Photo: Tesla Motors
After personally unveiling the first ever units of the right-hand drive Tesla Model S the last Saturday in London, Elon Musk declared to the media that his company is committed to share its Supercharger network with rival electric vehicle manufacturers.
The Palo Alto-based company exec declared that in the not too distant future, Tesla's Supercharger network will gladly accommodate any automaker that produces pure electric-drive models. Currently, there are quite a lot of electric models out there. The Toyota Prius, Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are just a few of the big boys out there.
In an interview with Engadget, the Tesla CEO declared that "It's just that they need to be able to accept the power level of the Superchargers, which is currently 135kW and rising, so any car needs to meet the Supercharger standard. And they'd also need to agree with the business model, which is we don't charge people on a per-charge basis."
That basically means that if Toyota wants to use Tesla's proprietary fast-charge network to make life easier for Prius Plug-In owners, the Japanese company will have to make a deal with Tesla, adapt its vehicles charging interface and pay a fair bit of dough on an annual basis for Supercharger network maintenance and running costs.
The good side of this story is that this way, electric charging station infrastructure will bloom like never before and most EV owners won't spend as much time as before to charge their eco-friendly machines. However, the good things are balanced out by the bad, represented by the costs connected to adapting non-Tesla EV models to fit the Supercharger network's standards and those annual maintenance and running fees we've previously mentioned.
Considering that Tesla Motors recently hinted that it may giveaway its patents sometime in the future to facilitate electric vehicle development, this Supercharger sharing scheme might actually come to fruition in a few years time.
In an interview with Engadget, the Tesla CEO declared that "It's just that they need to be able to accept the power level of the Superchargers, which is currently 135kW and rising, so any car needs to meet the Supercharger standard. And they'd also need to agree with the business model, which is we don't charge people on a per-charge basis."
That basically means that if Toyota wants to use Tesla's proprietary fast-charge network to make life easier for Prius Plug-In owners, the Japanese company will have to make a deal with Tesla, adapt its vehicles charging interface and pay a fair bit of dough on an annual basis for Supercharger network maintenance and running costs.
The good side of this story is that this way, electric charging station infrastructure will bloom like never before and most EV owners won't spend as much time as before to charge their eco-friendly machines. However, the good things are balanced out by the bad, represented by the costs connected to adapting non-Tesla EV models to fit the Supercharger network's standards and those annual maintenance and running fees we've previously mentioned.
Considering that Tesla Motors recently hinted that it may giveaway its patents sometime in the future to facilitate electric vehicle development, this Supercharger sharing scheme might actually come to fruition in a few years time.
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