Ford cuts jobs, Volvo joins Tesla charging market in latest EV push

In the latest examples of car companies making moves towards a growing electric vehicle (EV) market, Ford announced another round of job cuts, and Volvo signed an agreement to join Tesla’s charging network. The point of Ford’s job cuts is to reduce costs amid a transition to EVs.

Ford let go around 200 contract employees last week. The company confirmed on Tuesday, June 27, that it was starting to notify several hundred engineers and other salaried employees that their jobs are being eliminated.

“Teams that were affected were pulled together yesterday to let them know that there would be actions taken this week,” Ford spokesman T.R. Reid said Tuesday. “Then individual people will be notified today and tomorrow.”

Reid wouldn’t give a specific number of Ford jobs that are set to be cut this week. He did say the number is a lot less than last summer, when the company let go of 3,000 white-collar workers and another 1,000 contractors.

Ford’s confirmation of the job cuts came the same day Volvo said it will adopt Tesla’s charging connector in new EV models starting in 2025. Volvo becomes the fourth carmaker to gain access to more than 12,000 Tesla Supercharger plugs, joining General Motors, Ford and Rivian.

“As part of our journey to becoming fully electric by 2030, we want to make life with an electric car as easy as possible,” Volvo CEO Jim Rowan said in a Tuesday statement. “One major inhibitor to more people making the shift to electric driving – a key step in making transportation more sustainable – is access to easy and convenient charging infrastructure. Today, with this agreement, we’re taking a major step to remove this threshold for Volvo drivers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.”

Also Tuesday, a key U.S. automotive industry organization said it will set performance standards for Tesla’s electric vehicle charging cords. The standards would govern how the plugs connect with charging stations, cybersecurity measures, charging speeds and reliability requirements.

The move by SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers, is seen as another step towards using the Tesla plug on all EVs. The move likely spells the end of CCS, a rival connector that is still in thousands of current EVs.

“Standardizing the NACS connector will provide certainty, expanded choice, reliability and convenience to manufacturers and suppliers and, most of all, increase access to charging for consumers,” Frank Menchaca, the president of an innovation arm of SAE affiliate Fullsight, said in a statement.

SAE said that it’s already working on the standards and hopes to finish them within six months.