Tesla is expanding its pilot program of open Supercharger stations in Europe, allowing owners of non-Tesla electric vehicles to take advantage of the company’s extensive charging network. Previously, the pilot project included selected sites in the Netherlands, Norway and France, but now it is also available in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Belgium and Austria.
Non-Tesla owners in Belgium and Germany will initially only be able to take advantage of Tesla’s network when traveling to countries with open Supercharging stations. With Belgium now joining the scheme, German residents can use Superchargers abroad, but interestingly not cross-brand in their home country.
Elon Musk has been talking about expanding the program to the U.S. since last year, but given Tesla’s use of proprietary charging ports in North America, he didn’t provide any specifics on how it would be implemented. But in an interview with the Financial Times last week, Musk said Tesla was planning to add standardized charging ports for other electric vehicles at its Supercharger stations in the US.
Now, Tesla models and Superchargers in North America don’t use the CCS2 standard that is supported by basically all-electric vehicles in Europe (including Teslas), and instead, rely on Tesla’s proprietary charging plugs. To make matters worse, most other North American EVs come with CCS1 connectors, and EVs like the Nissan Leaf uses the CHAdeMO standard to complicate matters.
If you live in one of the pilot countries, you can now tap into the Tesla network to charge with any EV brand, and you can easily find participating charging stations by using the Tesla app. If you own a Tesla and another electric car at the same time, you can also monitor the charging of both cars in the app the same time, it is important to note that non-Tesla vehicles may share the electricity price basis in the app incur additional charges.