Tesla charging deal a watershed moment

North America’s two biggest automakers have now turned to their electric vehicle rival Tesla to tap into its enormous network of Superchargers to help them move faster into the electric market.

General Motors said last week it has reached an agreement with Tesla to allow GM electric vehicles to charge at 12,000 Tesla Superchargers starting next spring.

That move followed a similar announcement from Ford Motor Co. two weeks earlier.

The developments represent a watershed moment in the EV industry in that they have the potential to remove one of the market’s greatest obstacles to consumer adoption of EVs — range anxiety. Tesla operates about 17,000 charging connectors, and its fast charging network is considered both the largest and most dependable in the U.S. at a time when many consumers are expressing frustration over nonworking chargers around the country.

Tesla owners generally don’t worry about range anxiety because there are so many Superchargers, said Loren McDonald, CEO of the EVAdoption consultancy.

Speaking in a Twitter Spaces conversation with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said the deal will “help drive EV adoption.”

“We need to have a robust charging infrastructure,” she said.

“We have a real opportunity here to really drive this to be the unified standard for North America, which I think will even enable more mass adoption,” Barra said.

She told CNBC last week that GM expects to save as much as $400 million by working with Tesla’s network. GM has said it would invest $750 million on charging infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada.

“This arrangement alone, this collaboration that we’re doing, nearly doubles the amount of chargers that our GM customers will have access to,” Barra said of Tesla. The savings come “because we’ve been able to do it faster and more effectively, and we’re really looking for ways that we can be more capital-efficient as we go forward.”

GM will build Tesla’s North American Charging Standard connectors into its EVs starting in 2025, the automaker said. GM will weave Tesla’s Supercharger network into its vehicle and mobile apps.

In late May, Ford said it would give its EV owners access to Tesla’s Superchargers starting next spring through adapters. Ford also will stop building EVs with traditional Combined Charging System ports starting in 2025, instead using the port used by Tesla.

Barra noted during last week’s Twitter Spaces conversation that “the three U.S.-based auto companies are all on one standard.”