General Motors CEO Mary Barra has confirmed that the company's future EVs will adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard, giving GM owners access to the expansive, 12,000-unit-strong Tesla Supercharger network starting in the spring of 2024.
First access to the Tesla charging standard will come by way of an adaptor, which will be provided to existing GM EV owners sometime early next year.
“What’s even more exciting is that our existing EV customers can leverage the 12,000 Tesla fast chargers early next spring with an adapter," said Barra.
According to Barra, future GM EVs will have Tesla standard access baked right in. “We plan to adopt the North American charging standard, we’re working really hard that our first vehicle will come in 2025," said the CEO.
Additionally, GM revealed that its future EVs will actually integrate Tesla Supercharger access into its vehicle and mobile apps. GM stated:
GM will also integrate the Tesla Supercharger Network into its vehicle and mobile apps, helping drivers quickly and easily locate, pay for, and initiate charging at available Tesla Superchargers.
This is an important step as it vastly simplifies the charging process by eliminating the need to use some sort of third-party access to carry out the charging and payment process.
Barra announced the news alongside Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a Twitter Spaces session Thursday afternoon, similar to the way in which Ford announced a shift to the Tesla standard, back in late May.
With Ford's announcement and now GM's release today, some 300,000 American EV drivers will suddenly see huge improvements, at least in regards to fast charging. The number includes over 170,000 BEVs sold by General Motors (not all are fast-charge capable) and over 108,000 Ford BEVs (the latest ones like the Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, and E-Transit).
Barra and Musk started the short conversation by commenting on this time as "one of the most exciting" for the automotive industry, while Musk agreed that we are at "one of the great inflection points in vehicles ... comparable to the moving production line."
With both Ford and General Motors on board with Tesla's charging standard, as well as some smaller players like Aptera, it seems Tesla is now on its way to becoming by far the biggest player in the North American EV charging standards battle, which so far has seen the slow demise of CHAdeMO and the rise of CCS1, but will these moves by Ford and GM mark the start of the fall of CCS1?
