Reducing non-Tesla access to the Supercharger network

[Keefy5]

Whilst charging at the Cardiff supercharger I was told by a Tesla employee that they are reducing access to the supercharger network for non-Teslas from the end of November. Including the Cardiff and Camarthen superchargers I was using on my trip.

This is due to legislation which is requiring

“New public charge points of 8kW and above and existing charge points of 50 kW and above must offer contactless to consumers.
Proprietary networks that open their charge points for public use will have one year from the date that the charge point becomes public to offer contactless.”

Dated 23rd November 2023.

Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

www.gov.uk

Only the latest V4 superchargers support contactless.

 

[APMG]

Unfortunately it's one of the limitations of being an EV owner.

Tesla took a lot of risk to launch into the market with their EVs and also laid a lot of foundations for these chargers across the globe. A lot of these are already Tesla only and I can't see the mandate swapping for the ones which don't support wireless payment, unless they add support which I doubt.

I do hope moving forward public charging not only gets easier but also cheaper and more accessible. The government wishes to push people away from ICE but if you don't have a drive way there is little to no savings when only on the public network.

A lot of the public chargers I've seen are either slow, broken or expensive specially compared to Tesla's supercharger network and I am not sure how long governments will let them operate in a closed network but as they were first and other manufactures laughed in their face I'm sure that has a lot do to with them opening themselves up.

Where I have seen them being more open is where they don't get a lot of use due to EV ownership in the area so probably need to get customers to pay the bills.

Either way is a kick for any EV what isn't a Tesla and perhaps will become subject of a monopoly discussion, who knows!

 

[Anon70]

Looking at the regulations this one is interesting

And one suggested reason for using OCPI is this...

Suggesting you could use the Octopus, ZapMap or ABRP app to control a charging session at a Telsa, Ionity or any CPO run charger.

I can see one way around the Public charger regulation being compulsory membership schemes, similar to the Makro business model or how Matlan used to be. You can only use our chargers if you are in our club. This would mean they are not public chargers.

 

[APMG]

Looking at the regulations this one is interesting

View attachment 31497

And one suggested reason for using OCPI is this...


View attachment 31498


Suggesting you could use the Octopus, ZapMap or ABRP app to control a charging session at a Telsa, Ionity or any CPO run charger.

I can see one way around the Public charger regulation being compulsory membership schemes, similar to the Makro business model or how Matlan used to be. You can only use our chargers if you are in our club. This would mean they are not public chargers.

I do hope they do open up and allow use of the Super Charger network and not go down the exclusive club rabbit hole!

 

[Bricktop X PWR]

Whilst charging at the Cardiff supercharger I was told by a Tesla employee that they are reducing access to the supercharger network for non-Teslas from the end of November. Including the Cardiff and Camarthen superchargers I was using on my trip.

This is due to legislation which is requiring

“New public charge points of 8kW and above and existing charge points of 50 kW and above must offer contactless to consumers.
Proprietary networks that open their charge points for public use will have one year from the date that the charge point becomes public to offer contactless.”

Dated 23rd November 2023.

Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

www.gov.uk

Only the latest V4 superchargers support contactless.

Bollocks.

Twice the price for me then.

Yay.

 

[5teep]

Whilst charging at the Cardiff supercharger I was told by a Tesla employee that they are reducing access to the supercharger network for non-Teslas from the end of November. Including the Cardiff and Camarthen superchargers I was using on my trip.

This is due to legislation which is requiring

“New public charge points of 8kW and above and existing charge points of 50 kW and above must offer contactless to consumers.
Proprietary networks that open their charge points for public use will have one year from the date that the charge point becomes public to offer contactless.”

Dated 23rd November 2023.

Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

www.gov.uk

Only the latest V4 superchargers support contactless.

Busy year for charge point operators then, making sure all their current 50kw chargers comply with the law.

 

[Gomev]

Ionity are doing it with their new card readers.

Whilst charging at the Cardiff supercharger I was told by a Tesla employee that they are reducing access to the supercharger network for non-Teslas from the end of November. Including the Cardiff and Camarthen superchargers I was using on my trip.

This is due to legislation which is requiring

“New public charge points of 8kW and above and existing charge points of 50 kW and above must offer contactless to consumers.
Proprietary networks that open their charge points for public use will have one year from the date that the charge point becomes public to offer contactless.”

Dated 23rd November 2023.

Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

www.gov.uk

Only the latest V4 superchargers support contactless.

Is there any corroborating support for this claim? I know of the legislation but I find it hard to believe that Tesla will chop a revenue source and if they did why reduce access and not totally cut access, apart from V4s.

Is the Tesla app, a different entity to the Tesla Supercharger network, could it be considered a third party roaming provider.

from the legislation guidance. Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

'Payment roaming
Roaming is the ability to pay to charge an EV across multiple charge point networks using a single app or RFID card. The equivalent for petrol and diesel vehicles is a fuel card.

