VW Group EVs to Get Tesla Supercharger Access September 9, 2025

[Sly_North]

Yes, the EU made life much easier here.
I was puzzled why having an adapter would not allow any car to use the Tesla SC in N.Am. Weird that they have to allow per brand or/and model.

Maybe as you guys said, their network is just not good enough (power stability, number of available chargers with potentially too many new customers...).

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[daveo4EV]

Yes, the EU made life much easier here.
I was puzzled why having an adapter would not allow any car to use the Tesla SC in N.Am. Weird that they have to allow per brand or/and model.

Maybe as you guys said, their network is just not good enough (power stability, number of available chargers with potentially too many new customers...).

the North American Tesla network has more stalls and better reliability vs. the hape-hazard CCS1 network

the network does not have the "top speed" of the 800V CCS1 options, but in practice from 2018 to today the 800V 350kW EV chargers have not be reliable or plentiful vs. the slower, but more reliable Tesla Supercharger network.

Stall count is just one place the Supercharger Network was better with most supercharger sites having 8 or more stalls - vs. 2-4 stall sites for the CCS1 network…

also the CCS1 plug-type design is physically and ergonomically inferior to the NACS design with many design fails that limit it's ability to be reliable in a public infrastructure setting…

The Tesla network reliability and typically delivers at least 150 kW charging speeds - given the taper curve of charging from 10% to 95% the effective difference between a 270 kW charging session and 150 kW charging session is 7 minute (or less) so fastest charging session is 22 minutes @ 270 kW, and the same amount of kWh's will take 28 minutes at 150 kW - you can easily lose 6 minutes even attempting to activate a charging session at Electrify America or other CCS1 Native networks in North America - or lose even more time to congestion due to a low stall count…

just _ONE_ example in California

8 CCS1 Stalls - a normal stop on the LAX <-> SFO drive north/south
https://www.plugshare.com/location/288701 - reliability rating 8.8 (this is trending upwards in the 2021-2024 time frame this site was less than 6.0 or worse)

vs.

98 NACS stalls
https://www.plugshare.com/location/4647 - reliabilty rating 10

this site is "famous" in that it's where Ford CEO realized that the CCS1 network was doomed to failure while he watched across the street 80+ Tesla Supercharger stalls working effectively while he failed to charge his Ford F150 on a road trip with his family…he was only able to "slowly" get his F150 Ev to 40% SOC and then had to abandon the site for another one further down the road…

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charging-pretty-challenging-fords-ceo-110000710.html

shortly after this Ford announced support for NACS and Supercharger network access…and the rest is history.

it's also "rare" that you achieve more than 150 kW charging at most 350 kW chargers in North America - on my 2700 mile road trip from picking up my 2024 Macan Turbo EV I only got more than 150 kW charge speed at a fraction of the 20+ charging stops…so in practice a reliable 150 kW charging session trumps an unreliable 350 kW session…and again the actual time difference between an ideal 270 kW charging session and realistic/reliable 150 kW charging session is less than 8 minute delta…

the North American supercharger network is vastly superior in location count, stall count, and reliability and while technically "slower" that not the actual experience on day to day basis given the lack of reliable CCS1 charging stations and the fact that most are power limited and can not achieve their "banner" charge rate due to a number of factors outside an EV owner's control…

until you've sat on hold with EA customer service representative for longer than it will take to charge the car you've not experience the power/awesome beauty that IS the non-Tesla EV charging network…

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/t...itch-ccs1-at-least-the-physcial-design.16080/
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/ea-sop-28-minute-phone-call-for-a-15-minute-charge.17544/
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/i-am-watching-the-“sh-t-show”-that-ea-is-live-and-in-person.6768/

the tide however _IS_ slowly turning - and 2024 and 2025 the CCS1 network is vastly better than it was from 2018-2023 - with EA in particular finally getting reliability under control and trending in the right direction - but the stall count and site count Tesla still has an edge vs. the currently expanding CCS1/NACS network…

when I drove from PECATL to Santa Cruz, CA in Nov. of 2024 I had 20 Fast Charging stops - of the 20 stops only 2 achieved an actual charge rate of more than the nominal 150 kW offered by the Supercharger network…the other 18 stops were 175 kW or less - many many times much more than 6-8 minutes were lost in a futile attempt to get the 350 kW charging stations to even activate - eventually moving to alternative 150 kW stations was required for successful charging as the 350 kW stations would either:

• only charge at much much slower speed
• not activate at all

here is the trip log posting and the "raw charging" data from the 2700 mile trip - 18 of the 20 stops were 150 kW charging speed or less at sites that claimed 350 kW offered - none of the sites had more than 10 stalls, most were 6 stalls or less (vs. Tesla's typical 8/16/24/32 stall sites or even more)

https://www.macanevowners.com/forum/threads/trip-report-im-peddling-as-fast-as-i-can-to-generate-electrons…-pec-atl-to-santa-cruz-in-a-macan-ev-turbo.17948/page-14#post-273395

