Tesla plans improvements to Superchargers
In the Q3 annual report, Tesla reported 6,706 Supercharger locations with 62,421 charging points worldwide. Over the year, this represents a 20 and 22 per cent growth, respectively. However, Tesla has not only made its fast chargers an important factor for electric mobility in many places with the spread of Superchargers, the latter are also often valued for their reliability.
However, there were some problems when the Supercharger network was opened up to third-party manufacturers, as electric cars from other manufacturers do not always have the charging port on the rear left-hand side – and thus sometimes block charging stations because the short Supercharger cables (which were tailored to Teslas) only allow charging in this way. Although the new V4 generation already has longer cables, these charging points are still rare.
As Tesla Charging now announced in a detailed post on X, this is set to change soon. “Longer cables mean that V4 posts can serve all port locations. In the next 18 months we will have more long cable than short cable Superchargers,” it says. However, it is not clear whether existing V2/V3 locations will also be retrofitted with the new V4 columns.
Instead, it states that the locations will be adapted or have already been adapted in some cases to avoid or reduce the blocking of free charging points: “We have modified over 1,500 sites so that drivers never have to use more than 2 charging spaces to charge, increasing stall availability for all.” And another measure is also intended to improve this point, although the impact here is open, as Tesla is dependent on the help of other car manufacturers. “Since opening up the Supercharger network in Europe in 2021, we’ve encouraged car manufacturers to transition charge port locations to rear left or front right,” says Tesla. “This provides seamless compatibility with 30k+ short-cable Superchargers available to other EVs globally.”
Charging planning will also be improved, especially in connection with third-party brands. With the latest software update, Tesla says it can recognise “detect when another EV, with a charge port located somewhere other than the rear left or front right, is plugged into a short-cable Supercharger stall.” That means the car cannot charge at the Supercharger column intended for the parking space, thus effectively blocking two charging columns. One example would be the MEB electric cars from VW, which have the charging connection at the rear right. They can only use the Superchargers with a short cable that actually belongs to the adjacent parking space. It means that two Superchargers are de facto occupied, but one is displayed as free.
“This update ensures no more overpromising of stall availability, so you can travel with confidence,” Tesla is now announcing. “We will continuously refine this algorithm to be as accurate as possible, including exact site mapping and faster refreshing of stall availability.”
Another improvement that Tesla has introduced in recent weeks is not mentioned in the current post: V4 Superchargers are now also available with V4 cabinets. These enable charging with up to 500 kW.
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