Revenge of Betamax: Tesla Wins Charging Standard Battle

Imagine a world in which Betamax, BlackBerry and Microsoft’s Zune had succeeded in beating out VHS, Apple iPhone and Apple’s iPod.

That's what the auto industry is waking up to as a swell of companies flocks to Tesla and its unique fast chargers to buy into the network and offer reliable rapid charging to their clients: General Motors, Ford and Rivian, Volvo, with Hyundai Group and Stellantis looking at Tesla’s network as well.

Starting next year, Ford battery-electric vehicles will be able to use 12,000 Supercharger locations across North America, but they will need an adapter for Tesla’s Magic Dock network. In 2025, the adapter will no longer be necessary.

The move to embracing Tesla for reliable charging infrastructure comes at a time when the otherwise fragmented network of chargers from ChargePoint, EVGo and others struggle to get charging stations up and running reliably and at scale.

Meanwhile, according to a 2022 survey conducted by J.D. Power, both Tesla Destination chargers and Superchargers rank highest in terms of customer satisfaction among BEV owners.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said this week that his company's U.S. teams are studying the possibility of following Ford and GM, and will make a decision in a few weeks. “We right now are evaluating that possibility,” Tavares told The Associated Press. “It can have good things and bad things.” He said the good things are being evaluated, and the bad things include overdependence on Tesla.

The realization by big automakers such as GM and Ford, with more on the way, has moved analysts to forecast that Tesla could make billions in incremental revenue over the next decade from charging non-Tesla vehicles. And Tesla’s shares are rising partly on that news.

The capitulation to Tesla and its charging network is something of a surprise given CEO Elon Musk’s outsider-disruptor status in the auto industry. But as the No.1 BEV seller in the world today, and with the top-selling model in the U.S. (Model Y), Tesla has become a force, and is now cutting deals with established automakers that will likely and, for better or worse, position it as the undisputed leader with an even wider array of consumers who will be entering the BEV market over the next 10 years.

Additionally, some of the leading charging networks – including ChargePoint, Blink and Kempower – say they also will pivot to using Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). “Given recent announcements by Tesla, GM, and Ford, we are clearly witnessing the continued evolution of the EV charging industry as technologies advance and industry stakeholders come together and evaluate best practices,” Blink says in a statement.

Speed Bumps Ahead

While early adopters of BEVs will no doubt be pleased at soon having Tesla’s charging network to assist, especially on long trips, the situation will not be without speed bumps.

Already, in the early rollout of Tesla’s Magic Dock Supercharger network, a problem has surfaced: Non-Tesla BEVs do not have the charging port in optimally located for easy use of the Tesla chargers. Reports from the field from consumers and members of the media who have driven Volkswagens, Fords and Mercedes-Benz BEVs into Magic Dock spaces report that the charging cables are too short, forcing them to take up more than one charging spot per visit straddling two and even three parking spots.

Tesla has not yet said what it may do to install longer cables. Automakers will have to decide whether to alter their BEV architectures to match the location of the charging port on Teslas.

Tesla’s move to open its network will help it get tax dollars to help pay for expanding it. In order to qualify for a slice of the $7.5 billion earmarked for EV charging network expansion in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, it says it will ultimately open up 7,500 chargers from its Supercharger and Destination Charger network to non-Tesla vehicles by the end of 2024. Of these, at least 3,500 will be new and existing fast 250- kW Superchargers that are mostly highway-located, while the rest will be slower Level 2 chargers located at businesses such as hotels and big-box stores.

Automakers certainly don’t like the idea of putting revenue into the hands of a competitor. But they have little choice if they want consumers to be more comfortable with BEVs. In a national survey of 8,027 U.S. adults conducted by Consumer Reports in winter 2022, the top two barriers among those who weren’t already planning to buy an EV were charging logistics (61%) and the number of miles the vehicle can go before needing a charge (55%). 

That means the OEMs have consigned more than half of consumer concern to a scattershot of unreliable third parties they have little control over.

The cost of not acting sooner to shore up the charging network is that owners of Fords, Jeeps, Chevrolets, etc., may come to view Tesla as the most trusted brand in the BEV segment when they go to charge up.