Tesla To Make Huge Change To Who Can Use Supercharger Network
Tesla’s Supercharger stations have always been solely for Tesla vehicles, however, with competitor companies releasing universal charging stations, the pressure has been on Tesla to make theirs accessible for all electric vehicles.
With the increase in EVs, the demand for charging stations has been on the incline for a while now. Tesla began to release its existing Supercharger stations to all EVs across thirteen European countries in a pilot scheme.
Elon Musk revealed in a Tweet to his followers last year that this pilot scheme would make its way to the US but was not clear about when this would happen. But, it has now been reported that universal chargers could be opening be the end of this year. A White House fact sheet states:
“Later this year, Tesla will begin production of new Supercharger equipment that will enable non-Tesla EV drivers in North America to use Tesla Superchargers.”
Non-Tesla users will still need to use the Tesla app to use the Superchargers and although the pilot has been running in a number of countries, there are still reports of them still not working for non-Tesla’s. It seems that only the stations in the Netherlands truly have full access to all electric vehicles.
To make the stations open in North America, adapters will need to be installed to cater for other companies charging plugs and Tesla will also need to look into any software changes so the Supercharger can work with non-Tesla EVs.
