Ford provides adapter to charge stranded Tesla vehicles with F-150 Lightning pickup

Ford has been providing an adapter to F-150 Lightning electric pickup buyers that enables them to charge stranded Tesla vehicles.

The automaker started deliveries of the F-150 lightning last month, and we are starting to learn more about the little details of the vehicle thanks to early owners.

One of the features that got people most excited about the F-150 Lightning is the bidirectional charging capacity, which is the ability to send power from the vehicle’s battery pack to other things, like a house or even another electric vehicle.

Ford provides a cord that plugs into the F-150 Lightning and can charge any electric vehicle with a J1772 plug, which is the standard EV connector in North America. Early Lightning customers get the Mobile Power Cord, 14-30 to 14-50 adapter and also the J1772 to Tesla adapter. So Lightning customers can lend a hand to all other J1772 electric vehicles too. Only Tesla vehicles don’t use the connector. Instead, Tesla uses its own proprietary plug.

One new owner who posted on the Lightning Owners forum discovered that along with the cable, Ford provided an adapter for Tesla vehicles:

I took delivery of my 2022 Lightning and as I’m going through the included items I found an adapter to charge Teslas. Interesting find. If I find any dead Teslas I’ll let my Ford Lightning come to the rescue. Also included was an adapter to help with all Ford mobile chargers. I guess Ford wants us owners to start a National Mobile Charging Network.

Here’s the adapter provided by Ford:

Tesla sells the same, or similar, J1772 to Tesla adapter for $50 on its website. Tesla owners can use it to charge their vehicles at level 2 charging stations.

Electrek’s Take

This is a weird move in my opinion. Providing this adapter to F-150 Lightning owners can only be used to charge a Tesla vehicle with your F-150 Lightning.

There are not a lot of opportunities to do that. Charging EV to EV is not the most effective way to charge, so the main reason to do it would be to help a stranded Tesla without a charge, which is extremely rare.

It’s kind of strange to provide a $50 adapter based on the rare chance that it could potentially be useful. Maybe it’s just a marketing ploy. If it is, well done because it worked.