With Tesla opening up its Superchargers to other EVs, it has caused some problems. While all Teslas have their charge ports on the left side of the car toward the rear, this is not a uniform placement across brands. That can mean cars parking in an adjacent space in order for the Supercharger cable to reach the charge port. Especially at a station seeing high demand, this can be frustrating for Tesla owners who now see other drivers taking up two (or sometimes three) stalls, when every car on the network used to only need one. Tesla is working on improving that experience via several means.
Longer Cables, Reorganized Parking Mean Fewer Blocked Spaces
As Tesla continues to build out and update its network, it is now transitioning to its V4 Superchargers, which have longer cables. This means a car won’t have to park over the line into an adjacent stall — or worse, parallel park across three perpendicular spaces — in order for the plug to reach the car’s charging port, regardless of where it’s located on the car. Tesla says that these longer cables will outnumber the shorter ones in the next 18 months. Tesla didn’t say how many of those would be new sites, versus how many older chargers would be upgraded with V4 cabinets.
Another solution available to Tesla is to reconfigure existing sites. Tesla has said it has already modified 1,500 sites in order to minimize the number of spaces a single car will have to occupy in order to charge. Tesla also says it has been encouraging automakers to locate their charging ports either on the left rear or front right to make it easier for them to use a short-cable Supercharger without blocking stalls.
Improved Stall Availability Software Is Faster, Identifies EVs
Tesla is doing more to provide drivers with more accurate information about available charging stalls. According to Tesla charging director Max de Zegher, the automaker is using an improved stall availability algorithm that takes into account the mapping of specific sites, and can identify the type of EVs plugged in at them, in order to better predict which stalls are not currently available at sites with shorter cables. Additionally, de Zegher says the new algorithm has a refresh rate of about 15 seconds, keeping users up to date. Tesla says it will continue to improve mapping and refresh rate to help decrease the “overpromising of stall availability.”
“Our goal is to turn any range anxiety into range confidence,” de Zegher said.
Availability could improve as Tesla installs more V4 Superchargers, too, not just because of the longer cables. The new Supercharger cabinets are capable of faster charging rates — up to 500 kilowatts, meaning cars will occupy a stall for less time. Right now, the Cybertruck is the only Tesla currently capable of taking advantage of those higher speeds, but EVs from other automakers — especially those with 800-volt charging architecture — would spend less time at a V4 Supercharger than a V3 and its 250-kW maximum charge rate.
Tesla says its first V4 sites are going through permitting now, and should begin opening in 2025.
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