 

[Flying ace]

the tide however _IS_ slowly turning - and 2024 and 2025 the CCS1 network is vastly better than it was from 2018-2023 - with EA in particular finally getting reliability under control and trending in the right direction - but the stall count and site count Tesla still has an edge vs. the currently expanding CCS1/NACS network…

excellent assessment Dave. You can I will continue to disagree, but I will change your mind once you start using the new Alpitronic units. Let's meet up!
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/t...-drive-event-in-bay-area-ca.16670/post-413709

 

[slothinker]

you'd think that NEVI funding (given out to Tesla when stations become available to all) and getting a head start on the impending CPO war is enough of incentive for Tesla to open up to all vehicles. I'm not certain whey they did not, other than knowing that opening up would overcrowd popular charging sites and decrease the charging experience for Tesla owners.

But IMO, not opening up sooner is to their detriment. Instead of capturing competitor vehicles/customer earlier with positive experiences, I have hypothesized that by end of the year with Ionna, BP, MB HPC, Pilot J, Walmart Energy and other CPO rapidly turning on, and the next gen EVs being 800v cars, Tesla soon will have the most outdated hardware, coupled with a worsening product experience. This is also not considering Elon's toxic public opinion (of which political lean of typical EV drivers is more materially skewed) already have having eroded the brand and a prospective customer's likelihood of using Tesla. Timing (let's be honest it's not just timing but poor decision management, bc timing indicates "random luck",) couldn't have been worse for Tesla today.


Related, the upcoming CPO war will be fun to watch things shake out. CPOs will compete on energy pricing, site availability, reliability and experience. Ionna and Walmart (and EA) may end up winning, The CPO landscape will look much like Europes' with many CPOs using Alpitronic for 300+ speeds, and Chargepoint and other hardware for 50kw speeds.

Totally agreed. As an aside — & I know this was a typo — I really like 'whey' as a word which combines 'why' and 'when' although not sure how it would be pronounced in practice.

 

[Jonathan S.]

you can easily lose 6 minutes even attempting to activate a charging session at Electrify America or other CCS1 Native networks in North America

I’d rate six minutes as a resounding success!

Let’s see …

Blink, aside from the usual wait time, requires you to get down on your hands and knees, with cell phone flashlight, to find the serial number on the back of the charger, just above the concrete pad. (Pack a shovel in winter to clear any snow. And don’t bother pleading with them to look up the serial numbers of their only two chargers in town, as the phone reps claim to lack that info.) PlugShare score is 4.9 now for this location in Ludlow VT, paid for by state of Vermont.

ViaLynk, after waiting on hold, reached an answering service. Took my phone number and promised a return call. Which never came. Went through the same procedure again with identical results. Or rather lack of results. PS is 5.5 now for this station in Bradford VT, originally a joint venture of EVgo and the power utility from a bygone era in which a network of single-charger 50kW stations was pretty advanced.

Flo, ensured beforehand that my login credentials were current, credit card was updated, and RFID card was in hand just in case the cell phone service was marginal. Which it was. But RFID card wouldn’t work? Had enough reception to call. After along hold, I was informed that I hadn’t added a balance to my account. Can’t my cc just be charged. No. PS score reflects commingling with a L2 bank. Ben and Jerry’s might have been cutting edge for installing this at their factory store back in the day, and it’s a nice bonus if you’re there anyway on a factory tour, but not a reliable option.

Red E, hold time was only several minutes, and rep was quite upbeat, although perhaps that was more like delusional, insisting that all four chargers were fine, despite how the first three chargers resisted multiple attempts to charge. Promised that the CEO would call us back! We were already back on the road at this point, and I was suppressing laughter the entire time as my wife made this call. Of course we never received a call from the CEO for this NEVI station, paid for by our federal tax dollars. (We did get a response, albeit non substantive, from the CFO of the company that built and owns the station, but only because he’s my wife’s brother.)

