Companies
09/06/2023

GM Adopts Tesla's EV Charging Technology, To The Delight Of Wall Street




According to a deal announced on Thursday, General Motors will join Ford in adopting Tesla's North American charging plug standard and grant GM electric vehicle purchasers access to the Tesla Supercharger network.
 
Three of the main EV vendors in the North American market have now agreed on a standard for charging hardware thanks to GM's move, which comes after Ford made a similar choice to support Tesla's charging plug standard. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, jointly announced the arrangement at a Twitter Spaces event.
 
Investors praised the agreement and the idea of a single standard for charging hardware in the North American market. After the bell, GM and Tesla shares both increased by over 4%.
 
The three top competing U.S. EV manufacturers' cooperation has important ramifications for both business and public policy.
 
For businesses to be eligible for billions of dollars in federal subsidies for new charging stations on around 7,500 miles (12,070 km) of the country's busiest roads, the Biden administration made adoption of a competing "combined charging system" (CCS) standard a prerequisite. The White House's strategy is undercut by the coalition between Tesla, Ford, and GM.
 
However, following the Ford-Tesla merger, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNBC in May that although the industry would eventually converge on a single system, adapters would allow for cross-use.
 
Approximately 70% of current U.S. EV sales are made by Tesla, GM, and Ford combined. Different EV charging ports, according to industry leaders, are an impediment to greater customer acceptance of electric vehicles.
 
"I think this is just going to be a fundamentally great thing for the advancement of electric vehicles," Musk said during the Twitter Spaces conversation with Barra.
 
"I think it all just got a little better," Barra said.
 
Barra told CNBC in an interview on Thursday that GM might save $400 million as a result of the arrangement.
 
Consumer-wise, the agreements with the Detroit automakers appear to be a win for Tesla, which spent a lot of money deploying its distinctive fast-charging stations across North America while the majority of other automakers outsourced charging.
 
According to data from the US Department of Energy, Tesla Superchargers make up roughly 60% of all fast chargers in the US and Canada.
 
"This is pretty huge," Consumer Reports senior policy analyst Chris Harto said. "I could see this being kind of a snowball effect of more and more automakers jumping on board and shifting towards the Tesla standard."
 
For GM and Ford, the agreements represent a bet that the advantages of granting their consumers access to Tesla's enormous network of rapid charging stations exceed the dangers that their customers will be satisfied and decide to buy from Tesla in the future.
 
Other automakers and independent charging network providers that have accepted the CCS standard are under pressure as a result of the cooperation between Tesla, GM, and Ford. If the United States adopts Tesla's standard, it may be challenging for competing charging station manufacturers that have already opened offices there to provide CCS-compliant equipment.
 
"It does make it much more likely that NACS will win out in North America over CCS," said David Whiston of Morningstar Research, referring to Tesla's North American Charging Standard. Other charging providers could still use the CCS standard and rely on adapters to serve Tesla, Ford and GM vehicles, he added.
 
In Thursday's after-hours trading, the shares of charging providers ChargePoint and EVgo both fell by more than 4%.
 
Beginning in 2025, GM stated, it will outfit EVs with connectors based on the Tesla North American Charging Standard design. The 12,000 Tesla fast chargers in North America will be accessible to current GM EV owners next year, and adapters will be made available.
 
In light of more competing brands using the Supercharger network, Musk declared that Tesla "is not going to do anything to prefer Teslas." "There will be parity in the playing field... We must accelerate the electric vehicle revolution above everything else.
 
Last month, Ford CEO Jim Farley engaged in a similar conversation with Musk on Twitter and revealed that Ford and Tesla have come to terms for Ford's electric vehicle customers to have access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers in North America starting in early 2024.
 
(Source:www.moneycontrol.com)

Christopher J. Mitchell
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