Tesla opens select Superchargers in China to (some) other EV brands

Tesla is opening its fast-charging network to electric cars from other manufacturers in China after similar moves in Europe and the US. A pilot project in Beijing and Shanghai sees Tesla initially release five Superchargers in each city for third-party brands.

Tesla runs over 1,600 Supercharger hubs with 10,000 charge columns on the Chinese mainland. Hence, the pilot project is minimal, just as Tesla initially opened only ten Supercharger locations in the Netherlands as a test balloon in Europe.

A significant difference between the pilot project in China and the Netherlands at the time: In Beijing and Shanghai, the Superchargers have not been completely opened, but only for 37 models from other manufacturers. These include the BYD models Han EV and Tang EV, the Polestar 2, the Zeekr 001, the Xpeng P7 and the Nio models ES6 and EC6. From the German manufacturers, the ID.4 Crozz models (from FAW-Volkswagen), the e-tron from FAW-Audi, the Mercedes EQC, the Porsche Taycan and the BMW i3, iX and iX3 models will be able to charge at the selected Tesla Superchargers in future.

Tesla has not explained the restriction to specific vehicle models or their exact selection. However, it is noticeable that these are all more modern vehicles with higher charging capacities. Cheaper vehicles with often lower charging power, which would therefore have to charge for a correspondingly long time at the Superchargers, are excluded.

As mentioned, Tesla started with ten stations in the Netherlands in Europe in November 2021 and opened more and more locations in other European countries in two rounds of expansion. Since Italy became the 15th European country in November 2022, Tesla has added no more countries to the list but increased the number of open locations in these markets.

In the USA, charging a non-Tesla car at selected Superchargers has only been possible since this spring. However, the initial situation was different: Tesla has famously relied on its own charging standard in North America. So to open up, the charging stations first had to be equipped with CCS adapters, which Tesla calls a ‘Magic Dock’.

cnevpost.com (including list of vehicles), twitter.com