The EV charging revolution is upon us.
Today, ford announced that it is prepared to go “live” with its North American Charging Standard (NACS) charger adapter program. Basically what this means in the King’s English is that owners of the Ford Mustang Mach-E EV crossover and F-150 Lighting EV pickup will soon be able to roll up to a Tesla supercharger and plug in, making them the first non-Tesla vehicles capable of making use of that company’s ultra fast charging network of 15,000+ plus superchargers in North America. Not all of the chargers will be available, however, as the system will not work with the version 2 Superchargers and some version 3 examples.
Adapters will be made available to all Mach-E and Lightning owners and buyers – one per vehicle VIN — until June 30 of this year. After that, you’re looking at a charge of US $230; Canadian pricing has not yet been announced, but expect that to be around the $300 level. Every Mach-E and Lightning vehicle will have the compatibility once an over-the-air update is installed.
Using the adapters is simple; simply pull up to the charger, attach the adapter with a simple click and you’re off. While the Tesla Superchargers are capable of a lot more, both Ford EVs are limited to 150 kw of charge, meaning a charge from 15-80 per cent in about 35 minutes. Indeed, there are already chargers out there that can provide that kind of return, so providing Ford EV drivers with the ability to charge at a Supercharger is more about offering drivers more places to charge, rather than shorter charge times once there. With the addition of Tesla’s network the Ford Blue Oval Charge Network now has more than 126,000 chargers in North America.
Finding a charger, making sure it works and so on is one pain point of EV ownership but another big one is actually the act of paying. Sometimes you can just swipe a credit card, other times you need an app and so on but Ford aims to tackle all that with the FordPass App that provides a proper plug-and-play experience and removes the need to fumble for a credit card upon arriving at a station.
While Ford is still saying that 80 per cent of EV users chare at home and that’s unlikely to change, one has to think that with the newfound access to the Tesla Supercharger network, we may see that number come down a little bit.
According to Ford, customers that order their chargers otoday – the day the program begins – will start receiving them by the end of March.