 

[daveo4EV]

was at willows, CA yesterday - there is a 4 stall EA site at the Walmart…

3 of the 4 stalls were dysfunctional and the one stall that was running was "power reduced"

the 12 supercharger stalls @ thunderhill raceway however worked great and provided a reliable and simple 150 kW charging speed…as did the 12 supercharger stalls in Willams, CA 20 miles south of willow's CA…these stalls were used by: Tesla Model 3, Ioniq 6, and Ford mach-e that were all present at a private track day - the Tesla chargers all worked better than the EA and EVgo chargers located in near by willows, ca…

stall count (a 4 stall supercharger site would be laughable and does not exist) and reliability is what sets the supercharger network apart from the native CCS network…

NOTE: on july 3rd - 3 of the 8 stall EA chargers in Vacaville, CA were "offline" - but the near by 16 stall superchargers were all online and functional…you can literally "see" the 16 stall supercharger site from this EA site while you're on hold with EA customer service attempting to get any given stall rebooted…in a sad attempt to achieve operational CCS status…

wish all you want that the CCS network is "reliable" - but simply put - it's stall count at any given site is small - and the chances of all those stalls being operational is very very low…and chances of those stalls operating at anywhere near advertised peak speed is a crap shoot.

many many many times the supercharger site (normally with in visual sight of the EA location) has:

• more stalls (this is always)
• is entirely operational
• and will simply "work" when you plug in the first time
  • my friends lost way more than 8-10 minutes additional time playing "guess which stall will work" in vacaville - pull in - plug-in - wait a few min for the charging session to "fail" - then "move your car" to another stall to see if it works…

the reliably problems of the typical CCS network site will squander any real/imagined speed advantage delta - and many many time even operational sites will never deliver the top-tier speeds that are suggested/advertised…

operationally the difference in charging time between 150 kW and 270 kW is 8 min or less for a typical 10% to 9x% run…this is due the taper curve - in that you can't get 270 kW for the entire charging session…

it is trivial and common to waste 6 minutes or more (much much more) in attempting to resolve CCS charging site faults, plug & charge failures, failed payment processing, finding the station # which has been scratched off by vandals to manually enter into the network app's activation process…
I'll take reliable/consistent/less-congestion with a slightly slower charging speed vs. hap-hazard flaky…

additional note: the 350 kW advantages was an illusion @ willows, CA walmart site - when/if you got the EA chargers to work they were delivering 80 kW…

so yeah - there is still room for improvement (but even I acknowledge it's getting better) but the experience is way way less consistent vs. the typical/expected experience at a Superchargter.

 

[Jonathan S.]

^ Are those dysfunctional EA chargers one of the older designs? All of those sound hopeless.
The new design though seems to be okay. For example, the West Lebanon NH station had all four chargers broken on Labor Day 2023 only a little after two years of its grand opening. The new chargers seem reasonably reliable. But still only four chargers. Almost always busy. Although while you’re waiting you get a great view of the sixteen Tesla chargers in the same parking lot.

The new Merrimack NH EA station has six chargers. Which still isn’t much, but a vast improvement upon four, especially if one or two of those four are broken.

 

[Tooney]

Tesla Supercharger Network Sees Strong Growth in Q1 2025 With 2,200 New Stalls

Tesla: 2025 Should Be Record Year for Supercharger Openings

https://x.com/TeslaCharging

 

[slothinker]

Tesla Supercharger Network Sees Strong Growth in Q1 2025 With 2,200 New Stalls

Tesla: 2025 Should Be Record Year for Supercharger Openings

https://x.com/TeslaCharging

Yeah, Tesla could have been the Standard Oil of EV charging. But who'd want to be that??

 

[Jonathan S.]

Especially impressive stats for network growth given the layoffs of the expansion staff last year.
Will be interesting though to see whether Tesla can succeed in the jump to 800v charging. The V3 power sharing design is the perfect solution for 400v cars, allowing 12 stalls to require only the same utility hookup as a 2x350kW + 2x150kW EA. But so far the V4 stations add only cc readers, longer cables, and Magic Docks, despite their ability to handle bigger power cabinets.

I’ve been drooling over the reviews for the iX3.
(Just have to get over my aversion to SUVs - it’s really just a crossover, right, so I won’t be betraying my values?)
More cars like that will put current Tesla stations at more of a disadvantage…if the faster competition really works.
The 640kW charger near me is more like 140kW in reality, despite (or maybe because of) the $2.46m that was spent on four plugs. (Your federal tax dollars at work via CFI.)

 

[daveo4EV]

^ Are those dysfunctional EA chargers one of the older designs? All of those sound hopeless.
The new design though seems to be okay. For example, the West Lebanon NH station had all four chargers broken on Labor Day 2023 only a little after two years of its grand opening. The new chargers seem reasonably reliable. But still only four chargers. Almost always busy. Although while you’re waiting you get a great view of the sixteen Tesla chargers in the same parking lot.

