Peter Lyon
June 9, 2023
Less than two weeks after Ford announced it was adopting Tesla’s charging system, General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra also revealed that her company was flooding suit. During a Twitter Spaces chat with Tesla CEO Elon Musk this week, Barra said that the automaker will use Tesla’s electric car charging standard in its next-generation EVs.
According to Barra, with the adoption of Tesla’s North American Charging Standard by GM’s upcoming EVs, owners of GM vehicles will have access to the vast 12,000-strong Tesla Supercharger network beginning in the spring of 2024.
As with the Ford partnership, owners of GM’s EVs will also have access to more than nationwide Superchargers. The first method of connecting to the Tesla charging standard will be an adaptor, which will be given to current GM EV owners sometime early in the next year. Future GM EVs will come pre-equipped with Tesla standard access, according to Barra.
She also stated, “We intend to adopt the North American charging standard, and we’re working extremely hard to have our first vehicle available in 2025.”
Additionally, GM disclosed that access to Tesla Superchargers will be integrated into its vehicle and mobile apps for its next electric vehicles (EVs).
This method is a crucial step as it makes the billing and payment process much simpler by removing the need for some form of third-party access. Similar to how Ford revealed a switch to the Tesla standard back in late May, Barra and Musk made the announcement through a Twitter Spaces session.
Approximately 300,000 American EV drivers will suddenly experience major gains, at least in terms of rapid charging, as a result of Ford’s statement and now GM’s revelation. The statistic includes more than 170,000 BEVs sold by General Motors (though not all of them can be fast-charged) and more than 108,000 BEVs sold by Ford (including the newest Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, and E-Transit models).
Musk agreed that we are at “one of the great inflection points in the history of vehicles,” equivalent to the moving production line, and Barra described this period as “one of the most exciting” for the automotive industry.
OUR THOUGHTS
It appears that Tesla is now on its way to becoming by far the biggest player in the North American EV charging standards battle, which has so far seen the slow demise of CHAdeMO and the rise of CCS1, but will these moves by Ford and GM mark the beginning of CCS1’s demise? Both Ford and General Motors have endorsed Tesla’s charging standard, along with some smaller players like Aptera.
