Tesla strikes a deal with White House to make charging network available to other vehicles

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Julie Hyman, Brad Smith, and Brian Sozzi discuss Tesla’s White House deal that will see part of the EV maker’s charging network become available to other vehicles by the end of 2024.

Video Transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: You can't talk Twitter, of course, without discussing Tesla also these days. The EV giant's recent stock surge no doubt alleviating some of the pressure on Elon Musk to quickly appoint a successor at Twitter. The latest development at Tesla, by the way, it has struck a deal with the White House to open its Supercharger network to other vehicles. It will also double the number of chargers in the United States.

This is part of a bigger plan by the White House to just increase the charger network as it pushes towards a more electric future. But this is interesting at Tesla because most of its chargers have been exclusive to Teslas. And so this is pretty significant. If you have an electric vehicle of any kind, you're going to have more places to charge it.

BRIAN SOZZI: This is, of course, good to see. But look, the other side of it, you are going to-- you could roll up there with another EV model out of a GM and Ford, see these Tesla signs. And maybe you're unhappy with your EV maker from these companies.

You know what, maybe I should give Tesla a play here for some reason. Maybe my next car should be a Tesla. So there's a little bit of marketing here too as well. But I appreciate what Tesla is trying to do.

BRAD SMITH: But it also gives you confidence among the EV manufacturers that there would be some type of movement, a consortium to make sure that American drivers and international drivers know that the vehicles are safe, that there is a combined effort to make sure that there is more taking up of these types of vehicles as well here in the place of ICE-- or Internal Combustion engines.

And for the 7,500 chargers from the Supercharger and Destination Charger network that are going to be made available, that's going to happen by the end of 2024. So between now and then, who sees the biggest delta between the number of vehicles that they have sold in an electric capacity thus far between now and the end of 2024? And who is able to then have more of their customers take advantage of some of these Tesla charging networks?

And for Tesla, what kind of multiple does this add on for them later on? Do you start to think about Tesla even more so as a power company that is able to then have all of these different stations where, yeah, their logos are on it, customers are interfacing with it one way or another, Tesla's going to get a cut of that charging fee.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, they'd like to think of themselves as an energy company--

BRAD SMITH: They would.

JULIE HYMAN: --right, when you talk about SolarCity and that offering. I also don't know how much it's going to cost Tesla to-- I think they have to retrofit. I might be wrong about this, but they're charging standard is different than the other cars. So do they have to retrofit some of these? I'm not entirely clear on that. I just hope it's not like phones, where, like--

BRAD SMITH: Oh, jeez.

JULIE HYMAN: --the dongle is different every few years.

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, the infrastructure needs to come just a long way. And I look no further than my trip to Target a couple of weekends ago. There's, let's say, 600 cars in the parking lot on a Saturday morning and five Tesla charging stations in this parking lot away from the store. So it just goes to show you at some point, those 500 or 600 cars are probably electric, meaning you're going to need a lot more charging stations, not just in the Target parking lot, everywhere, and at gas stations too.

JULIE HYMAN: Were people plugged in?

BRIAN SOZZI: Nobody was plugged in. I have yet to see many people use this particular charging-- these charging stations at this Target. Now, it's just one location. Of course, I see people take their Teslas and go to other parking lots. But I mean, it goes to show-- it says a lot about the infrastructure and where it needs to get to.

BRAD SMITH: That's going to be the bigger campaign is it has to be as easy as putting gas in your engine is--

BRIAN SOZZI: Absolutely.

BRAD SMITH: --right now.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yep.