Tesla opens more Superchargers in Europe for 3rd party use

Tesla has opened many more of its Superchargers in Europe to other brands. Although the number of European countries with approved Superchargers has not changed, there is an increase in the number of stations that can be used by electric cars from other brands.

When the first stations were made available for all brands in Italy last November, selected Tesla fast chargers were also accessible to other brands in a total of 15 European countries. This is still the case, but on the map, the number of approved stations has grown significantly.

Now, 69 of the 153 German Supercharger locations can now also be used with electric cars from other brands, a process which started with 16 Supercharger locations in June 2022. With 69 locations, each with several Superchargers, Tesla is now the fourth largest HPC operator behind EnBW, Aral pulse and Ionity.

In the Netherlands, almost all of Tesla’s fast chargers have already been opened for third-party use, with the exception of the recently opened V4 Supercharger in Harderwijk that is to follow soon, as soon as Tesla first wants to gather data from the operation with its own vehicles. A special feature of the V4 Superchargers is that the charging cable is longer. This should make it easier to charge other electric cars that do not have the charging port in the same place as Teslas.

There are still no figures on the actual usage statistics for electric cars from other brands. The initially feared rush to the open Superchargers has not materialised, save for a few peak days around public holidays. This may be due to the aforementioned challenges around the short cables but also to the prices, which are a few cents higher per kilowatt hour for third-party chargers.

In the USA, the first Superchargers have also been open to third-party brands since mid-February as part of an agreement between Tesla and the US government on the eligibility of new Superchargers. This is because the condition is that the charging stations use the CCS fast-charging standard, but Tesla insists on using its own plug format called NACS in North America. This means the selected stations now open in the USA have been retrofitted with a special CCS adapter so that electric cars of other brands can also be charged, but the challenge with the comparatively short cables remains, as the first videos from the USA make clear.

Update 08 December 2023

Tesla has now also activated selected Superchargers for electric cars of other brands in Ireland, Romania and Hungary. This brings the number of European countries with approved Superchargers to 19.

teslamag.de, tesla.com (map), twitter.com, tesla.com (both update)