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.
We created our own connector, as there was no standard back then & Tesla was only maker of long range electric cars.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2021
It’s one fairly slim connector for both low & high power charging.
That said, we’re making our Supercharger network open to other EVs later this year.
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.