Tesla commits to open 7,500 chargers in the U.S. to other electric vehicles by end of 2024

Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2023

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The Biden administration wants to see at least 500,000 electric vehicle chargers on U.S. roads by 2030, and announced a slate of initiatives on Wednesday to help make that a reality, including commitments from companies that build and operate charging networks like Tesla, GM, Ford, ChargePoint and others.

All of the companies stand to reap the benefits of federal funding if their planned charging infrastructure projects meet new federal standards, which were also revealed on Wednesday.

As part of this effort, White House officials said, they locked a commitment from Tesla to open thousands of its chargers to electric vehicles made by other manufacturers. Until now in the U.S., Tesla Supercharging stations have been accessible primarily to drivers of the company’s own cars.

Tesla specifically agreed to make at least 7,500 of its publicly accessible chargers in the U.S. available for use by any compatible EV by the end of 2024. That total will include at least 3,500 of Tesla’s 250-kilowatt Superchargers located along key highway corridors, as well as the slower Level 2 destination chargers that the automaker provides at locations like hotels and restaurants, the officials said.

Tesla also agreed to triple the number of Superchargers in its U.S. network, with new chargers that will be made in Buffalo, N.Y., the official said. The company has been assembling some of its charging equipment at a facility in Buffalo that was originally intended as a solar panel factory.

Tesla has intended to open up its charging network in the U.S. for years. According to Tesla’s most recent annual financial filing, in November 2021 the company “began to offer Supercharger access to non-Tesla vehicles in certain locations in support of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

White House infrastructure chief Mitch Landrieu told reporters Tuesday that Elon Musk was one of many automotive sector CEOs involved in discussions with the White House about charging infrastructure last year.

“He was very open, he was very constructive,” Landrieu said. “And at that time, he said his intent was to work with us to make his network interoperable. Everybody else on the call agreed.”

Landrieu added, “It was critically important to us that everybody be included in the conversation.”

The White House also lauded other automakers and companies, praising a separate deal between General Motors, Pilot Co. and charging network EVGo to install 2,000 fast chargers at Pilot and Flying J centers along U.S. highways.

GM via a separate partnership with FLO, also plans to install up to 40,000 public Level 2 EV chargers in U.S. communities by 2026, which will become part of GM’s Ultium Charge 360 network, and be available to all EV drivers.

Ford has committed to installing DC Fast chargers at 1,920 of the company’s dealerships by January 2024.

Hertz and oil giant BP‘s EV charging unit plan to install thousands of chargers in major U.S. cities for use by Hertz customers and the general public.

Among Wednesday’s announcements, the departments of Energy and Transportation also revealed new charging standards that “ensure everyone can use the network – no matter what car you drive or what state you charge in.” Among the requirements:

All new chargers built with federal funds must support the Combined Charging System plug standard. The CCS standard is used by most automakers other than Tesla.
New charging sites built with federal funds will be required to have a minimum number of DC Fast chargers.
Federally funded chargers must be up and running at least 97% of the time once installed.
Effective immediately, all federally funded chargers must be assembled in the U.S., and their steel enclosures must be made in the U.S. By July 2024, at least 55% of the chargers’ components (measured by cost) must be made in the U.S. as well.
New chargers built with federal funds to be compatible with new user-friendly technologies like “Plug and Charge,” which – as the name suggests — automates the process of paying for the charge.

There are also new rules to help ensure that drivers don’t have to use multiple apps to find and use chargers, by making data on charger locations, pricing and availability public and available via mapping applications.

But in one omission that will raise questions from staunch environmentalists, the new federally funded EV chargers will not necessarily be powered by clean energy sources.

Officials said it will be “company dependent” whether EV chargers that are federally funded are powered by renewables or “clean electricity,” or simply connected to the existing electrical grid.

Transportation has been responsible for 25% of carbon emissions from human activity globally, according to estimates by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation. Much of that pollution comes from tailpipe emissions, but charging with electricity from clean or renewable sources increases the climate benefits of switching to an electric vehicle.

According to environmental impact research by Project Drawdown, compared with gasoline-powered vehicles, emissions drop by 50% when an electric vehicle’s power is drawn from the conventional grid. When powered by solar energy, carbon dioxide emissions from an electric vehicle fall by 95% versus a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle that burns gasoline.

Officials did suggest it will all work out in the long run, however. During the briefing, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm emphasized that the president’s goal is to get to a “fully clean electric grid” by 2035.

Technology

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says, as shareholder, tariffs are ‘not good’

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3 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says, as shareholder, tariffs are 'not good'

President Trump’s new tariffs on goods that the U.S. imports from over 100 countries will have an effect on consumers, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CNBC on Friday. Investors will feel the pain, too.

Microsoft’s stock dropped almost 6% in the past two days, as the Nasdaq wrapped up its worst week in five years.

“As a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good,” Ballmer said, in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin that was tied to Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration. “It creates opportunity to be a serious, long-term player.”

Ballmer was sandwiched in between Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and current CEO Satya Nadella for the interview.

“I took just enough economics in college — that tariffs are actually going to bring some turmoil,” said Ballmer, who was succeeded by Nadella in 2014. Gates, Microsoft’s first CEO, convinced Ballmer to join the company in 1980.

Gates, Ballmer and Nadella attended proceedings at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus on Friday to celebrate its first half-century.

