I tried the reverse recently, charging my Model 3 at third party CCS chargers with adapter (and CCS compatibility retrofit). It is bleak out there. The chargers are few and far between, half of them are broken, and even the ones that aren't broken have compatibility issues so they may not work anyway. The required apps are unreliable and annoying.<p>I remember 5+ years ago Superchargers were a lot less common and also frequently broken. But those days are long gone. Tesla has really figured out reliability and maintenance, and there are plenty of stations for all but peak times. And the charging experience couldn't be simpler, park and plug in, unplug and go. No tap, no app. Crazy how no one else could figure this out.
>> Future GM vehicles will come with Tesla’s charging port natively installed.<p>This makes me happy. I worked on "standard" charging infrastructure for a while and those plugs are fv*king heavy and clunky by comparison. Also talked to an old Ford guy I worked with years ago who was involved in the standard development process - he seems content to "understand" what the politics and compromises were to the extent he couldn't look at the thing and say "this sucks". Going beyond the physical clunkiness: There is no reason to have a powerline PHY in there. None. It's stupid and costs extra and isn't even used on the high power conductors.
I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network, so it's good to see information to the contrary.<p>I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run. They did not charge licensing fees for the connector, and even if they charge a premium to charge non-Tesla vehicles, now owners of Tesla vehicles are going to run into situations where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at <=50kW, doubly driving down utilization.
I still haven't received my free Ford adapter. Delivery date keeps getting pushed back due to "supplier" issues. I'm pretty sure the supplier is Tesla, and they're slow-rolling it for some reason.
Please... DO NOT BUY A LECTRON ADAPTER mentioned in this article. This company is shady and has absolutely horrendous customer service, along with products that do not work and are not authorized at Tesla Super Chargers.<p>How do I know? I bought one. The first issue I had was they claimed the unit was available to ship when I purchased, but did not ship even though they sent me a tracking number that simply stated "package hasn't been dropped off at UPS" when looked up. When I inquired they said it would be shipping "this week" for 3 weeks. I had also paid for expedited shipping and the company refused to refund this. After collecting screenshots I told them I would be reversing the charge through my CC company. That same day the product was shipped.<p>Then I experienced the design issues with the product first hand that everyone has now beaten to death on the Internet. Next I spent another two weeks trying to get the company to refund my money and take back their product. I ended up reversing the charge and only after I did that did they issue me an RMA to send the unit back, because now they wanted it back since my CC company reviewed all of my screenshots of their claims and reversed the charge.<p>Do not waste your time with Lectron!
Here's ChargePoint's interoperability lab.[1] They're not sure how the connectors and interfaces will end up, so their charging system is modular and field-upgradable.
They bring in various cars and check out the charging process.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/UbKigyNpNzo?t=1920" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/UbKigyNpNzo?t=1920</a>
Most of the comments here seem to be suffering from amnesia as to why Tesla is even opening their charging network- remember, the Feds literally begged them to and paid them money to do so.<p>As a Tesla owner, I see this as a straight up loss in nearly every category. I never have used a third party charger, so even if those chargers move to the NACS standard it won’t improve my life in any way.<p>I’ve already had to deal with Rivian or Ford owners taking up several stalls at the Superchargers (because they weren’t designed to fit correctly, and Rivian drivers are incompetent) and taking over twice as long to charge as Teslas are able to.
I think as soon as thieves realize cars that are plugged in with drivers inside waiting are not able to drive away without unplugging, there will be a huge surge in crime against people charging their EVs. Then there will be a large surge in people going back to complaining about EVs having too many drawbacks.<p>At least at a gas station I'm only there for 5 minutes, it's not at the back of some dark parking lot, and I can start the car and drive away if I had to.
Was the limitation of superchargers to specific brands a US thing? In Europe there is always cars of all makes and models charging at the Tesla chargers?
Eight years ago, when I bought my first Nissan Leaf, I was astonished to learn that the process of charging the car at a CHAdeMO station was entirely different from the process of filling a gasoline car. Eight years later, with a wallet full of different membership cards, and every charger with a different UI, the situation has actually gotten worse.<p>I, for one, welcome our new Tesla charging overlords.<p>Funny anecdote from two weeks ago: I had just finished a CHAdeMO session, stopped the charge, the UI said it was done (have a nice day!) but the charger refused to release the plug from the car. I spent ten minutes pulling and pulling, and talking to a clueless person on a customer service line, when the charger unlocked it all by itself. Imagine a system where a bug or glitch can lock the charging cable to your car for no reason whatsoever, completely immobilizing you in the middle of your trip!
Hot take. Tesla supercharger network is better quality and an actual product compared to their rattle box cheap ass cars. Not worth it at the price I bought, and only good as leases imo now that they’re cheap.<p>I am an OG in the sense that I had FSD at $2k and have seen the evolution of “full self driving”. It sucks. It’s a gimmick that I would not trust with the lives of my family. I trust myself enough to use it when it was just me driving. Good for highway driving in middle lane, but other cars do that as well..<p>Also in my friend group it was just me who had FSD nobody else had it.<p>I sold my Tesla long ago when Elon start short circuiting his brain with brainrot.<p>However the prevalence and reliability of supercharger is unmatched.
Batteries are becoming obsolete, scientists have discovered a new way to store energy, so the whole frame and body of the car is able to store energy. So we might see cars and laptops without batteries in the future.