For the first time, Tesla will let other companies use a part of its charging infrastructure in the United States. By the end of 2024, there will be at least 7500 Tesla chargers for EVs that aren’t made by Tesla. This includes around 3500 250-kW Superchargers (both new and old) along highways and 4000 Level 2 chargers in places like hotels and restaurants. After keeping a closed system for years, the switch will let Tesla get a piece of the $7.5 billion the government puts into charging infrastructure. On February 2, Tesla’s official charging Twitter account announced that a few Superchargers had been updated with CCS charging adapters and were now available to cars from other brands. Customers can use the Tesla App to see the charging rate, the total charge given, and the total cost of charging in real-time, and they must use it to choose the CCS adapter. Even though the app says that Superchargers are made in several places in California and Buffalo, New York, Tesla doesn’t say how many chargers have been made available to cars from other companies. The quality, dependability, and size of Tesla’s charging network have helped the company become the leader in the EV industry. On Wednesday, the White House said that people who don’t own Teslas could use a part of the network for the first time. Tesla has many charging stations compared to the rest of the industry. The Department of Energy says that one-quarter of all DC fast-charging stations in the United States are Tesla Supercharger stations. Also, Tesla is in charge of more than 61 percent of all fast-chargers in the US and more than 17,000 fast-charge cables. Now, the company will give at least 7500 chargers to electric vehicles outside its local ecosystem. By the end of 2024, electric cars that aren’t Teslas will be able to use around 3500 new and existing 250 kW Superchargers on public highways. Also, the White House will build about 4,000 Tesla Level 2 chargers open to the public at “Destination Charging” spots like hotels and restaurants. Uncle Sam takes charge Elon Musk’s decision to let cars not in the network use its network wasn’t a sudden change in his mind. The company must use CCS availability to get some of the $7.5 billion in infrastructure funds from the government that it would not get otherwise. In a similar way to what is needed for public support of EV development, the White House is insisting that all final assembly and manufacturing of charging station parts, such as iron or steel enclosures or housing, start immediately. Also, by July 2024, at least 55% of the parts’ total cost must come from locally-made goods. According to Reuters, a White House official said at a briefing that Tesla could get a subsidy, including modifying existing charging infrastructure, as long as its chargers allow other vehicles to be set up using CCS. Electric vehicles (EVs) from outside the US can already use Tesla’s Supercharging network, but only in the US. In 2019, it started a pilot project with 10 Superchargers in the Netherlands. The European Union has been talking for years about making all EV chargers compatible with all new EVs. As a result, the company switched from the proprietary charging port it uses in the US to the CCS connector it operates in Europe. More ports mean more problems, right? The Apple ecosystem is like the network that Tesla has set up. The company controls almost all of the factors, which is why the system works well. Users have said that charging networks like ChargePoint, Electrify America, and EVGo is usually less comprehensive and have problems with bandwidth and broken or faulty chargers. Even though the Tesla Supercharger network was “far better than its competitors on every parameter,” the most common complaint from EV customers in a 2022 survey by Plug In America was about broken or faulty chargers. If CCS compatibility is added to the system, along with the proprietary hardware and software, it could hurt Tesla’s charging network’s reputation for fast charging. Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid agrees. Abuelsamid says that if they let other vehicles use the supercharger network, “there is a significant chance that they will see a significant drop in their current high-reliability rate.”
