Tesla's Supercharger Network to Open to Non-Tesla EVs, According to White House

According to the White House, Tesla's Supercharger DC fast charging network will be opened to non-Tesla electric vehicles for the first time in the United States. This will allow more EV drivers to access one of the largest fast charging networks in the country.

First discovered by InsideEVs, the news was briefly mentioned in a White House fact sheet on EV charging investments released last week. According to the fact sheet, Tesla will begin producing new Supercharger equipment later this year that will allow non-Tesla drivers to charge at Supercharger stations.

The announcement does not mention a specific timeline for the installation of the new equipment or how they will be deployed. Because the Supercharger standard is different from the CHAdeMO and Combined Charging Standard (CCS) used by other automakers, non-Tesla EVs currently cannot use Supercharger stations. The sites that Tesla plans to open to other EVs will likely require the new hardware mentioned by the White House.

According to the Alternative Fuels Data Center, Tesla has 6,077 Supercharger stations and 26,236 Supercharger connectors in the US.

Earlier this year, Tesla proposed opening its U.S. Supercharger network to other EVs if it received some federal funding from a $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed last November. The legislation appropriates $7.5 billion for EV charging and includes a goal of increasing the number of connectors to 500,000 by 2030. In its comments on how this funding should be spent, Tesla proposed rebates for Supercharger connectors that are attached to CCS connectors.

The Infrastructure Act, which is intended to lay the groundwork for a nationwide charging network, is intended to fund new charging stations, not reimburse operators who open their existing charging stations to other vehicles. It is unclear whether Tesla expects federal funding to install new charging stations that are compatible with other EVs.

Tesla Supercharger V3 station - Las Vegas Strip

Motor Authority contacted Tesla CEO Elon Musk via Twitter.

Tesla has already launched a pilot program in Europe to grant other EVs access to the Supercharger site, beginning in the Netherlands in late 2021 for vehicles equipped with CCS connectors and later expanded to other countries. It is worth noting that Tesla began considering CCS compliance for its European network as early as 2018, but was unable to do the same in the U.S. because CCS had not started when it began construction of its Supercharger site.

This means that it will be more difficult to open the U.S. Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs, but the growing number of non-Tesla drivers will have more places to charge.