Gone are the days when Tesla reserved its charging stations for its own customers. Superchargers have been open to competition on many points in France since January. Other countries in Europe followed suit and now it’s time for Tesla to announce the same in North America. The deployment is going well, but a jurisdiction from Germany seems to complicate things further.
Illegal Superchargers
The American manufacturer is overtaken by a specificity to the German market, which still has something to fear on the rest of the European markets. Across the Rhine, Tesla Superchargers are deemed illegal because of the lack of a screen available on the stele to display the charged kilowatts counter. “Every charging station at which the charging current is charged in kilowatt hours must comply with the calibration law in Germany, i.e. have a meter that accurately measures the charging current”quotes from a local media the specialized site Electrek.
The government would not be ready to disregard this obligation for the first European electric car charging network. Tesla will have to comply with the rule if it wishes to be able to open its terminals to competition, which would not subscribe to the packages put in addition by Tesla. Currently, to monitor the load, you have to go through the mobile application. At the beginning of February 2022, we tested a Supercharger recharge in an Audi. The video is available below.
In France, no rigidity has been encountered in Tesla’s journey to open up its infrastructure to competition. On the contrary. The competing stations are mainly those of the Ionity network, a consortium which primarily includes German manufacturers. Tesla’s choice to launch its pilot project in France at the same time as Norway was therefore welcomed at a time when the number of fast chargers in France is still insufficient (especially in summer).
For several months, it was even wiser to recharge on a Tesla terminal rather than an Ionity terminal. Pricing by the minute rather than the kilowatt-hour disadvantaged electric models at charging speeds below 125 kW. Since then, Ionity has changed its pricing.
