Charging it All

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There’s a Queue Coming for Tesla Charging, and That’s OK To survive, Superchargers and their equivalents will need to become less exclusive By   LAWRENCE ULRICH in IEEE Spectrum

In Elon Musk's perfect world—at least a perfect planet Earth—every last driver will switch from fossil fuels to EVs. But even as his company tops the $1 trillion mark in valuation, Musk sees the conundrum: The mass adoption of EVs demands a truly public network of fast chargers, rather than today's balkanized system. Yet Tesla's proprietary Supercharger network was designed exclusively for Tesla owners, not the people who buy electric Fords, Volkswagens, et al.

That's about to change, beginning with a Tesla pilot project in the Netherlands. And the entire industry is facing up to the essential nature of charger interoperability: the idea that every car must connect with every charger, with zero hassle, just as internal-combustion cars can pull up to most any pump. Further, experts say EV owners must expect to pay less to recharge than they do to fill up with unleaded, regardless of the source or speed of that electricity.

Tesla recently opened 10 Superchargers in the Netherlands to owners of other EVs, accessed via a new mobile app. Naturally, Tesla plans to charge higher electricity prices versus Tesla owners, who after all helped bankroll the network. That follows the company's July promise to expand access to its global Supercharging network, now 25,000 strong. For its own customers, Teslas sold in Europe have already adopted the CCS plug standard, rather than Tesla's proprietary connector found in America and elsewhere. Tesla has also begun selling CCS adapters in South Korea, and has promised to "soon" bring those roughly $250 adapters to America

Some Tesla owners are grinding their teeth over the idea of sharing their precious Superchargers, especially if it means waiting in line behind some Chevy. But experts say Tesla, having invested the money to pioneer a fast-charging network, must now find a way to make that network profitable, without alienating Tesla owners. That's been a daunting challenge for the plug-in industry at large, which pays often-exorbitant utility rates for DC power-on-demand, even as chargers sit idle for long periods.

According to one estimate, fast-charging stations must operate for at least eight hours a day—a utilization rate above 30 percent—to turn a penny of profit. No one, not even Tesla, has come close.   ... '