Would you be OK with Tesla opening up their Supercharger network to other manufacturers?

[bro1999]

How many Tesla owners would be OK with Tesla opening up their network to other manufacturers? The manufacturer would have to pay whatever fee Elon would deem acceptable and manufacture an adapter. Let's also assume a portion of the money generated by such an agreement would go towards building out the Supercharger network in some manner. I would assume most Tesla owners would NOT be ok with such a decision, but that's just my WAG. Hence the poll.

 

[morrisdl]

Fewer standards, means more locations we can charge.

 

[kev1n]

its very unlikely that this will happen. one issue is that other auto manufacturers dont sell their own cars, they have dealerships. i doubt the the auto manufacturer nor the dealership owners will want to eat the cost.

its more likely that a 3rd party company will start to take pace. possibly the big oil companies. i believe shell has already made some investments towards electric charging infrastructure.

 

[miimura]

As long as the manufacturer paid their way to support additional Supercharger infrastructure, there's no reason that their incremental usage would be any different than the same incremental increase in Tesla sales. The real obstacle to another manufacturer joining is the pride that would have to be sacrificed in acknowledging that the Tesla network is better. It's obvious to customers that it is true, but manufacturers don't want to acknowledge it.

To me, it makes the most sense for a low volume specialty manufacturer like Aston Martin to join up with Tesla than any other manufacturer. Direct competitors like the startups FF or NIO or Lucid won't do it because it would seem to be an endorsement of the competitor.

 

[ewoodrick]

I really wish that Tesla would move to using plugs consistent with everyone else. Having a different network isn't the problem, having different plugs is.
Sure, its a single plug that supports low and high current charging, so, just convince and license other users to use it. It's about as bad as diesel vs gas.

 

[EVCollies]

I would not be in favor of opening up Supercharger access. Tesla would not be able to estimate usage and the stations could be over utilized.

 

[David99]

Elon said early on that Tesla is open to open the network up to others if they pay their share. So far no one has taken that offer. I doubt anyone will. It sucks that we will have all these different plugs. In the US it will be J1772, CHAdeMO, CCS & Tesla. In Europe it's CCS and the mennekes plug and CHAdeMO. CHina has their own plug as well. Kind of stupid. Hopefully eventually we will have one unified plug.

 

[RFernatt]

I posted on this topic a while back and here were my thoughts:

I do wish some other manufacturer would come on board to help support the SC network, but I don't think that's likely. However, I was thinking of a Tesla branded adapter that could communicate on the Tesla charging network and would connect other DCFC cars where the tech is compatible. Tesla would have to sell the adapter at an appropriate price (read: not cheap) and the cost of using the SCs (electricity and time) would also have to be priced appropriately. It could pick up a few more paying SC customers and expose them to Tesla. In some crowded areas (CA) I could see that not being too popular, so maybe Tesla also reserves the right to have a restricted SC map that supports the adapter and excludes some of the high traffic stations. All of the SCs around me though are always empty and it would be nice to see them earning some income for the investment.

To use the adapter, someone would have to setup a Tesla account and payment method (now Tesla has marketing info), Tesla knows their charging habits, etc. They get a nice email after a charging session showing what they paid and it says "if you owned a Tesla, this bill would have been $x.xx lower".

 

[bro1999]

Elon said early on that Tesla is open to open the network up to others if they pay their share. So far no one has taken that offer. I doubt anyone will. It sucks that we will have all these different plugs. In the US it will be J1772, CHAdeMO, CCS & Tesla. In Europe it's CCS and the mennekes plug and CHAdeMO. CHina has their own plug as well. Kind of stupid. Hopefully eventually we will have one unified plug.

Bollinger adked Elon, but he never responded...

 

[Phrixotrichus]

As long as the fee for opening the network would go into further developing it I think it would be a win win for everyone.
Fewer different charging standards and a bigger net sounds perfect to me.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Definitely good to allow other makers.
More cars = more money = more chargers.

 

[Rocky_H]

Bollinger asked Elon, but he never responded...

I didn't consider that genuine at all. The supposed "ask" came less than a year before they said they're about to have their final product out. That's not even close to enough time to design it in past the last minute like that. Bollinger has been planning their vehicles for a few years now, when they could have done this for real. That Tweet was just for publicity to get all the news media to create articles that included the names Bollinger + Tesla together. Nice coattails ya got there; mind if I go for a ride? I'm sure it was great for their name recognition, but they obviously never intended to do anything with it.

And yes, I've thought that a smaller company like Aston Martin would be perfect to take Tesla up on the offer. It would boost them incredibly, who could use the help. The big makers are too arrogant to admit that the young upstart punk auto maker has something they need.