Owners of non-Tesla EVs may be able to use some Superchargers by the end of 2021. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed on Twitter that the company is opening up its Supercharger network to other EVs later this year. Musk has long talked about making the network accessible to other electric cars and, as CNBC notes, he mentioned late last year that some brands have are already seeking access to Tesla’s charging stations. Now, we have a better idea of when that might happen.
We created our own connector, as there was no standard back then & Tesla was only maker of long range electric cars.
It’s one fairly slim connector for both low & high power charging.
That said, we’re making our Supercharger network open to other EVs later this year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2021
Opening up its network to other companies won’t be simple, seeing as Tesla uses a proprietary connector in North America. It has to make sure the stations will work across brands and that secure software handshake between a non-Tesla car and a Supercharger is possible. The transition could be easier in Europe where the automaker already uses standard CCS connectors.
Electrek reported back in June that Tesla is already in talks with authorities in Norway, and that it applied for incentives to deploy charging stations that will be available even to non-Tesla vehicles “from the third quarter of 2022.” Germany’s minister of transport also previously revealed that he was in direct contact with Tesla and other companies to make sure existing infrastructure like the Superchargers are “also opened up to other manufacturers.”
Musk unfortunately didn’t elaborate on his tweet, so we’ve still yet to know which Superchargers will be accessible by other vehicles first. He did say, however, that the network will open up to other brands in all countries where it’s available over time.