Tesla begins selling home charger that operates with different EVs

Tesla has launched a new at-home wall charger that works with other electric vehicles. Tesla is carrying out a pilot program in the Netherlands that opens 10 Supercharger locations to non-Tesla electric vehicles for the first time. The new Level 2 wall charger was discreetly added to the organization's online store around the same day it began permitting non-Tesla EVs to charge at Supercharger stations in the Netherlands — the first step in a lot bigger plan to open up access to Tesla's charging network all throughout the world. Non-Tesla drivers that want to use a Supercharger location will initially have to download the Tesla application and make an account with the organization. From that point, they can select "Charge Your Non-Tesla," search for a location, add a payment method and begin charging, as per data on Tesla's Netherlands website. The new charger uses a standard J1772 connector, not Tesla's restrictive one, which means it should turn out great with other electric vehicles in North America. It's competitively priced, as well, at $415 (however it must be installed by a professional electrician). Tesla says it can charge at to 9.6kW and is intended for both indoor or outdoor installation. It's essentially a revised version of the "Gen 2" Tesla home charger, however, which means it will not have some of the more advanced features (like Wi-Fi) found on the Gen 3 version Tesla at present sells to its owners. Tesla has led the way in electric vehicles for years, and the new wall charger (and the opening of the Supercharger network) shows the organization is prepared to take advantage of numerous new EVs that are on sale or near it. While it presumably will not make Tesla a huge load of cash like its vitally automotive business, there could be good opportunity here. While numerous legacy automakers sell their own branded home chargers, the third-party market for home chargers is full of mostly unrecognizable brands. Tesla's Supercharger network incorporates more than 25,000 fast chargers, by far the largest network owned and worked by an automaker in the world. “Our ambition has always been to open the Supercharger network to Non-Tesla electric cars in order to encourage more drivers to make the switch to electric driving,” Tesla said. During the earnings call in July, Andrew Baglino, Tesla's senior VP of powertrain and energy engineering, presented the defense that opening the Supercharger network to non-Teslas could bring about lower electricity costs generally. “Increasing the utilization of the network actually reduces our costs, which allows us to lower charging prices for our customers and make the network more profitable, allows us to grow the network faster,” he said. “And no matter what, we’re going to continue to aggressively expand the network capacity, increasing charging speeds, improving the trip planning tools to protect against site congestion using dynamic pricing, as Elon mentioned.”