The new Merrimack NH EA station has six chargers. Which still isn’t much, but a vast improvement upon four, especially if one or two of those four are broken.

yes they are the older/original two cord units that cause lots-o-problems…

I too have had better experience with the sites where EA has installed the newer single cord units that offer much greater reliability

 

[daveo4EV]

was at willows, CA yesterday - there is a 4 stall EA site at the Walmart…

3 of the 4 stalls were dysfunctional and the one stall that was running was "power reduced"

the 12 supercharger stalls @ thunderhill raceway however worked great and provided a reliable and simple 150 kW charging speed…as did the 12 supercharger stalls in Willams, CA 20 miles south of willow's CA…

stall count (a 4 stall supercharger site would be laughable and does not exist) and reliability is what sets the supercharger network apart from the native CCS network…

NOTE: on july 3rd - 3 of the 8 stall EA chargers in Vacaville, CA were "offline" - but the near by 16 stall superchargers were all online and functional…you can literally "see" the 16 stall supercharger site from this EA site while you're on hold with EA customer service attempting to get any given stall rebooted…in a sad attempt to achieve operational CCS status…

wish all you want that the CCS network is "reliable" - but simply put - it's stall count at any given site is small - and the chances of all those stalls being operational is very very low…and chances of those stalls operating at anywhere near advertised peak speed is a crap shoot.

many many many times the supercharger site (normally with in visual sight of the EA location) has:

• more stalls (this is always
• is entirely operational
• and will simply "work" when you plug in the first time
  • my friends lost way more than 8-10 minutes additional time playing "guess which stall will work" in vacaville - pull in - plug-in - wait a few min for the charging session to "fail" - then "move your car" to another stall to see if it works…

the reliably problems of the typical CCS network site will squander any real/imagined speed advantage delta - and many many time even operational sites will never deliver the top-tier speeds that are suggested/advertised…

operationally the difference in charging time between 150 kW and 270 kW is 8 min or less for a typical 10% to 9x% run…this is due the taper curve - in that you can't get 270 kW for the entire charging session…

it is trivial and common to waste 6 minutes or more (much much more) in attempting to resolve CCS charging site faults, plug & charge failures, failed payment processing, finding the station # which has been scratched off by vandals to manually enter into the network app's activation process…
I'll take reliable/consistent/less-congestion with a slightly slower charging speed vs. hap-hazard flaky…

additional note: the 350 kW advantages was an illusion @ willows, CA walmart site - when/if you got the EA chargers to work they were delivering 80 kW…

so yeah - there is still room for improvement (but even I acknowledge it's getting better) but the experience is way way less consistent vs. the typical/expected experience at a Superchargter.

you just don't see this type of commitment from the other EV charging networks…latest permit filed for supercharger expansion… yeah that's correct 84 stalls near the existing 20 stall supercharger in Lost Hills, CA…

they already have 40/60/80 stall sites else where…

https://www.autoblog.com/news/tesla-opens-massive-off-grid-supercharger-oasis-in-california

wake me up when EA routinely opens sites with 30+ EV stalls and more than 50% of them are actually normally operational…

 

[Jonathan S.]

wake me up when EA routinely opens sites with 30+ EV stalls and more than 50% of them are actually normally operational…

That's going to be a looong nap.
Too long to wake up in time for this:



Electrify America


Reddit AMA Incoming!

Rachel Moses who leads Sales, Business Development, and MarComms at Electrify America, is hopping on Reddit for an Ask Me Anything (AMA)! With over 15 years of experience in the EV infrastructure industry, she’s here to answer your questions about charging, access, and everything in between.

July 10, 2025 (11am ET – 1pm ET)

Reddit – r/electricvehicles https://bit.ly/45TpjfT

Submit your questions now!
Don’t miss it.
#EVcharging #ElectrifyAmerica #RedditAMA #ChargeOn

 

[hifi239]

I'm not exactly sure why VW group is talking exclusively to PCMag, but the author of that original link updated with "Although the brand missed its original deadline of June 2025 to get access, an announcement is "coming soon," a company spokesperson tells us." Whatever that means. Come to think of it, this has been the source of all of our information. Even electrek, which says " Volkswagen says that its electric cars will be able to charge at Tesla’s Supercharger network starting in June, reports PC Magazine." Again, why does some backwater ad rag like PCMag have exclusive access to the VW PR department. Perhaps they don't??
Updated PCMag article.

 

[chun]

I'm not exactly sure why VW group is talking exclusively to PCMag, but the author of that original link updated with "Although the brand missed its original deadline of June 2025 to get access, an announcement is "coming soon," a company spokesperson tells us." Whatever that means. Come to think of it, this has been the source of all of our information. Even electrek, which says " Volkswagen says that its electric cars will be able to charge at Tesla’s Supercharger network starting in June, reports PC Magazine." Again, why does some backwater ad rag like PCMag have exclusive access to the VW PR department. Perhaps they don't??
Updated PCMag article.

Likely the only ones that reached out to Porsche

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