Tesla to open supercharger network to all electric vehicles this year

Andrew Sluys
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Photos / Supplied

Photos / Supplied

Whether it was intended or not, a perk of early Tesla adopters was that using the brand's supercharger network was going to be an exclusive affair, reserved only for Tesla models. 

Given that it's a network with over 25,000 Superchargers at more than 2,700 stations internationally, it would only make sense that these stations are brought into the mainstream charging network. 

READ MORE: Three more hyper-rapid EV chargers to be installed across New Zealand

Just recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that this exclusivity wasn't meant to be the case, and that it was simply down to different brands using different plugs. 

In this same tweet, Musk confirmed that the network will be opening up to other electric vehicles before the end of the year. Given the sheer size of the network, we can imagine that this will be an international transition. 

While Tesla cars in America come with a proprietary charging connector, models around the rest of the world, including New Zealand, use a standard CCS charger, meaning the transition will be a software thing. 

With the Supercharger network opening up to regular EVs, this only makes EV ownership easier, with brands like ChargeNet and ABB working to expand New Zealand's ever-growing network.