Farley had to call Elon Musk to convince him and Tesla to allow Ford EV to get access to Tesla Superchargers.

Back in May of 2023, Ford shocked the electric car world by being the first to announce that its EVs would adopt Tesla’s charging standard (now referred to as NACS). At the time, Ford stated: 

Starting early next year Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit customers will be able to access the Superchargers via an adapter.

In 2025, Ford will offer next-generation electric vehicles with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector built-in, eliminating the need for an adapter to access Tesla Superchargers.

That announcement was soon followed by other automakers adopting NACS too.

More recently, on February 29, 2024, Ford released its NACS adapter and announced that Ford EVs could start charging at Tesla Superchargers. Then we witnessed a Ford F-150 Lightning charging at a Tesla Supercharger.

It all seemed so smooth and easy, the transition to NACS, that is. But it wasn’t and here’s the exclusive from Ford CEO Jim Farley describing what it took to get the deal done. It turns out that Ford CEO Jim Farley had to call Elon Musk to convince Tesla to allow Ford EVs to have access to the Tesla Supercharger network. 

At first, Tesla didn’t agree to the deal, but after Farley talked it over with Musk, the electric automaker decided to agree. After that, various other deals were worked out with numerous automakers but it all started with Ford, so be sure to tune in to the video for an explanation of how it all came to be directly from Ford’s CEO.

Tom Moloughney had this to say of the video and interview:

I get a rare opportunity to interview the CEO of Ford Motor Company, Jim Farley on the company’s decision to transition to the Tesla NACS (J3400) connector.