Ford CEO Jim Farley hopped on Elon Musk’s X right this moment to make an announcement related to Elon Musk’s Tesla: Ford will probably be freely giving adapters in order that its electric vehicles can simply cost on Tesla’s charging community. “We want to make charging more convenient for our Ford EV owners,” Farley wrote.

The announcement underscored the significance of charging to the Detroit automaker’s electrical automobile technique—and the diploma to which Tesla has dominated public charging within the United States.

Ford’s public North American charging community is made up of some 106,000 chargers. Drivers of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning pickup will now have entry to double the variety of quick cost factors, Ford says. US and Canadian house owners of Mustangs and Lightnings from mannequin yr 2021 by 2024 will have the ability to reserve their adapters this spring. (The automaker stated it had no information to share about adapters for patrons exterior of the US and Canada.)

Ford introduced final yr that its electrical autos would include Tesla-compatible charging ports by 2025. With virtually 6,000 charging stations globally, Tesla’s community is likely one of the most developed and dependable on this planet. A survey from the analytics and analysis agency JD Power discovered that 21 % of US electrical automobile house owners who tried to cost at a public station to start with of final yr had been unable to finish their charging session. However, the identical statistic for Tesla house owners was simply 4 %.

The announcement means better comfort for electrical automobile house owners. Car patrons typically cite “range anxiety” because the primary motive they haven’t gone electrical. More public chargers could help ease the transition for drivers accustomed to seeing gas stations every few blocks.

It’s additionally vindication for Tesla’s charging strategy. For years, most international automakers defaulted to the Combined Charging Standard, a connector-and-port design created by a committee of pros. Tesla and its charging community was the outlier. But in 2022, the electrical carmaker opened up the design and specs for its charging ports, and in a fortuitous bit of selling renamed it the North American Charging Standard. By the subsequent yr, Ford grew to become the primary automaker to announce it could change to Tesla’s charger design. Almost each different automobile producer—together with BMW, General Motors, Honda, Kia, Rivian, and Toyota—has adopted.

Tesla stated last year it could set up CCS ports on not less than 7,500 of its chargers by the top of 2024, opening its community as much as even these electrical drivers with out Tesla-compatible vehicles or adapters.

Last week, on a name with buyers, Tesla executives warned that the electrical carmaker’s explosive development would gradual in 2024 because it gears up for the launch of a cheaper “next generation” car in 2025. (The Chinese automaker BYD overtook Tesla as the highest vendor of battery electrical autos late final yr.) But charging was a potential vivid spot. Pay-per-use charging, particularly for fleets, might grow to be a “meaningful driver of profit generation” within the years to come back, the corporate wrote in monetary submitting.