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Tesla Inc. promised to knock down the wall on its so-called charging “walled garden” two years ago, making its Superchargers accessible to all electric vehicles. In turn, almost every brand in the auto industry has committed to putting Tesla ports in it electric vehicles.

These commitments, once fulfilled, will make Tesla the standard for car plugs in America, especially given Tesla’s reputation for its reliable and extensive network of electric vehicle charging stations. But none of that is working yet for Mirriam Ferraro, a 45-year-old nurse from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ferraro regularly drives the Kia EV6 to visit his sister in Wilmington, 100 miles away. Charging stations are rare, and the nine Tesla Superchargers on the road still don’t accept cars like hers. Kia has promised a Tesla charging adapter for the EV6, but it won’t ship until January. Many automakers are waiting for Tesla to send them adapters so they can deploy them to their customers. When it is delivered, Ferraro will have to pay for it.

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“It will be worth it,” she says. “I absolutely love the car, but it definitely limits my travel.”

Tesla “invited” other brands to adopt its charging port at the end of 2022. A few months later, it went one step further, promising to upgrade its stations for Chevy, Ford and other EV brands that didn’t have port Tesla, although he never provided a timeline. That month, he started installing something called the Magic Dock, a nifty upgrade that worked for cars that didn’t have a Tesla port or adapter. Today, however, only about 100 of the company’s roughly 2,500 Supercharger stations in the U.S. feature the Magic Dock, according to a Bloomberg Green analysis.

Huge swathes of the country are still off the Tesla charging map, with no upgraded Supercharger in more than half of all states. And there seems to be little rhyme or reason behind the release of the Magic Dock. California, by far the country’s EV leader, has only five stations with adapters, while Florida, another electric hotspot, has only one converted Supercharger. Texas leads the country with 20 Magic Docks and they’re on every corner in New Jersey, but Oregonians are out of luck. Additionally, many of the Magic Docks were taken offline this fall.

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“Tesla has not kept its promise,” said Conrad Layson, senior analyst at AutoForecast Solutions LLC. “Tesla has not given any reason for the delay in installing more Magic Docks. Nor did they comment on (the) inability to deliver on their promise.”

The company also did not respond to interview requests for this article.

In fact, Tesla didn’t seem too concerned with improving supercharging for Teslas, much less with other types of vehicles. In April, Tesla laid off the nearly 500 employees working on Supercharger. Some were eventually rehired. There still aren’t enough people to keep the system running, according to Layson.

Starting next year, almost every EV brand will roll out of the factory with a Tesla port — called the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. Meanwhile, there’s a huge swath of drivers like Ferraro who bought too early to get a Tesla port and are looking for adapters, which are expensive and have been delayed, largely because Tesla handles that hardware as well.

Losing so many Supercharger workers from Tesla “definitely didn’t help,” said Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV practice at JD Power. “A lot of these people were working with these other automakers on these transitions.”

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Tesla drivers aren’t happy with the state of supercharging either, including the prospect of intruders. Satisfaction scores are down, according to JD Power’s ongoing survey. “We got a lot of comments from people who weren’t thrilled when a Ford F-150 Lighting was next to them taking up two spaces,” explained Gruber.

Ultimately, the Supercharger kerfuffle will be short-lived as more chargers from other networks come online and Tesla ports and adapters finally appear en masse in non-Tesla vehicles. In the past two years, rival networks have far surpassed Elon’s charging empire. For every Supercharger station in the US, there are now nearly three public fast-charging stations operated by other companies. These networks – including EVgo Inc. and ChargePoint Holdings Inc. – they already have sockets for Tesla ports and are adding more in a hurry.

Additionally, the potential to use Tesla chargers has encouraged EV-curious drivers to purchase battery-powered rigs from Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and other brands. In opening the charging network 11 years after it began building it, Tesla essentially traded a strong sales incentive for a revenue stream from other vehicles; it’s becoming less of a car company and a little more of a utility.

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“I don’t think it can be emphasized enough,” Gruber said. “You take away the advantage (Tesla) had with the charging network. … And Tesla products are aging right now.”

That said, Tesla could reap up to $3 billion a year from charging other companies’ cars by 2030, according to Piper Sandler & Co. And Tesla owners who charge at Tesla stations are by far the happiest respondents to JD Power’s satisfaction survey. Non-Tesla owners charging at Tesla stations rank second, with all other networks scoring lower.

“By improving the charging experience and making EVs more attractive,” says BloombergNEF analyst Ash Wan, “EV adoption will be promoted in the US, which will be good for Tesla.”

When Ferraro finally gets his Tesla adapter sometime in the new year, he’ll have plenty of charging options. For now, though, he won’t be driving to visit friends in Washington DC. And when she goes to her sister’s house, Ferraro will stay a little longer, while her car sips electrons from a standard outlet.

“It’s frustrating,” she says, “but I still absolutely love driving to a gas station.”

Bloomberg.com

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