Ford became the first automaker to gain access to Tesla’s Supercharger network in North America today, with over 15,300 Superchargers now open to Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners. With the start of the program, we now know how much Ford EV owners, and presumably owners of other EV brands, will be paying to plug in at Superchargers in Canada and the US.
Since May of last year there has been a stream of announcements from automakers that they had signed an agreement with Tesla to adopt their North American Charging Standard (NACS) technology. One piece of information that was unknown about these agreements was pricing, and whether they had negotiated to have their EV owners pay the same rates as Tesla owners, or a premium to use the Supercharger network.
The only point of reference we had was the non-Tesla Supercharger Pilot Program. This program was not negotiated with specific automakers, but allowed owners of other EVs to use a small number of Superchargers equipped with Magic Docks. In this case they would either pay more to charge, or pay the same amount as Tesla owners after signing up for a monthly Supercharging Membership.
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With today’s expansion, we now it will be the same for Ford EV owners. According to the mobile app, they will be paying about 35% more than Tesla owners if they don’t have a Supercharging Membership. If they sign up for the membership, which costs $16.99 in Canada or $12.99 in the US, prices drop to the same amount as Tesla owners pay.
This means Ford EV owners will have to do some math to figure out if their average monthly Supercharging use will be enough to offset paying the $16.99 per month for the membership.
Here’s an example of the rates at the largest Supercharger in Canada in Richmond, BC, both for Tesla owners (left) and Ford EV owners (right).
What is most interesting about this is that it is not what we were expecting. Shortly after General Motors (GM) announced they too had signed on to adopt NACS, CEO Mary Barra said during an interview that one of the key reasons they signed the agreement was that they had negotiated “to get the same cost for our customers that Tesla customers do.”
It could be that GMs negotiating team was better than Ford’s, and did secure the same rates for their EV owners as Tesla owners, however it would seem strange for Tesla to agree to this. It could also be that Barra was misinformed, or did not catch the fact that the same rates only applied after paying a monthly membership fee.
We should find out if GM and other automakers negotiated different rates soon. Tesla announced today that GM, Rivian, Volvo, and Polestar will gain access to the Supercharger network this spring.