Between the tariffs and weak quarterly revenue guidance announced in January, Microsoft’s stock is on track for its fifth straight month of declines, which would be the worst stretch since 2009. But the company remains a leader in the PC operating system and productivity software markets, and its partnership with startup OpenAI has led to gains in cloud computing.

“I think that disruption is very hard on people, and so the decision to do something for which disruption was inevitable, that needs a lot of popular support, and nobody could game theorize exactly who is going to do what in response,” Ballmer said, regarding the tariffs. “So, I think citizens really like stability a lot. And I hope people — individuals who will feel this, because people are feeling it, not just the stock market, people are going to feel it.”

Ballmer, who owns the Los Angeles Clippers, is among Microsoft’s biggest fans. He said he’s the company’s largest investor. In 2014, shortly after he bought the basketball team for $2 billion, he held over 333 million shares of the stock, according to a regulatory filing.

“I’m not going to probably have 50 more years on the planet,” he said. “But whatever minutes I have, I’m gonna be a large Microsoft shareholder.” He said there’s a bright future for computing, storage and intelligence. Microsoft launched the first Azure services while Ballmer was CEO.

Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that Microsoft, which pledged to spend $80 billion on AI-enabled data center infrastructure in the current fiscal year, has stopped discussions or pushed back the opening of facilities in the U.S. and abroad.

JPMorgan Chase’s chief economist, Bruce Kasman, said in a Thursday note that the chance of a global recession will be 60% if Trump’s tariffs kick in as described. His previous estimate was 40%.

“Fifty years from now, or 25 years from now, what is the one thing you can be guaranteed of, is the world needs more compute,” Nadella said. “So I want to keep those two thoughts and then take one step at a time, and then whatever are the geopolitical or economic shifts, we’ll adjust to it.”

Gates, who along with co-founder Paul Allen, sought to build a software company rather than sell both software and hardware, said he wasn’t sure what the economic effects of the tariffs will be. Today, most of Microsoft’s revenue comes from software. It also sells Surface PCs and Xbox consoles.

“So far, it’s just on goods, but you know, will it eventually be on services? Who knows?” said Gates, who reportedly donated around $50 million to a nonprofit that supported Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ losing campaign.

— CNBC’s Alex Harring contributed to this report.

WATCH: There will be many LLM winners, says infrastructure investor Morrison

Technology

AppLovin can offer TikTok ‘much stronger bid than others,’ CEO says

Published

5 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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AppLovin can offer TikTok 'much stronger bid than others,' CEO says

Piotr Swat | Lightrocket | Getty Images

AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi provided more clarity on the ad-tech company’s late-stage effort to acquire TikTok, calling his offer a “much stronger bid than others” on CNBC’s The Exchange Friday afternoon.

Foroughi said the company is proposing a merger between AppLovin and the entire global business of TikTok, characterizing the deal as a “partnership” where the Chinese could participate in the upside while AppLovin would run the app.

“If you pair our algorithm with the TikTok audience, the expansion on that platform for dollars spent will be through the roof,” Foroughi said.

The news comes as President Trump announced he would extend the deadline a second time for TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the U.S. subsidiary of TikTok to an American buyer or face an effective ban on U.S. app stores. The new deadline is now in June, which, as Foroughi described, “buys more time to put the pieces together” on AppLovin’s bid.

“The president’s a great dealmaker — we’re proposing, essentially an enhancement to the deal that they’ve been working on, but a bigger version of all the deals contemplated,” he added.

AppLovin faces a crowded field of other interested U.S. backers, including Amazon, Oracle, billionaire Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty consortium, and numerous private equity firms. Some proposals reportedly structure the deal to give a U.S. buyer 50% ownership of the company, rather than a complete acquisition. The Chinese government will still need to approve the deal, and AppLovin’s interest in purchasing TikTok in “all markets outside of China” is “preliminary,” according to an April 3 SEC filing.

Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly characterized China’s ongoing role in TikTok should AppLovin acquire the app.

WATCH: AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi on its bid to buy TikTok

Technology

Trump’s tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

Published

6 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Trump's tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event announcing new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2025.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

President Donald Trump announced an aggressive, far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy this week, leaving many economists and U.S. trade partners to question how the White House calculated its rates.

Trump’s plan established a 10% baseline tariff on almost every country, though many nations such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to much steeper rates. At a ceremony in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump held up a poster board that outlined the tariffs that it claims are “charged” to the U.S., as well as the “discounted” reciprocal tariffs that America would implement in response.

Those reciprocal tariffs are mostly about half of what the Trump administration said each country has charged the U.S. The poster suggests China charges a tariff of 67%, for instance, and that the U.S. will implement a 34% reciprocal tariff in response.

However, a report from the Cato Institute suggests the trade-weighted average tariff rates in most countries are much different than the figures touted by the Trump administration. The report is based on trade-weighted average duty rates from the World Trade Organization in 2023, the most recent year available.

The Cato Institute says the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate from China was 3%. Similarly, the administration says the EU charges the U.S. a tariff of 39%, while the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 2.7%, according to the report.

In India, the Trump administration claims that a 52% tariff is charged against the U.S., but Cato found that the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 12%.

Many users on social media this week were quick to notice that the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries. It’s an unusual approach, as it suggests that the U.S. factored in the trade deficit in goods but ignored trade in services.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative briefly explained its approach in a release, and stated that computing the combined effects of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in various countries “can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.”

“If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the USTR said in the release.