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By Joseph White, Global Automotive Correspondent

Greetings from the Motor City!

Happy Memorial Day weekend to everyone reading in the United States. Get yer motor running: It’s the official start of the summer driving season. The Auto File will be taking a day off on Monday, and without further ado let’s dive into what’s happening. Today –

• • Ford and Tesla cut a charging deal

  • Hyundai, LG promise Georgia a gigafactory

  • America keeps buying cars and trucks

Supercharger in action.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Ford CEO Jim Farley have cut a deal that will allow Ford EV buyers to get high-speed charges at any of 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations – which is a win for Tesla and for Ford EV buyers frustrated by the uncertain reliability and random locations of non-Tesla public fast-charging stations. Ford shares popped 6% Friday.

But there’s more to this deal.

EV charging currently has a “Beta-VHS” problem. The plugs used on non-Tesla vehicles and charging stations aren’t compatible with Tesla Supercharger plugs. Adapters exist, but they are expensive and clunky.

Tesla and Ford want to push other automakers and charging network operators to adopt the Tesla/NACS charging standard and end the confusing EV charging plug war that some – including Farley and Musk – see as a barrier to wider EV acceptance.

General Motors – No.2 in the U.S. EV market during Q1 – said Friday it is sticking with the rival CCS charging plug standard. CCS is “a truly universal solution available today for fast charging,” GM said.

Ford will adopt Tesla’s charging plug hardware for its next generation of EVs due out in 2025. The NACS plugs Tesla uses are lighter than the plugs used by most other automakers. Light is good for EVs. Tesla has been campaigning to make its plug the North American standard.

Hardware format wars are a turn off for consumers. Imagine if every gas station had four or five different-sized fuel nozzles, each designed to fit only certain brands of vehicle. (It’s enough for customers to discern the difference between diesel and gasoline nozzles – or in certain states, choose between 100% ethanol and zero ethanol.)

Tesla has developed the best-managed, largest and most visible EV charging network in North America. By adopting Tesla’s plug standard, Ford more than doubles the number of fast-chargers that owners of Ford Mach-E, F-150 Lightnings and future Ford EVs can use to top off range at speeds within hailing distance of a petrol fuel stop+bathroom break.

Farley told analysts earlier this week that Ford cannot be all things to all people but must choose carefully where to compete as the EV market undergoes rapid evolution.

Ford is betting that joining the Tesla charging ecosystem will conserve resources it will need to fight Tesla’s Cybertruck, General Motors’ electric Silverado and Stellantis’ electric Ram as they try to grab share from Ford’s future electric truck and SUV franchises.

Somewhere, a business school professor is celebrating. The problem of what case to use in next year’s strategy class is solved.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

Superchip maker Nvidia’s market cap soared to nearly $1 trillion this week – a sign that Wall Street is going wild for AI – artificial intelligence. Nvidia’s high-powered chips are tools of choice for processing the Amazon rivers of data that feed ChatGPT and other AI systems, including the ‘brains’ of autonomous cars.

Remember when electric vehicles were all the rage, and Tesla was a $1 trillion company? So 2021.

Now Tesla is a mere $580 billion company – which is good enough to be the most valuable automaker, by far. But investors have largely moved on from EVs. Look at the battered valuations for Lucid, Rivian and other former EV startup stars.

The financial market exuberance for AI is bad news for struggling EV startups such as UK electric commercial van maker Arrival that need new funding. Electric and hydrogen truck maker Nikola became the latest of the EV SPAC companies to receive notice it could be de-listed from NASDAQ.

Toyota Chair Akio Toyoda

Toyota shareholders should vote against keeping former CEO Akio Toyoda on the Japanese automaker’s board, proxy advisors Glass Lewis said Friday. Glass Lewis said Toyoda, grandson of the automaker’s founder, is responsible for a board that lacks enough independent directors.

Hyundai and South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution said they will build a $4.3 billion battery factory in Georgia.

You’re not imagining things: Georgia is a winner in the EV investment sweepstakes, with more than $23 billion in EV related investments. The Inflation Reduction Act’s domestic content rules have been very good to Georgia.

Debt ceiling crisis? Soaring vehicle prices? Whatever!

U.S. consumers are buying more cars and trucks anyway – albeit still not at pre-pandemic levels. Forecasters at J.D. Power/LMC expect U.S. vehicle sales to rise nearly 10% from a year ago. Inventories are up by 48%.

Chinese automaker Great Wall accused rival BYD of selling hybrid vehicles that don’t meet government emissions standards. Such a public brawl between two Chinese automakers is unusual, and investors dumped shares in both companies.

The mud-slinging between the two Chinese manufacturers could hurt the images of both in markets outside China where Chinese brands still face suspicions about quality, Breakingviews writes.

Dutch privacy regulators are investigating whether Tesla failed to properly protect customer data.

Stellantis invested in lithium-sulfur battery technology startup Lyten. Lyten is working on batteries that do not use nickel, cobalt or manganese.

Senate Republicans want to cancel the Biden Administration’s proposed light vehicle emissions rules, which aim to boost EV sales to 67% of new vehicles by 2032. This is a political statement, for now. Should the proposed bill reach his desk, Biden will probably veto it – as he is expected to veto a bill rescinding heavy truck emissions rules that passed Congress this week.

Vinfast is recalling the first batch of vehicles the Vietnamese startup shipped to the United States earlier this year. Of note, regulators said more than 700 of the 999 vehicles affected have not been delivered to customers.

Volkswagen and Audi settled litigation with the state of Texas over diesel emissions cheating, agreeing to pay $85 million.

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