Reduction Act. At the time, the Department of Transportation had been considering adopting the CSS connector as the standard; however, Ford's decision signals that the industry is moving in a different direction with the adoption of NACS ports.
 Ford's BlueOval network relies heavily on third-party EV charging companies, such as Electrify America, EVGo, ChargePoint, and Shell ReCharge, among others. It encompasses 19,500 charging stations with 63,000 connectors. Yet, Farley mentioned an anecdote about the greater availability of the Tesla Supercharger network and its convenience in terms of locations and reliability. In its 2022 Impact Report, Tesla noted an average uptime of 99.95% for its chargers, up from 99.86% in 2021. A 2022 Berkeley study found an average uptime of 77% across chargers meant for CSS connector vehicles, such as Ford's Mustang Mach-E, in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. A study by J.D. Power found one out of every five attempts at public EV charging failed, and customer satisfaction with Level 2 and Level 3 chargers has been decreasing since 2021. Ford, however, confirmed that the current partnerships and BlueOval network would continue alongside the Tesla Supercharger network on its app. Part of Ford's new approach relates to its intention to make batteries "as small as possible" to cut the costs of building longer-range batteries (the automaker has a $3B cost-cutting goal by 2026 across areas) while improving the fast-charging experience. Farley also mentioned its attempts at improving software-update capabilities for vehicles, to which, during the call, Musk mentioned the possibility of open-sourcing software, "the same way Android is helpful to the phone industry." 
The partnership is expected to add to Tesla's services revenue, which generated $1.83B in Q1, an increase of 44% YoY. The anticipation was reflected in Tesla stock, jumping 4.72% for the day on Friday to $193.17 per share. Ford stock also rose for the day by 6.24% to $12.09. |
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