Except you’ve simply emerged from an internet-free retreat, you’ve certainly heard that Tesla and Ford are planning to cooperate to open up the previous’s Supercharger community to drivers of the latter’s EVs. The announcement shortly took over each EV-related information feed. Is that this deal actually as “shocking,” “unprecedented” and “game-changing” as individuals are saying?

Sure and no.

From a public notion standpoint, sure, it’s an enormous deal. Each firms are already having fun with a publicity bonanza from the information, and something that expands entry to charging infrastructure is an effective factor for the entire business. Amongst non-EV drivers, there’s an amazing quantity of confusion and misinformation about EV charging. As mainstream journalists decide up this story, they’ll be compelled to clarify to their readers how charging works (hopefully after figuring it out themselves).

From a driver’s standpoint, it’s an absolute good. North American Ford EV drivers will quickly have easy accessibility to 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers and 10,000+ BlueOval quick chargers. What’s to not like?

From a technical standpoint, it feels extra like an incremental advance than a game-changer. Tesla has been planning to open up its Supercharger community for a while, and this can be a welcome step in direction of that worthy aim.

“A Tesla-developed adapter will present [Ford EVs] fitted with the Mixed Charging System (CCS) port entry to Tesla’s V3 Superchargers,” says Ford. Hopefully this adapter, which can presumably change the clunky Magic Dock at the moment in use at chosen Superchargers, will probably be rolled out so much sooner than the adapters that Tesla lastly supplied to permit Tesla drivers to make use of CCS chargers. And it’ll certainly be usable by all CCS-capable EVs, not simply Fords.

The large technical information: “Ford will equip future EVs with the [Tesla] NACS cost port, eradicating the necessity for an adapter for direct entry to Tesla Superchargers, beginning in 2025.” Properly, okay, however that’s a future function for Ford’s subsequent era of EVs, which continues to be on the drafting board, and it’s exhausting to see the way it delivers greater than a smidgen of extra comfort to drivers. Carrying round a collection of adapters and dongles has been part of life since computer systems had been invented.

Sure, it will be somewhat novel for an automaker to implement a competitor’s {hardware} on its automobiles. However Tesla has been doing one thing of the sort for a while in Europe, the place its newer automobiles sport CCS connectors. Teslas have at all times required an adapter to connect with non-Tesla Stage 2 chargers, and we’ve by no means heard that these offered any nice inconvenience.

Don’t get us unsuitable—we’re all for the Tesla/Ford partnership, and the naysayers don’t have any case. Some are saying that Ford has “admitted defeat,” selecting Tesla’s NACS commonplace over CCS, and abandoning the thought of constructing its personal charging community. The truth is, Ford is selecting each. Tesla constructed its personal charging community as a result of it had no selection, and by all accounts it has performed an ideal job. There’s no want for different automakers to reinvent the wheel, and Ford hasn’t chosen to take action—its BlueOval community isn’t a community within the bodily sense, however somewhat a rebranding of previously-existing networks. And that’s peachy. The extra charging choices out there, the higher.

Some are crowing a couple of “requirements struggle.” However there isn’t going to be a lot of a struggle if drivers can use both commonplace via a easy adapter. Will different automakers additionally select to supply the NACS connector on their automobiles? Will extra charging suppliers add the NACS connector to their stations, as EVgo has performed? Will Tesla add CCS ports to extra Superchargers, or to its US automobiles? We’ll see, however so long as all events are prepared to work collectively, as more and more seems to be the case, the prospects for peace within the EV world (not elsewhere, alas) are promising.

Sources: Ford, Electrek