The U.S. Government Is Paying Tesla $7.5 Billion to Open Charger Access
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
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This morning, the White House released a fact sheet that finally provides more details on how federal funds for EV charging will be distributed. The biggest news, buried 16 paragraphs in, is that Tesla will in fact open its Supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles by the end of 2024.
Prior to today’s announcement many analysts had speculated on whether or not this massive pool of federal funding would be sufficient to coax Tesla to open its charger network. The government had essentially been dangling $7.5 billion in incentives in front of Musk’s EV giant with the condition that the company could only access the money if their charger network was open to everyone.
This is excellent news for non-Tesla EV owners and the country’s electrification plan in general. The Supercharger network is quite robust, with more than 16,000 level 2 and level 3 chargers spread across the United States.Tesla’s network is also considerably more reliable than its competitors’, and frequently offers better charging speeds. At a time when charging infrastructure is still extremely underdeveloped in the United States, having the best network is a huge selling point for an EV manufacturer. The White House Fact sheet also indicates that Tesla will tap the $7.5 billion in federal funding to “more than double its full nationwide network of Superchargers.”
Musk had previously signaled his desire to open his charger network here in the US via Twitter, but no concrete actions or promises had been made public until today. Tesla, famously, has no PR department and rarely responds to media inquiries. Or as Andrew J. Hawkins at the Verge put it, “hilariously, the White House remains our best source of information about this potentially transformational plan.”
From a technological standpoint, opening the Supercharger network to non-Tesla cars is not a difficult problem. Tesla’s Supercharger network uses proprietary charging hardware while the rest of the North American EV industry (and most of the world) uses a plug system known as CSS. In Europe, Tesla has already begun opening its charger network to non-Teslas by offering an adapter that allows the two different standards to work harmoniously. The rollout has largely been a success.
It’s hard to see how replicating that success in the United States would be any different–especially with $7.5 billion in federal funding suddenly available.
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David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
