June 8 (UPI) — General Motors will join rival carmaker Ford in partnering with Tesla for the charging of electric vehicles, the company announced Thursday.
Mary Barra, the chief executive of GM, made the announcement live on Twitter with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the controversial billionaire who also owns the struggling social media giant.
The company will adopt Tesla’s connector, known as the North American Charging Standard, over the current Combines Charging System standard, in future electric vehicles beginning in 2025.
Like Ford, GM car owners will be able to use a CCS-to-NACS adapter to access Tesla’s network of 12,000 fast chargers spread across the country.
NACS was developed by Tesla and has been used for all the company’s cars since 2012. Tesla opened the technology up to other manufacturers last year but limited access to Tesla Supercharger stations for a 10-year period.
“I think we have a real opportunity here to really drive this to be the unit unified standard for North America, which I think will even enable more mass adoption, so I couldn’t be more excited,” Barra said.
Barra’s announcement shows a sharp reversal for the GM executive who has not used Twitter since Musk purchased the company in October, CNBC noted.
In recent weeks, when Ford announced its own Tesla partnership, GM said it was working to refine an open connector standard for CCS with the engineering organization SAE International. GM also stopped advertising on Twitter and has not resumed using the platform despite Barra’s announcement.
The adoption of Tesla’s technology by GM and Ford could increase pressure on other carmakers and the government to join on the bandwagon.