Last month, Tesla began opening up some of its boost stations in New York and California to third-party electric vehicles, but a recent video shows that using these ultra-fast charging stations could soon become a headache for Tesla owners.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee drove his Rivian R1T to New York’s Tesla Supercharger station last week, tweeting that the visit was “cut short” when other non-Tesla drivers showed up.
In the video, Brownlee says he had to take two parking spaces next to the charger because the charging port on his electric car is on the front driver’s side of his car and the charging station is “optimized for Tesla vehicles.” The charging port is located on the left rear corner of the car.
Brownlee said he thought the experience made his Rivian a better car because he would no longer have to rely on the more “dangerous” public chargers, but added that overcrowded superchargers could keep Tesla owners away.
“All of a sudden you’re in two positions that would normally be one,” Brownlee said. “If I was like Tesla’s big shot, I’d probably be worried about what you know about my own Tesla experience. The situation will be different, because more is worse because people are charging? There can be more people in the queue, more people occupy more seats.”
Things will only get worse when the Lucid EV and F-150 Lightning electric pickups arrive. For the driver of the F-150 Lightning, Tesla’s modified charging cable was long enough to reach the car’s charging port, and when the driver pulled the car too hard, the front of his car almost touched the charging dock and the wire was completely destroyed. Pull up – the driver said he thought it was too risky.
In a separate YouTube video, F-150 Lightning driver Tom Molooney, who runs the State of Charge EV charging channel, said he would probably prefer to drive sideways to the charging station — the move can take three positions at once.
“This is a bad day if you own a Tesla,” Moloney said. “Soon, the exclusivity of being able to drive where you want and connect to the grid will become more challenging as the Supercharger starts to get clogged with non-Tesla vehicles.”
Ultimately, Brownlee says the transition will take a lot of skill, but he’s happy with his Rivian’s charging process, which takes about 30 minutes and $30 to charge from 30 percent to 80 percent.
“This is probably the first, not the last, time you see such a shuffling around who can charge where, Brownlee said. When everything is clear, there are some etiquette issues.”
Telsa CEO Elon Musk called Brownlee’s video “funny” on Twitter. Earlier this year, the billionaire agreed to begin opening up some of the electric car maker’s Supercharger stations to non-Tesla owners. Previously, Tesla chargers, which accounted for the majority of electric vehicle chargers in the US, were mostly available only to Tesla owners.
While conventional Tesla charging stations have always been available for non-Tesla EVs via dedicated adapters, the automaker has promised to make its ultra-fast Supercharger stations compatible with other EVs by the end of 2024.
An insider previously reported that Telsa’s charging network is one of its biggest advantages over EV rivals, from faster and more convenient charging stations to more amenities.