In the world of North American EVs, this is a huge development. No DC fast charging stations are more widely spread or more reliable than Tesla’s Superchargers. They’ve become the Gold Standard for DC fast charging of EVs.
This didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen out of the blue. This is a direct result of the big infrastructure bill passed by Congress early in the Biden administration and the more recent Inflation Reduction Act. If it wasn’t for the literally billions of dollars dangled in front of Elon Musk’s Tesla this wouldn’t be happening.
Part of the requirement to dipp into that trough of federal money is the charging network must be “agnostic” about the brand or type of car. That is, Tesla can’t ask for federal money and then say, “Oh no, not you folks in Chevy Bolts,” for example.
I just downloaded the Tesla app and lo and behold I already had an account at Tesla. It was a surprise to me. Maybe I signed up for when I was price shopping for a Model 3 instead of the Chevy Bolt we ended up with. At any rate, they needed my credit card info so I loaded that into the app. I didn’t sign up for their $13 per month program, I’ll just pay as I go.
Watchout for that subscription. Like with Electrify America, you don’t need it to charge. You will need an account and a credit card and the app on your smart phone to use Tesla’s Supercharger stations.
For now, there’s no Superchargers near Bakersfield where I can test this new “magic dock” and how it works.
Tesla will no doubt be rolling this out to more and more stations.
See Elecktrek’s take on this major development.
Tesla officially opens Superchargers to non-Tesla EV owners in the US and explains how it works
World first! Charging a Chevy Bolt EV on a Tesla Supercharger using Magic Dock