Tesla is working on a new Supercharger membership to offer non-Tesla EV owners as it prepares to open its Supercharger network in the US.
After opening the network in Europe where Superchargers use the standard CCS plug, Tesla is now preparing to open the network in North America by introducing a new CCS adapter for non-Tesla EV owners.
The move is expected to happen by the end of the year and comes as opening the network is a requirement to get access to new federal funds to accelerate the deployment of EV charging stations.
The idea of opening the Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs is somewhat controversial in the Tesla community since the network, which is much larger than any other fast-charging network in the US, is one of the biggest advantages of driving a Tesla, but it already gets crowded at times and adding more EVs to it will not help that issue.
Tesla is still working on the rollout of its plan to open the network to other EVs, and we got a glimpse at it last night as Tesla briefly allowed people in the US to sign up to a Supercharger membership in the country:
Tesla quickly removed the option from the app, which it presumably prematurely released as it still doesn’t have any station in the US open to non-Tesla EVs.
The membership of $0.99 is also most likely not going to be the final price and was just a placeholder in the unfinished version of the Supercharger membership in the app.
However, the concept of a “Pay per Use” model and a membership where the cost per kWh is lower is likely something that Tesla is indeed working on, and that’s why it popped up in the app.
Electrek’s Take
My assumption is that Tesla is going to charge a higher price per kWh for non-Tesla EV owners on the Pay per Use model, and the Supercharger Membership is going to give them the same price as Tesla owners, who won’t have to pay the membership.
I would estimate the membership will be between $5 and $10 per month.
Depending on if Tesla releases a CCS adapter that non-Tesla EV owners can purchase or if it deploys them at stations as it individually opens them to the public, I would probably hold off on a membership because it could take a while before you can get significant value out of the network.
But we are going to have to wait for more details about the plan, which Tesla has yet to make clear.
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