The Brief

Ford CEO Jim Farley was driving his family back from vacation in Lake Tahoe last summer when he recognized something most EV owners know well: Public charging can be a headache.

On the 300-mile trip to Monterey, California, it wasn’t easy to find places to plug in his Ford Mustang Mach-E. His children had no problem, however, spotting the numerous Tesla Supercharger stations along the way.

“My kids kept looking at me, ‘Hey Dad, there’s another Supercharger, can we stop there? How about there?’” Farley recounted in a conversation on Twitter Spaces in May. “I’d say, ‘No, we have to go over here, behind this other building.’”

Farley said that was when he realized Tesla had done far better than any other charging network in creating an easy, dependable, and accessible customer experience. So easy, in fact, that he wanted Ford customers to be able to access it, too.

Farley was on Twitter to make an unprecedented announcement with Tesla CEO Elon Musk: Ford will join Tesla’s vast network of 12,000 Supercharger fast-charging stations. Early next year, it will offer an adapter that will allow Ford drivers to connect Tesla’s charging cables to their cars. Beginning in 2025, the company’s EVs will be manufactured with Tesla’s charging port.

“It was shocking,” said Loren McDonald, who runs the analytics firm EVAdoption, adding that Farley was sending a clear message. “He had absolutely no confidence that the charging networks could get their act together. Or why would you join with your competitor?”

Beginning next year, Ford EVs like this Mustang Mach-E will be able to connect to Tesla Superchargers using an adapter.

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Courtesy of Ford Motor Company

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The once unimaginable decision set off a cascade of echoing announcements. Two weeks later, General Motors CEO Mary Barra held her own Twitter Space with Musk to reveal that GM would join the network by offering adapters, to be followed by adopting its ports. Rivian and Volvo recently said the same.

The growing embrace of Tesla’s network could transform the public charging experience for EV drivers, who will gain access to Supercharger stations throughout North America. It is meant to catalyze EV adoption by providing a simpler, more expansive, and more reliable experience than those offered by notoriously unreliable third-party networks. And it suddenly increased the likelihood that the U.S. could one day see a single charging standard rather than the patchwork of systems that frustrate current EV drivers and could scare off potential ones.

While the announcements surprised many, in some ways they were inevitable. Tesla began building its proprietary global charging network over a decade ago, just as the company introduced its first sedan, the Model S.

“Tesla understood that in order for them to sell a lot of EVs, they had to take it upon themselves to build out the infrastructure,” said McDonald.

Perhaps presumptuously, Tesla named its system the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. In actuality, it is far from the standard. There are three EV fast-charging cable configurations in the U.S. CHAdeMO connectors are used almost exclusively by the Nissan Leaf, while most other EVs use the Combined Charging System, or CCS. Each has a different shape, and they are not interchangeable.

No other automaker built a network like Tesla’s, leaving most EV drivers dependent upon third-party networks like EVgo, Chargepoint, and Electrify America for their public charging needs. Drivers often encounter broken chargers and long wait times, if they can find a fast charger at all.

In a 2022 survey by the consumer advocacy group Plug In America, one-quarter of non-Tesla EV drivers said broken chargers or sparse locations were a “major difficulty” or “deal breaker” to using some of the biggest fast-charging networks. Only 2-3% of Tesla drivers said that of their network.

Customer frustration is catching up with legacy automakers and third-party charging networks, said Matt Teske, CEO of Chargeway, a mobile app designed to help users find and utilize charging stations.

“Everyone else was saying, ‘We build cars in a silo, you build chargers in a silo, but hopefully we make those things connect somehow,’” said Teske. That is, until the automakers saw that the two weren’t connecting. “They finally realized that the business model used by many third-party networks doesn’t truly serve the driver, and that impacted the ownership experience.”

The decision by two of the Big Three automakers to adopt Tesla’s standard will essentially double the number of places where customers can fill up. It will also simplify the experience. Whereas a typical Electrify America or Chargepoint station may have four to six chargers, Supercharger stations can have as many as 50 to 100, reducing or eliminating wait times. Tesla’s charging cable and connector are smaller and lighter than CCS and CHAdeMO, making them easier to handle, and its chargers don’t have screens, which can break or be difficult to read. Payments are made exclusively through a mobile app.

Teske said this kind of efficiency is key to getting drivers to abandon internal combustion. “What truly will accelerate electric vehicle adoption is, how do we get average consumers to look at using electricity as their fuel of choice when buying a car and say, ‘That’s easy,’” he said.

Of course, the Tesla charging network can’t bear the burden of charging all 1.8 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads today, much less the 28.3 million expected by 2030. By one estimate, the country will need 172,000 public fast chargers by then. It currently has about 9,000. As third-party networks scale up, the moves by Ford, GM, and Rivian put pressure on them to do better.

“It’s forcing everybody else to get their act together,” said McDonald, “because if they don’t, they’re out of business at some point.”

EVgo and Chargepoint, among others, have announced they will add NACS connectors to their stations. That, of course, does not address issues with spotty reliability or cumbersome user experiences.

Nor does it solve the problem of customer confusion over which connector is compatible with their car and which charging stalls offer that connection — an impediment to ownership that the adoption of a single universal charging standard could solve.

Some in the industry publicly support this idea, including General Motors. “We have a real opportunity to drive this to be the unified standard for North America, which will enable even more mass adoption,” Barra said during her conversation with Musk.

An EVgo charging stall in Vienna, Virginia, includes both CCS and CHAdeMO connectors. EVgo has announced it will add NACS connectors to its chargers.

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Saul Loeb

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AFP via Getty Images

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Adopting a single standard would not happen overnight — there are hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles already on the road that don’t use Tesla’s plug, and the world’s two largest automakers, Volkswagen and Toyota, have not indicated they will embrace NACS.

The Biden administration, which has invested billions in accelerating EV adoption, has not publicly supported a single standard either. On Tuesday, the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation announced it will collaborate with the Society for Automotive Engineers to conduct an expedited review of NACS as a potential “public standard.” Such a designation would make it available to any manufacturer, much like a USB-C cord, which could further NACS adoption by more automakers.

That said, a $5 billion grant program run by the Joint Office to build 500,000 charging stations by 2030 still requires eligible projects to include at least four CCS connectors. While Texas and Washington recently added requirements that such projects also include NACS connectors, the Joint Office has not followed suit.

“I think we’re headed down a two standard-connector path for much of the rest of this decade,” said McDonald, who likened the landscape to other widespread technologies with dueling interfaces, like Apple versus Android and Windows versus Mac.

In the short term, it’s possible that charging could become even more confusing, as networks try to accommodate all three standards in their stations. Drivers may need to rely on adapters that they attach to connector cables to make them compatible with their car, adding a layer of hardware that can break or get lost.

“This is what happens when you have a Wild West approach to technology and everybody’s trying to prove they have the best mousetrap,” Teske said. “Unless there’s a really strong push for regulation to step in and change the conversation, we’re going to have a very messy landscape for drivers to contend with for years to come.”

It is already possible to catch a glimpse of what automaker-agnostic Supercharger stations will look like by visiting one of Tesla’s 11 Magic Dock Supercharger locations, which include CCS adapters so other cars can plug in.

At the Magic Dock in Placerville, California, last week, Dawn Sorrell pulled up to charge a Tesla Model Y that she’d rented for a trip from Virginia to visit her mother in Northern California. It was her first time driving a fully electric car. “It’s a completely different mindset, I’m just figuring it out as I go,” she said.

Sorrell supported the idea of outside automakers accessing the Tesla network. “Anything where you’re opening it up more is going to be better,” she said, “because it’s stressful, making sure you have a charge.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.