Charge point operators must offer roaming at all their public charge points by connecting to at least one third party roaming provider.

Charge point operators may choose to connect with third party roaming providers for example, through direct partnerships with other charge point operators, connecting to a clearing house or through an e-mobility service provider (eMSP).

The roaming provider must be operated by a person or organisation that is external to the charge point operator.

Payment roaming must be available to consumers, which includes fleets. This does not need to be two separate roaming providers but can be one that is accessible to both consumers and fleet drivers.'

 

[APMG]

Yeah does seem those which are already compatible you can use Tesla app on them. However if they're forcing people to either all be the same standard to take card payment at station?

These days surprised it's not just scan a QR and apple/gpay

 

[siteguru]

Yeah does seem those which are already compatible you can use Tesla app on them. However if they're forcing people to either all be the same standard to take card payment at station?

These days surprised it's not just scan a QR and apple/gpay

That's way open to abuse - something that's already happened on some chargers and parking payment machines doing this. (Scammers apply their own QR code and then present a website that looks just like the original intended website, to scam details and payments).

 

[APMG]

That's way open to abuse - something that's already happened on some chargers and parking payment machines doing this. (Scammers apply their own QR code and then present a website that looks just like the original intended website, to scam details and payments).

If it's built into the screen Vs not a static code but yea anything can be abused

 

[Roldorf]

It's affecting Tesla over here too. EU law says all public charging points 'must' have a screen to show the price/kWh, the kWh delivered, as well as allowing a payment by 'card' system. Just drove past our local Tesla version 2 supercharger point (12 stations) yesterday, and they are all being replaced by version 4 chargers.

 

[5teep]

Yeah does seem those which are already compatible you can use Tesla app on them. However if they're forcing people to either all be the same standard to take card payment at station?

These days surprised it's not just scan a QR and apple/gpay

Mobile signal required, remote sites, underground car parks etc might not have a signal from your provider.

 

[Rutsy]

Ionity are doing it with their new card readers.


Is there any corroborating support for this claim? I know of the legislation but I find it hard to believe that Tesla will chop a revenue source and if they did why reduce access and not totally cut access, apart from V4s.

Is the Tesla app, a different entity to the Tesla Supercharger network, could it be considered a third party roaming provider.

from the legislation guidance. Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 guidance

'Payment roaming
Roaming is the ability to pay to charge an EV across multiple charge point networks using a single app or RFID card. The equivalent for petrol and diesel vehicles is a fuel card.

Charge point operators must offer roaming at all their public charge points by connecting to at least one third party roaming provider.

Charge point operators may choose to connect with third party roaming providers for example, through direct partnerships with other charge point operators, connecting to a clearing house or through an e-mobility service provider (eMSP).

The roaming provider must be operated by a person or organisation that is external to the charge point operator.

Payment roaming must be available to consumers, which includes fleets. This does not need to be two separate roaming providers but can be one that is accessible to both consumers and fleet drivers.'

For the Tesla app to be treated as a third party roaming supplier it would have to enable access to other networks (see first para of the guidance you posted).

More broadly the regs. seem to allow Tesla to do anything from declaring its chargers to be non-public (and therefore not subject to any of its provisions) to declaring them all public (and requiring them to fit card readers, etc.) It will be interesting to see what they do.

 

[Rolfe]

I raised this question on the comments page of one of the Dave Takes It On videos, and he replied, "Not going to happen. Tesla got a legal waiver." So now I don't know who to believe.

 

[Rutsy]

Dave and I are saying the same thing. The regs make provision for vehicle specific networks (ie. Tesla) to be excluded from its requirements. To qualify those networks would have to exclude other vehicles.

 

[Rolfe]

Dave is saying that other vehicles are not going to be excluded from the Tesla network.

 

[Rutsy]

I'm not saying they are. Tesla have that option though. My quick reading of the regs is that if Tesla does open its chargers to other vehicles then it will be bound by the regs (ie. Contactless, Third party RFID payment and displaying prices).

As I said it will be interesting to see what Tesla decide.

 

[Rolfe]

Dave has been wrong before.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Dave has been wrong before.

And to be fair to him he always says let him know in the comments etc if he has got it wrong.

 

[Rolfe]

This is something that's happening in the comments though. He did a video on how great opening the superchargers to non-Teslas is, and never mentioned any imminent closing of the older charger models. I said in the comments that I understood this was going to happen and I was surprised he hadn't mentioned it. The answer I got was "Not happening. Tesla got a legal waiver."

I replied saying that was good news, could he elaborate. No answer. I've recently asked again for clarification, so we'll see if he responds.

I know he says to tell him if he's got something wrong, but I've done this several times, and seen others do it, and he just ignores it.