Polestar latest EV company to team up with Tesla for charging network

Swedish manufacturer's cars will have access to Tesla’s 12,000 Superchargers in the US and Canada

A Polestar 2 on display in Norwegian capital Oslo. From 2025, new Polestar vehicles sold in North America will be equipped with Tesla’s Nacs charging port by default. Reuters

Swedish electric vehicle company Polestar has agreed to use Tesla’s Supercharger network in the US and Canada – becoming the latest car maker to team up with the US EV company.

From 2025, new Polestar vehicles sold in North America will be equipped with Tesla’s North American Charging Standard charging port by default, Polestar said in a statement on Thursday.

Adapters to allow existing Polestar drivers to access the network are expected by the middle of next year.

“This is a great win for our North American customers … we salute the pioneering work Tesla has done to speed up the adoption and increase the popularity of electric vehicles, and it’s great to see the Supercharger network being made available in this way,” Thomas Ingenlath, chief executive of Polestar, said.

“With 12,000 charging points today, a number that will only keep growing, this move will greatly increase the rate of EV adoption in a key automotive region.”

The Polestar 2 EV on display at the Electric Vehicle Innovation Summit in Abu Dhabi. Victor Besa / The National

Tesla Superchargers are rapidly becoming an industry standard in North America.

They account for about 60 per cent of the total fast chargers available in the US, Reuters reported, citing official data.

US car makers General Motors, Ford and Rivian have agreed to use the EV company’s charging network.

Swedish car maker Volvo has also said that all its EVs will have access to Tesla's Supercharger network in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Polestar, headquartered in Gothenburg, currently offers its cars in 27 markets globally across the US, Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific.

It plans to have a line-up of five performance EVs by 2026.

Polestar 2 launched in 2019 and SUV Polestar 3 was unveiled late last year.

Polestar 4, an SUV coupe, is scheduled to launch in phases through 2023 and into 2024. Polestar 5, an electric four-door GT and Polestar 6, an electric roadster, are “coming soon”, according to the company.

The Polestar 0 project is the company’s “ambitious goal of creating a truly climate-neutral production car by 2030” .

While EV manufacturers need access to reliable charging to relieve drivers' worries of being stranded on the roads, most have avoided building their own networks due to high installation costs.

However, Tesla has been strongly advocating for the universal adoption of its charging technology.

“Thank goodness. North America will have a way better connector for charging cars than rest of world,” Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said on Twitter earlier this month.

Texas-headquartered Tesla, which closed the first quarter with a record number of deliveries at 422,000, accounted for nearly 16 per cent of the EV market share, Counterpoint Research said.

It slashed prices of the Model Y and Model 3 in January, resulting in the Model Y becoming the best-selling passenger car model.