Look at that! It actually works!
It’s been reported for a while and was finally confirmed by Tesla at the company’s Investor Day event yesterday: Superchargers are opening up to non-Tesla electric vehicles in the United States. Well, a few, anyway. The company said it is only starting with ten Superchargers in the country and plans to roll out the capability nationwide eventually.
Charging at Tesla Supercharger stations has already been open to non-Tesla EVs in select other countries. However, this is the first time the company is opening up its charging network in the United States. So, what is that experience like? Marques Brownlee, the creator of the MKBHD and Auto Focus YouTube channels, was lucky enough to have one of the chargers close enough to take a look.
His experience was actually quite good! The only issue that he pointed out is that, due to Supercharger stations behind tailored in their layout for Tesla vehicles, adding other EVs to the mix could end up with some vehicles taking up more than one charging space. It will remain to be seen just how much of an issue that causes and if Tesla will need to make adjustments to station design to account for it.
You can check out the video, which features Brownlee charging a Rivian at a Tesla Supercharging station, below:
Tesla officially announced its plans to roll out its Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs yesterday. The company said at the time that “it’s always been our ambition to open the Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs, and by doing so, encourage more drivers to go electric” and that it plans to “eventually welcome both Tesla and non-Tesla drivers at every Supercharger worldwide.”
Rolling out the Supercharger network to all electric vehicles is part of Master Plan 3, which Elon Musk revealed yesterday at the company’s Investor Day event.
