Several brands added to Tesla’s NACS “coming soon” page as rollout quickens
Tesla has added several automotive brands to its NACS “coming soon” page, indicating that a flood of new car brands are about to gain access to Superchargers in North America.
In 2022, Tesla announced it would open its charging network, lured by big money promised in President Biden’s federal EV charging grants.
For a while it seemed like a bit of a hail mary, as many thought that most of the industry was already committed to the SAE CCS standard for fast charging.
But then, in 2023, Ford announced it would adopt Tesla’s “NACS” connector, and all the dominos started to fall. Soon enough, basically the entire industry had announced a shift to Tesla’s charging standard.
But these things take time, and the industry had to work on redesigning vehicles, building adapters, organizing software handshakes, and building out an official standard.
Now that the most important parts of that are all done, brands have been gaining access to the Supercharger network, with Ford, Rivian, GM, Volvo, Polestar and Nissan already approved for use.
The rollout seemed to be slowing down for a time, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly fired the entire Supercharging team which had been responsible for successfully executing this coup that could see Tesla gaining a lasting lead in EV charging, with those firings causing total chaos and jeopardizing the transition.
But now that the dust has settled, it looks this year we’re set to see a much bigger influx of brands to the Supercharger network, and Tesla just made it official by updating its NACS “coming soon” page.
Yesterday, the page only showed Mercedes-Benz as “coming soon,” that brand having been added last June. Mercedes will finally get access to the network in February, and announced that adapters will be available for $185 sometime in Q1 of this year.
Today, the coming soon list is positively packed with brands, with the Korean brands (Hyundai/Kia/Genesis), BMW, Jaguar/Land Rover, and Lucid all being added today. So each of these brands can expect to be added to the network in the coming months, in keeping with the original 2025 timetable announced by most of them.
So far, most of these brands haven’t announced availability of adapters or precise timelines, with the exception of the Korean brands who are basically ready to go already.
The Korean inclusion is interesting, given that Hyundai and Kia’s 2025 models are the first vehicles to offer a native NACS port, allowing them to plug in to Superchargers without using an adapter. Drivers of earlier Hyundai EVs can get a free NACS adapter from Hyundai.
So you’d think that they ought to already be on the network – and some users report that 2025 Hyundai EVs do work on Tesla’s network already, though they’ll charge slower on Superchargers until V4 Superchargers roll out more.
We expect a formal announcement potentially within days by Hyundai, Kia or Tesla that these vehicles are officially added to the network.
Another interesting point is the lack of VW. VW was not added to Tesla’s “coming soon” list, despite that it said just last week that it will gain access to the network in June. That’s five months away, with is less time than Mercedes has spent on the “coming soon” list, so we would have expected VW to be included in today’s update.
But then, given the widely varying amount of time that brands can spend on the “coming soon” page – with Mercedes about to spend 8 months on it, and Hyundai/Kia potentially only being on there for a couple days – we suppose the list doesn’t tell us a whole lot about precise timing anyway.
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British oil and gasoline company BP (British Petroleum) signage is being pictured in Warsaw, Poland, on July 29, 2024.
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British oil giant BP on Tuesday posted slightly weaker-than-expected first-quarter net profit, following a recent strategic reset and a slump in crude prices.
The beleaguered oil and gas major posted underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $1.38 billion for the first three months of the year. That missed analyst expectations of $1.6 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus.
BP’s net profit had hit $2.7 billion a year earlier and $1.2 billion in the final three months of 2024.
The results come as the energy major faces fresh pressure from activist investors less than two months after announcing a strategic reset.
Seeking to rebuild investor confidence, BP in February pledged to slash renewable spending and boost annual expenditure on its core business of oil and gas.
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday that the firm was “off to a great start” in delivering on its strategic reset.
“We had a great operational quarter. We had our highest upstream operating efficiency in history. Our refineries in the first quarter ran at the best they’ve run in 24 years. We had six exploration discoveries in a row, which is really unusual and we started out three major projects,” Auchincloss said.
For the first quarter, BP announced a dividend per ordinary share of 8 cents and a share buyback of $750 million.
Net debt rose to $26.97 billion in the January-March period, up from $22.99 billion at the end of the fourth quarter. BP had previously warned of lower reported upstream production and higher net debt in the first quarter, when compared to the final three months of last year.
Shares of BP fell 3.3% on Tuesday morning. The firm is down roughly 8% year-to-date.
Activist pressure
BP’s green strategy U-turn does not appear to have gone far enough for the likes of activist investor Elliott Management, which went public last week with a stake of more than 5% in the London-listed firm.
The disclosure makes the U.S. hedge fund BP’s second-largest shareholder after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, according to LSEG data.
Elliott was first reported to have assumed a position in the oil and gas company back in February, driving a share price rally amid expectations that its involvement could pressure BP to shift gears back toward its oil and gas businesses.
BP’s Auchincloss declined to comment on interactions with investors when asked whether the firm was under pressure from the likes of Elliott to go beyond the plans announced in its February pivot.
Notably, BP suffered a shareholder rebellion at its annual general meeting earlier this month. Almost a quarter (24.3%) of investors voted against the re-election of outgoing Chair Helge Lund, a symbolic result that reflected a sense of deep frustration among the firm’s shareholders.
Mark van Baal, founder of Dutch activist investor Follow This, told CNBC last week that he hoped the shareholder revolt means Amanda Blanc, who is leading the process to find Lund’s successor, will look for a new chair who is “climate competent” and “will not respond to short-term activists so quickly.”
Lund is expected to step down from his role next year.
Takeover candidate
BP’s underperformance relative to industry peers such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell has thrust the energy major into the spotlight as a prime takeover candidate. Energy analysts have questioned, however, whether any of the likeliest suitors will rise to the occasion.
BP’s Auchincloss on Tuesday said that he wouldn’t speculate on whether the company is a takeover target, but confirmed the oil major had not asked for any sort of protection from the British government.
“What I will say is we’re a strong, independent company and we’ve got sector-leading growth. And if we can deliver the sector-leading growth, and the first quarter is a fantastic example of that, then I have no concerns. I think we’re going to do great,” Auchincloss said.
Murray Auchincloss, chief executive officer of BP, during the “CERAWeek by S&P Global” conference in Houston, Texas, on March 11, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices have fallen in recent months on demand fears. International benchmark Brent crude futures with June delivery traded at $65.19 per barrel on Tuesday morning, down more than 1% for the session. That’s lower from around $84 per barrel a year ago.
Asked whether weaker crude prices could put the some of the firm’s reset plans in jeopardy, Auchincloss said, “Not really. We have a balance of products that we think about that generate revenue for us. So, oil, natural gas and refined products as well.”
— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this report.
Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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