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For EV Customers, Tesla Is Inevitable in Most Markets Due to Supercharging

I read a text on CNEVpost last February that stuck in my head. In it, Wu Haiyun shared her personal experience with why she could not avoid buying a Tesla even if she was not exactly a fan of the brand. Thinking about that more recently, it came to me that if Mr. Smith talked about Tesla in Matrix, he would say that “it is inevitable” in most countries – Norway may be an exception. And we would have to agree with him.
Tesla Superchargers make the company inevitable to anyone that wants to live only with an EV in most countries 22 photos
Photo: Tesla
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You should read Wu’s text. Just to get the conversation going, I’ll tell you that she felt she could not dodge Tesla because she had to drive around Shanghai. Her car had a license plate from another city, and Shanghai imposed restrictions on vehicles that came from other places to curb traffic. For her to transfer her car to Shanghai, it would take her a lot of time and money to obtain the necessary license plates.

NEVs (new energy vehicles) do not have to apply for license plates. They get green ones, which cost nothing. That’s the city’s way to replace combustion-engined cars with electric ones and bring down pollution levels, not only carbon emissions. That’s something most people miss: electric cars cannot save the planet from global warming. What they can do is allow the air in big cities to be more breathable.

Plug-in hybrids can also obtain one of those green license plates – and Wu preferred one – if buyers can prove that “their neighborhood or unit could install charging equipment.” Another requirement was to prove they charged the car at least four times per month. Most Chinese customers cannot do that, which leads them to rely on public chargers. And that’s where Teslas become inexorable.

Wu needed a practical car, which she could “top up” anywhere with no hassle. A Tesla vehicle was her best option to achieve that, thanks to “a dense network of charging stations” in Shanghai. In other words, due to Supercharging stations.

That immediately reminded me of Watts On Wheels, a Portuguese car rental company that started its activities only with Tesla vehicles. Not due to any preference for the brand but rather due to the EV maker’s charging infrastructure. João Marcos Marchante, one of the company’s founders, told me in September 2019 that Watts On Wheels would add other vehicles when they offered more range. Its website now includes the Volkswagen ID.3, which counts on some Ionity fast chargers in Portugal – very few.

The fact is that, apart from Tesla, most other electric cars demand you to plan a trip with a lot more detail. There are websites such as ABRP (A Better Route Planner) that tell you how you can go anywhere using an EV. That’s an amazingly handy tool for electric car users. However, it is far from the experience people have with combustion-engined vehicles.

With them, you just go anywhere without concerns about where you will get gasoline or diesel. You just know that there will be a fueling station nearby with which you can count on – anywhere. At the same time, you may not afford to do so as much as you did.

There is always an excuse for higher fuel prices, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest push to avoid them. Luckily, Putin’s disastrous strategy once again goes against his interests. If not for any other reason, it shows that people should skip fossil fuels that dictators like him need to sell to fund their wars.

The problem is that pure electric cars still offer a very different experience from that of ICE vehicles. Apart from making sure that there are chargers in the place you are traveling to, you also need to verify if they are working. It is very often not the case.

Tesla Superchargers do not present that sort of concern. They are widespread, and we have never heard about any of them being out of order. Tesla owners just count on them, probably more than they can rely on that their own vehicles will work. We report enough of their issues here for our readers to know what we mean.

Tesla is planning to open the Supercharging network to other electric vehicles and has started doing so in some countries. Ironically, that will probably make Tesla sales decrease. If people can choose electric cars with similar ranges that are more reliable and that can also recharge on Tesla Superchargers, they may decide to skip Tesla vehicles. Wu would probably do that if Superchargers could be used by other brands in Shanghai.

Most people who always wanted to have electric cars won’t buy them because of this lack of charging infrastructure. This is what makes plug-in hybrids a more rational option for those who just make road trips eventually and can charge at home: they only use fuel when there is absolutely no other option. In Shanghai, people who have nowhere to charge were buying PHEVs just to get the green plates. This is why the local government started demanding them to prove they charged more than four times per month.

In times of rising fuel prices, a better charging infrastructure would make electric cars more desirable. Without it, they make Tesla vehicles inevitable for those who want electric vehicles – such as the Watts On Wheels team and customers – or those who cannot escape them – such as Wu Haiyun and multiple customers worldwide.
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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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