You'd also have to figure out how to circumvent the Supercharger station's DRM

It’s not so much DRM as authentication, seamless zero-user-interaction payment, safety, and charging protocols.

You’d also need a Tesla account with a credit card on file, and the ability for your vehicle to identify itself as the vehicle associated with that account.

Or… Tesla might just make it happen, in the future.

I feel like they will.

Eventually, the market for EV will be so large that they may as well try and get everyone they can on the chargers, the same way that iTunes on Windows was primarily to grab a huge chunk of the digital music market.

Supposedly Tesla already has one but they barely have capacity for there own fleet let alone everyone else’s and they are building superchargers at a rapid pace

I've got to say I've done a few long (>1000 mile) road trips in my Tesla and I've never once had to wait for a spot to plug in. There's also usually at least one other Tesla charging at the station. Which means they're successfully walking the line between underbuilt and overbuilt, capital efficient while also satisfying their customers. Most non-Tesla charging stations I've seen are under-utilized and often broken.

I think Tesla could build Superchargers faster if they wanted to. If you overbuild, the chargers will rot (the plugs can need maintenance and replacement from weather exposure after 5-10 years if for no other reason) and you're paying expensive utility connection fees.

Tesla switching to CCS would mean their customers get 4,683 extra charging locations without having to buy an adapter:

https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html

Kind of a no-brainer for Tesla to switch to CCS.

No thanks, I prefer faster superchargers. But it’s handy that it’s possible to use pretty much every other charger, not to mention any outlet, as a backup when needed, or when sleeping for that matter.

> I prefer faster superchargers.

Teslas charge faster on CCS:

https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast...

A little bit of how to lie with statistics there, but yes for certain Tesla models in certain continents using certain rare ultrafast versions of CCS2 with a certain state of charge, there is a certain window of time where the speed may slightly exceed certain Tesla superchargers (the current fastest version, admittedly, but faster ones are coming).

I'd gladly use any charger, if it's what is available, but do prefer Superchargers for their faster speed (although yes, there is that edge case you pointed to) and for the community of friendly fellow Tesla owners that you sometimes run into there.

> A little bit of how to lie with statistics there

Nope. No lie, just a flatter charging curve.

> the current fastest version, admittedly, but faster ones are coming

CCS chargers are already faster today than Tesla's promised future chargers. Today's fastest charging EVs use CCS.

> and for the community of friendly fellow Tesla owners that you sometimes run into there

Soon owners of all brands of EV will charge there. Tesla will put CCS plugs on the chargers and you'll be able to meet everyone:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

Tesla switched to CCS in Europe a couple of years ago. It's time to switch to CCS in North America too.

The other charge networks are notoriously bad and many of them already support Tesla’s native plug.

That will charge slower and be an extra thing to buy and carry around. It's better to have a CCS plug on the charger and a CCS inlet on the car.

All other EV manufacturers have standardized on CCS in North America so there's not much value in Tesla not going CCS at this point. Doubly so because Tesla is supposed to be opening up its network to other brands:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

Yes for non-Teslas.