'It's just a plug': A rival EV CEO isn't sold on Tesla's charging tech

“What we’re really comparing is, is it a screw cap or is it a cork on the bottle, not the quality of the wine,”
Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson said. “It’s rather bizarre.”
REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara

Tesla has been dominating headlines as more automakers switch to its charging tech.
But Peter Rawlinson, the CEO of Tesla rival EV-maker Lucid, isn’t convinced the tech is a shoo-in.
Rawlinson told Bloomberg in an interview that the hype around the charger is “rather bizarre.”

While automaker after automaker signs on to use Tesla’s well-regarded charging technology, one rival executive isn’t completely sold yet. 

Bloomberg reports that Gabriel Daoud, an analyst at Cowen, referenced the Tesla charger earlier this month, saying: “It’s just a plug.” Peter Rawlinson, the CEO of Lucid, echoed those exact words in an interview, according to the outlet. 

“What we’re really comparing is, is it a screw cap or is it a cork on the bottle, not the quality of the wine,” Rawlinson told Bloomberg. “It’s rather bizarre.” 

In recent months, Ford, GM, Volvo, Rivian, and others have said they’ll soon offer compatibility with Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, known as NACS. But for now, the Lucid is sticking with the Combined Charging System, or CCS, that until recently, all other non-Tesla carmakers had been using or planning to use for their electric vehicles. 

Part of Tesla’s long-time advantage has been its exclusive Supercharger network, which many owners say is a better charging experience than the alternatives. But now, Elon Musk is sharing the wealth of those advantages with other EV companies and working to make his way the industry standard.

Lucid’s Rawlinson had first-hand experience with the making of the NACS connector — then just known as the Tesla charging connector — through his previous role as chief engineer of the Model S with Musk.

(Interestingly, Musk has tried to claim in recent years that Rawlinson was never chief engineer at Tesla, and the two reportedly aren’t exactly on good terms.) 

Rawlinson has noted the Tesla’s Supercharger network’s reliability, and said Lucid will likely move to NACS eventually, according to Bloomberg. But Rawlinson is cautious about adopting the Tesla plug before it has been standardized. 

“If you’ve got the most advanced technology in the world, you’re a bit reluctant to risk that,” Rawlinson told Bloomberg, referring to his own company. Rawlinson has regularly touted the superiority of his company’s vehicle tech during quarterly earnings calls.

Meanwhile, “If you haven’t got the most advanced technology in the world, you’re not really incentivized to tread that warily,” Rawlinson said, perhaps a slight to other car companies.

One of Rawlinson’s concerns was Tesla having access to so much more charging data.

“Whoever controls this — if it isn’t an open, impartial standard, if it’s owned by one company — has access to a lot of consumer data,” the executive told Bloomberg. “It’s who owns that data, and making it genuinely open-sourced, that would worry me.”