White House announced on Friday that electric cars charging stations adopting Tesla standard plugs would qualify for billions of dollars in government support if they also used the CCS, the country's charging standard.
The declaration comes in response to separate declarations from American manufacturers Ford Motor and General Motors that they would be adopting the Tesla charging method, also known as NACS - the North American Charging Standard. With the aid of federal subsidies, the charging sector appeared to be migrating in the direction of the competing CCS connection.
This is the very first time the administration of Joe Biden has publicly connected Tesla to its plans to spend a total of $7.5 billion to create new and high-speed chargers on around 7,500 miles across the country's busiest roadways.
Shares of Tesla increased by 4.1%. The news about Ford and GM, according to analysts, was a big victory that would help Tesla Superchargers become the norm in the US.
The shares of Ford and GM increased by 1.3% and 1.1%, respectively, at the market close.
However, as the collaboration among the three renowned automakers prompted concerns about their future, shares in EV charging companies including ChargePoint, EVgo and also Blink Charging declined 11% to 13%. After hours, they were empty.
On Friday, some of them declared that they will make an effort to conform to the Tesla standards.
A representative for the White House, Robyn Patterson, said that in order to encourage competition, they developed interoperability requirements and minimum standards to guarantee that publicly sponsored EV charging is available, dependable, and inexpensive for all drivers. Given that drivers may rely on at least CCS, those requirements allow for addition of both NACS and CCS.
According to Patterson, the objective is for each publicly financed charger to be capable to accommodate every automobile. It is a step in the right direction when more drivers have access to higher-quality charging, such as Tesla Superchargers.
If a CCS adapter was sufficient to connect to the charging ports for non-Tesla chargers, it was not specified in the statement.
While praising Tesla's move to make its charging system available to rivals earlier this year, the government avoided addressing how the business will be participating in the charging initiatives. In the US, the majority of major automakers, notably Hyundai Motor, Volkswagen and Kia, use the CCS system.
According to Oleg Logvinov, CEO of EV charging component provider IoTecha, a battle between rival standards would result in higher costs for suppliers and consumers.
Logvinov, the head of CharIN North America, an organization that supports CCS, claimed that Tesla's technology wasn't as well-proven and that CharIN North America was supporting CCS as a result.
Industry Shakeup
What are the expenses associated with having so many CCS ports when just a small portion of the market uses them? What is the decision's opportunity cost?
In terms of rapid charging, Tesla has the largest network in the country.
Over 60 percent of the nation's EV market can NACS thanks to the collaboration between three of the largest American automakers.
Danni Hewson, the director of financial analysis at AJ Bell, stated that regulators would likely determine whether other charge point systems vanish in a similar manner to how Betamax video tapes vanished in the 1980s. However, the gap is growing and Tesla is currently far ahead of the competition.
The potential to collaborate with Tesla on compatibility with cables and connections, according to a Blink spokesman, is one that the firm is excited about.
Jonathan Levy, Chief Commercial Officer of EVgo said, the business will continue to provide services to all of the EV drivers whatever fast charging connector they use and is collaborating with NACS vendors to address drivers' demands.
BAB e-mobility A major producer of EV chargers in North America, which serves operators, fleets, and retailers, announced that its products, which it is currently creating and testing, will have a NACS connector option.
ChargePoint was unavailable for comment right away.
Requests for comment from smaller EV businesses like Lucid and Rivian were not quickly fulfilled. Their stock fell by just over 1% at the closing.
In order to enable non-Tesla cars to utilize its Superchargers, Tesla has been exploring the usage of CCS connectors.
Tesla's adapters may be qualified for the award after the administration changed its rules last week to state that customers are eligible for federal subsidies to purchase patented adapters provided they are compliant with a permanently connected CCS connector.