If you’ve been to a motorway service station, shopping centre or restaurant in recent months, then there’s a good chance you’ve spotted some futuristic-looking devices sporting the Tesla logo by certain parking spots.
These are Tesla Superchargers, and they have rapidly spread across the UK’s road network as more and more public places add these and other types of electric car charging stations, to encourage more use of electric cars in Britain.
You’ve probably already seen electric car public charging stations before and you probably already know Tesla exclusively makes fully-electric cars. But what makes Tesla’s charging stations different and special? This guide explains what’s worth knowing about them.
As you may have figured, Superchargers are made to be used by Tesla drivers, whereas other public charging points have a variety of electric vehicles in mind.
How does the Tesla Supercharger work?
A Tesla Supercharger works very much like how you usually recharge any other electric car. It uses a Mobile Connector and one end plugs into the Charge Port, while the other end plugs into an outlet.
One of the standout features of using a Tesla Supercharger is that the plug used actually consits of multiple chargers working in parallel to deliver up to 120 kW of power directly to the battery.
Owners of Tesla cars, whether that be a Model S or Model X etc., can view the location of Supercharger stations on their car’s infotainment screen. They can even use a phone app to track how much their car is charged while it is plugged into one of the Superchargers. Any place that has Superchargers should offer several grouped together, in case several Tesla owners happen to show up to recharge at the same place.
The name Supercharger isn’t just for show either, Tesla says that they can deliver up to 50 per cent battery capacity to a customer’s car in about 20 minutes. This makes them a lot faster at charging electric cars than most other public charging stations.
While obviously using a Supercharger on a Tesla means paying for the electricity used, there are no additional fees for using the Supercharger connector itself.
Can other cars use a Tesla Supercharger?
For now at least, it is currently not possible for electric cars or hybrids outside the Tesla brand to use Tesla Superchargers.
The plug sockets utilised by Tesla Superchargers won’t fit properly into any non-Tesla electric car. It’s a feature exclusive to customers of the brand.
Tesla has in the past spoken publicly about the possibility of allowing non-Tesla cars to use their Superchargers, assuming an agreement can be reached with other manufacturers. Up until now though, no changes have been officially announced to make more cars compatible with Superchargers.
If you’re interested, Tesla’s website has a page where you can see where Superchargers are currently installed in the UK and in other countries. It’s a neat way of establishing where the nearest Supercharger to you is located.
