Tesla's aren't locked into using Tesla chargers. They do have a proprietary connector on the vehicles but they come with several adapters including J1772. Superchargers are a phenomenal perk, not a lock in.

Are Superchargers free to use by people who have not bought Teslas?

No, but https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-elon-musk-open-supe...

> One question posed during Wednesday's Tesla quarterly earnings call involved allowing other manufacturers to access Tesla's supercharger network and Elon Musk's response was surprising.

> "This is not a walled garden."

> By that Musk means that he's open to allowing other EV manufacturers to configure their vehicles to be able to use the Superchargers. He stipulates that these manufacturers would have to pay their fair share of the costs and would have to either adopt Tesla's plug standard or include an adapter in their vehicles.

No, but the point is that this is not a reason Tesla won't succeed, it's just a reason that superchargers suck for non-Tesla EV owners. From a business standpoint, this is the right place to be; lock others out, but don't lock your customers in.

Exactly. I don't think Tesla would have anywhere near the sales they've had without Superchargers. The other EV manufacturers need to figure out how to offer something similar if they want any chance of competing.

Superchargers only work with Teslas due to some signaling and they aren't free for all Teslas. You can get an adapter that goes from a Tesla connector to J1772 but it won't work at a Supercharger, just home or destination chargers.

In the US they can't even be used because the plug is different. Even if it weren't the superchargers access Tesla's services to hand over payment information when you plug in.

Until they have a combo adapter, they really don't have _the_ adapter.

It's funny you say that because that's the exact reason Superchargers exist. The other chargers in question charge incredibly slowly compared to a Supercharger. Teslas main advantage was that they had to foresight to realize that people wouldn't swap to electric vehicles unless they could have a similar experience to pulling up, filling up your tank, and driving off. A Supercharger is the closest thing - 0 to full in 20 to 25 minutes. The Blink/Chargepoint/WhateverElse networks are a full charge in 8 to 12 hours.

20 to 25 minutes is still an eternity compared to gasoline. Yes, it's faster than the other chargers, but that's about the same amount of time an oil change takes. That's something people have to plan around since it's not 3-4 minutes.

That seems like a perk to hosting businesses.

Realistically, people who could afford an electric car are more likely to take a plane and rent a car when traveling, unless they travel all the time as part of their job, then they’d be using ridesharing exclusively.

But people tend to be dominated by edge cases instead of giving up a small amount of mobility.

>people who could afford an electric car are more likely to take a plane and rent a car when traveling, unless they travel all the time as part of their job, then they’d be using ridesharing exclusively.

What is this based on? I know several people with electric cars and none of us take planes and rent cars on trips unless they're to another country. I drive to California and Austin all the time and the Tesla is the first car that I don't have to stay the night charging for.

>What is this based on?

This is the "everything is Silicon Valley" view of the world.

Another hilarious one is: "why doesn't everyone just bike to work?"

I agree that that model would be awful, but I think maybe that that is too simple of an analogy. We do already have fuel stations which are exclusive right now, in the form of card access only truck stops which only dispense diesel fuel. There are also similar fuel distribution mechanisms in the marine and aviation industries which dispense different types of fuels (Bunker fuel, 100LL, Jet-A, etc.) which can't be used in automotive applications.

The biggest difference here is that electricity, thankfully, is the same in any form, and the key differentiator is the speed at which you can deliver it. I definitely hope that we can agree on better, faster, common, charge delivery formats, but I wouldn't want to put a hamper on innovation, particularly when the electrical automotive industry is so nascent.

General Motors owns a patent on leaded gasoline.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gm-engineers-dis...

Invented by the same person that invented Freon, too. Talented chemical engineer but possibly the most harmful human to have ever lived by some metrics.

The same guy who was killed by his own apparatus to get him out of bed after he caught polio. [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Later_life_...

His whole wiki reads like a horror story. So many people died of lead poisoning at DuPont where they were developing it.

> Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.

Tesla can do superchargers and almost all other 3rd party chargers. They aren't lock in, they are like a super-capable system. Only other cars can't use tesla chargers.

Technology always starts out exclusive and then is then broadens out. Tesla network gives them a huge advantage because now they are in control over how this process is gone happen.

Unless they can make charging as quick as filling a tank with gas, there is a lot of opportunity in location and surrounding services, provided while the batteries are being charged.

Are there any U.S. hotel chains that are in on this?

Hotels have facilities that aren't used after breakfast until the evening, however they still have to have a lot of staff on-site during these hours.

You could have nice food and coffee instead of motorway service station junk, with booking facilities so you can have that coffee ready as you walk through the door and your parking spot for the charging reserved.

This could work really well in the more scenic parts of the world where there is a lot of the infrastructure built out already, just the right plugs with the right volts and amps needed.

A large number of high-end hotels have Tesla "destination chargers", which you can generally use if you eat in their restaurant.

I've been out wine tasting and have run into Tesla destination chargers.

Not just "high-end" hotels. On my recent trip round-trip Florida-Texas drive in my Model 3, I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn and two Hampton Inns that had Tesla Destination Chargers. It was nice to pull in with 10-20% charge and pull out in the AM fully charged and not paid anything extra for it.

It's almost there. A Supercharger can charge in about 20 minutes and the navigation in the car shows you food stops and amenities near the Supercharger and then sends you a push notification when the car is nearly completely charged. Considering that this experience is more rare than me being able to charge the car every night at home instead of having to stop at a gas station ever, I think the trade off is in Tesla's favor.

>A Supercharger can charge in about 20 minutes

Let's be real here. I just did a 2500 mile road trip in my brand new Model 3. While it is true that 20-25 minutes will give me enough range to drive for 120-160 miles, 20 minutes does not give me a full charge. Charging my Model 3 from ~10% SOC to 80% SOC takes 40 minutes at a Supercharger. The car charges quite quickly from 0% to 50%, but slows down dramatically after that. If you pull in to a Supercharger with 10-20% SOC, 20 minutes will get you up to 50-60% SOC at best.

That being said, I generally didn't mind this. I came to like the slower pace of stops. I know my wife is looking forward to the first road trip we take together in the car, as she always wants to stop and stretch her legs more often than I do.

I just wish more Superchargers had convenient access to 24 hour bathrooms.

I don't think that's accurate either, though. I charged from 5% to the max daily limit (not the trip limit) in 25 minutes and it gave me approximately 264 miles. When I last charged to the full trip limit, I had 314 miles on the car and that took about 40 minutes.

So, even if I just charged every time to the daily limit, I'd still have about the same range as a gas car and I can't fill up my gas car at home on a regular basis. That benefit alone outweighs the cons of a slightly longer trip for me.

PS. Slow down. ;). If you're only getting 160 miles from the daily charge, you're driving pretty fast or using up power in some other way.