Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 🌟 Tesla Senior Director for Charging Infrastructure, Rebecca Tinucci, is named in TIME 100 Climate list for 2023.
- 🚗 Tinucci played a crucial role in expanding Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) to other automakers.
- 🤝 NACS gained adoption by major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota.
- 💰 Tinucci’s negotiations with other EV manufacturers not only generated revenue for Tesla but also facilitated access to federal charging-infrastructure funding.
- 🌎 TIME acknowledges Tinucci’s impact in making Tesla’s charging standard the default in North America.
- 📰 Tinucci is the sole Tesla executive on the TIME 100 Climate list for 2023, distinguishing her contributions from other notable Tesla figures.
- 🏆 In 2021, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was TIME’s Person of the Year, and earlier this year, he was listed among the 100 most influential people in Artificial Intelligence by TIME.
Tesla Senior Director for Charging Infrastructure Rebecca Tinucci has been included in the TIME 100 Climate list for 2023. She was credited for her stellar work in pushing Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) to other automakers.
Tesla’s NACS saw a wave of adoption this year, with veteran automakers like Ford and General Motors (GM) announcing that they would be embracing the charging standard on their upcoming vehicles. Other automakers, such as Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and more recently, Toyota, have also announced their intentions to adopt Tesla’s NACS.
As noted by TIME in its announcement, Rebecca Tinucci was a key driving force in Tesla’s NACS deals with other automakers. These deals would not only provide Tesla with more revenue. They could also help push the overall electric vehicle industry forward.
“In 2023, Tinucci successfully negotiated deals with other EV manufacturers to expand access to Tesla’s charging network across the U.S. to include other major brands such as BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Toyota.
“This move has effectively made Tesla’s charging standard the default in North America, giving the company access both to new revenue from non-Tesla owners, and to federal charging-infrastructure funding from which it was previously excluded,” TIME wrote.
Quite interestingly, Tinucci is the sole Tesla executive named in the TIME 100 Climate list for 2023. Other notable Tesla executives such as CEO Elon Musk, Design Chief Franz von Holzhausen, SVP Powertrain and Energy Engineering Drew Baglino, or Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy did not make the magazine’s list for 2023.
This does not mean to say that TIME Magazine has a tendency to ignore Tesla executives, however. In 2021 alone, CEO Elon Musk was named by the magazine as its Person of the Year, an award that absolutely surprised the executive’s skeptics. Earlier this year, Musk was also included in TIME Magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in Artificial Intelligence.
