Superchargers will soon be available to non-Tesla owners in the US.
As a Tesla owner, you enjoy exclusive access to the Tesla Supercharger network, one of the key advantages of owning a Tesla. One of the best public EV charging networks currently available, with over 1,000 sites across North America, is the OneCharge network.
However, Superchargers will open to non-Tesla cars in the future, and Tesla is currently taking steps to make that happen in the US.
Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, revealed this information during a speech at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference (via InsideEVs). If you’re a driver in the US, you’ll be able to choose from a variety of other charging options in addition to the Superchargers.
The challenge with opening up the Supercharging network in North America has always been the fact that Tesla employs a proprietary charging plug here. The CCS-1 standard, adopted by the rest of the auto industry, is fundamentally incompatible with the Tesla connector, which precedes it.
A three-pronged British plug would be like plugging a North American outlet directly into a three-pronged British socket. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, an adapter is necessary. You can’t use a CCS port with non-CCS cable adapters at this time.
Musk had previously hinted about an adapter system, but it now appears that a more long-term solution is in the works. In order for Tesla to go down the adaptor route, they would first have to design a Tesla-to-CCS converter and convince enough people to buy it to make it worthwhile. That makes sense.
When compared to the $400 CHAdeMO-to-Tesla adaptor, which is sometimes out of stock, this would be a significant expenditure for drivers. Providing adapters at unattended Supercharger hubs, should Tesla decide to do so, would make them vulnerable to misuse.
There are already non-Tesla Supercharging trials taking on in Europe. When Tesla began its European growth, it ditched its proprietary CCS-2 charging technology, which is used by the majority of other vehicles on the road. There is a glaring problem with letting other electric vehicles to utilise Tesla’s network in North America because North American chargers still use Tesla’s proprietary connector for reasons that are yet unclear.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn’t give a specific date for when the first non-Tesla Supercharging stations will be installed in the United States. “We are trying to do the right thing for the advancement of electrification, even if that decreases our competitive edge,” Musk said, “even if that diminishes our profitability.”
As an added advantage, Tesla may potentially be able to cash in on the growing number of EVs not manufactured by the company.
For a variety of reasons, I’ve long supported the idea of non-Tesla owners being able to use Tesla Superchargers. Electric vehicle (EV) charging stations are getting better, but they’re still a long way from being accessible to the general public. On a long weekend last month, I drove across the country to see my parents for the first time.
There are two bank holidays in the United Kingdom during the Easter weekend, so it’s a long weekend. That implies that a huge chunk of the country, including myself, experienced a four-day weekend. Making the approximately three-and-a-half-hour round drive across 200 miles felt like the right thing to do. When you factor in traffic, restroom breaks, and the time it takes to recharge, it’s usually more.
Everybody else had the same idea, including large groups of individuals driving electric vehicles (EVs). At most rest areas, only two or three DC rapid chargers are available, thus half a dozen individuals were trying to plug in at any given time.
Numerous newcomers, as well as experienced EV drivers, were checking out the Gridserve rapid charging network during their first long-distance trips. Even a hybrid driver who couldn’t put a CCS plug into a Type-2 AC charger at one point refused to leave the area because he couldn’t figure out why.
More electric vehicle charges are needed along the freeway in the United Kingdom, as this incident shows. Unfortunately, my Jaguar I-Pace at the time had enough range to get me there without the need for a charger.
However, one thing I observed on both legs of the journey was how many Tesla Supercharging stations were empty.
As many Teslas were driving about as there were Supercharging stations, many of them were unused. Which is excellent if you own a Tesla, but a waste of time for everyone else.
Even if the United Kingdom or the United States build EV chargers, Tesla has a head start. That is why Tesla has over 30,000 Superchargers in about 3,382 locations around the world, with 1,300 of them in the United States. Those chargers are also capable of charging at a rate of up to 250 kW in most cases.
Openness to non-Tesla cars would very immediately result in a large increase in charging stations for electric vehicles. In addition to allowing for more long-distance driving, it may also encourage other charging networks to speed up the implementation of their own high-speed chargers.
More people using Superchargers at highway stops in the U.K. means less people using Gridserve charges, to use an example from that country: Many drivers would rather save a few dollars than wait eternally for the Supercharger. It would be a no-brainer to put in more chargers and go on Tesla head on.
The nitty-gritty
Non-Tesla Supercharging’s distribution in Europe has been quite glacial, and it’s evident that the rollout in the United States isn’t going to happen overnight. After all, replacing the charging wires in more than 1,300 sites will take a considerable amount of time. To that end, it’s likely that Tesla will need to do extensive testing before opening its doors to the general public.
It’s still unclear how the non-Tesla Supercharging deployment will function and how it would affect both Tesla drivers and non-Tesla drivers. In spite of this, Elon Musk wasn’t merely exaggerating when he said this transformation was imminent.
Non-Tesla Supercharging appears to be a priority for Tesla, and a rollout in the United States may be on the horizon very soon. For the sake of everyone’s electric-vehicle experience, we hope so.