Ford electric vehicle owners will have access to the Tesla Supercharger network starting next spring

DETROIT — All current and future Ford Motor Co. electric vehicles will have access to approximately 12,000 Tesla Supercharge stations in the US and Canada starting next spring.

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the agreement Thursday during a “Twitter Spaces” audio chat.

“We think this is a huge step for our industry and for all electric customers,” said Farley.

Musk said he didn’t want Tesla’s network to be a “walled garden” and he wants to use it to support sustainable transportation.

“It is our intention to do everything possible to support Ford and ensure that Ford is on an equal footing with Tesla Superchargers,” Musk said.

Farley said there will be costs for Ford owners, perhaps a monthly subscription, but he gave no details. Details of any financial arrangement between Ford and Tesla have not been disclosed.

Initially, Ford’s current electric vehicles require an adapter to connect to the Tesla stations, which have their own connector. But Ford will switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard connector with its second-generation EVs starting in 2025, Farley said.

Ford said Tesla’s connector is smaller and lighter than other automakers.

Farley said Tesla’s Superchargers have great locations.

“We love the locations. We like the reliability,” he said. They will join Ford’s own Blue Oval charging network, which has about 10,000 fast charging stations, he said.

Ford EV owners will have seamless access to Tesla chargers with Ford’s app, Musk said.

Tesla has about 17,000 Supercharger stations in the US There are about 54,000 public charging stations in the US, according to the Department of Energy, but many charge much slower than Tesla’s stations.

The deal between Ford and Tesla is separate from a plan to open up part of Tesla’s charging network to all electric vehicles.

The White House announced in February that at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger network would be available for non-Tesla electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

The chat between Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last fall, and Farley went off without the embarrassing technical glitches that plagued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when he announced Wednesday that he was running for president.

With Musk, DeSantis broke the news that he would seek the Republican nomination, but the chat was delayed by nearly half an hour due to outages. Musk blamed server overload as so many tried to listen in.

The Farley-Musk chat had a much smaller audience than DeSantis, about 18,000 listeners at the start.

The number on the DeSantis chat came in at 420,000, a far cry from the millions who watched the televised presidential announcements. After the problems were fixed, the audience remained below 500,000.