Tesla starts to open its supercharging network to other brands

Elon Musk and Tesla have started to make it easier for all electric car owners to drive around Australia stress-free.

Road trips are getting more convenient for Australian electric car owners.

Tesla, which has one of the most comprehensive supercharger networks in the country, has opened up several of its locations to all brands.

Tesla has built its own ultra fast charging network on its own steam and has more than 40,000 locations globally.

In Australia its spread of chargers makes it possible to drive from Adelaide all the way north of Brisbane without fear of running out of juice in the middle of nowhere.

Tesla is starting to open is Supercharger network to other vehicles.

Previously the Tesla Supercharger network has been reserved solely for owners of the American brand’s EVs.

Tesla has only opened five of its charging locations, which are all in regional New South Wales.

The sites are at Narooma on the south coast, Hollydene north west of Newcastle, West Tamworth Leagues Club, Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo and the Bathurst Visitor Information centre.

'Tesla Tom' on Australian YouTube channel Ludicrous Feed, charging a BYD electric car at a Tesla site. Picture: YouTube.

More locations are set to be opened to all cars in the future.

Australian YouTuber ‘Tesla Tom’ put the development to the test on his Ludicrous Feed channel, successfully charging a BYD Atto 3 electric car at the Tesla Supercharger in Bathurst.

“I think this is the future,” he said.

“This will help all of the EV drivers get to their destination safer.”

All locations have a charging rate of up to 120kW, which can top up the average electric car from zero to 80 per cent in well under an hour.

The fast chargers can add plenty of juice to batteries in a relatively short time.

Electric cars automatically slow the last 20 per cent of charge to stop the battery getting damaged by overheating.

Tesla boss, Elon Musk, first committed to opening up its superchargers to other brands in 2021.

We created our own connector, as there was no standard back then & Tesla was only maker of long range electric cars.

It’s one fairly slim connector for both low & high power charging.

That said, we’re making our Supercharger network open to other EVs later this year.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2021

Musk said via Twitter at the time he created his own network as there were no standards back then and Tesla was the only one making long range electric cars.

This helps alleviate one of the biggest problems with electric cars in Australia.

Lack of fast charging infrastructure is one of the biggest hurdles electric car owners have to overcome. There has been little to no government investment and instead the work has fallen on private companies.

The NRMA in NSW and others such as Chargefox and Evie are expanding their networks of fast chargers in Australia.

Tesla and the other private companies charge for a per kWh price to use their superchargers.

Tesla charges customers about 60 cents per kWh, but it does change depending on the charging location. This means it would cost about $45 to fully charge a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6.

Teslas tend to have smaller, more efficient batteries and it would cost about $36 to fully charge a Model Y.

The NRMA superchargers are free to use for all electric vehicle owners, but on previous electric vehicle tests by News Corp Australia we found the free NRMA charger occupied by a Tesla vehicle while the Tesla superchargers directly next to it were unoccupied.

Teslas are by far the most popular electric cars in the country accounting for more than 58 per cent of all EVs sold in 2022. Aussies bought 10,877 Model Y SUVs and 8717 Model 3 sedans last year.

Originally published as Tesla starts to open its supercharging network to other brands