GM partners with Musk to boost ‘superchargers’ for EVs

TESLA’S electric charging network has long pleased electric car mavens. But Elon Musk’s “superchargers” are now winning endorsements from a more unlikely group: other auto companies.

Ford was the first to announce a partnership with Musk in late May, followed by General Motors earlier this month. On Tuesday, EV truck company Rivian joined the bandwagon, saying it looks forward “to continuing to find new ways to accelerate EV adoption”. Under the partnerships, Musk has agreed to let consumers with autos from rival brands utilise its national network.

Appearing with Musk on Twitter Spaces, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said she was “really excited” to almost double the volume of chargers available to GM vehicle owners, adding that she hoped the Tesla system, known as the North American Charging Standard (NACS), could become a unified standard for the continent, which would “enable more mass adoption”.

The ascendance of Tesla’s network reflects the system’s reputation for reliability, as well as the sluggish expansion of rival EV charging options amid supply chain problems and a ponderous rollout of a giant federal programme.

The embrace by the Detroit auto giants has been seen as Musk’s latest coup, helping to fuel a roughly 40% surge in Tesla shares since the May 25 Ford announcement.

Still, many EV experts say it is premature to declare NACS the winner.

“We may be heading that way, but it’s still too early to say Tesla and NACS has won,” said industry consultant Loren McDonald, who thinks the market’s evolution could be akin to the smartphone split between Apple and Android, with two leading standards.

EV experts note that other automakers with ambitious US electric vehicle programmes, such as Volkswagen and Hyundai, continue to favor the rival standard, known as the combined charging system (CCS).

“Ultimately we’ll have one standard, but how long that takes remains to be seen,” said John Eichberger, executive director of the Transportation Energy Institute. Eichberger said a Musk-dominated charging system could raise anti-trust concerns, adding that it was not yet clear how far the Tesla CEO would go in sharing a technology that had until recently been proprietary.

“If we are going to gravitate towards one default source for charging, then it needs to be an open-source technology,” he said.

Until recently, many in the industry assumed CCS was in line to become the national standard, in part because it is explicitly required as the connector to be used in a new federal programme. The initiative provides $5 billion (R97bn) in funds for states to build EV charging networks.