Can Tesla’s Superchargers Continue to Dominate?

Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) dominates the U.S. electric-vehicle fast-charging market, but the EV manufacturer is introducing Version 4 Superchargers amid concerns that its Superchargers may not be fast enough to keep up with increasingly demanding vehicle charging speeds.

The rollout of Tesla’s V4 Supercharger began with the first installations in October 2023. James Carter, principal consultant at Vision Mobility, says there aren’t many in operation as they are expensive to install. So, while V4 will offer higher charging speeds, most charging stations draw power from Version 3 (V3) cabinets.

Tesla initially limited the V4 Superchargers to 250 kW with plans to achieve 350-Kw charging. It also has plans for 1-MW charging for the Tesla Semi. The Cybertruck, which comes with an 800V battery compared to all other Tesla vehicles which have a 400V battery architecture, will use the same charging technology as the Tesla Semi, allowing it to benefit from 1 MW of DC fast charging.

Despite this, Joachim Lohse, founder & CEO at Ampcontrol.io. AI-Powered Software for Electric Vehicle Charging and Fleets, claims Tesla’s Superchargers aren’t the fastest.

“Today, the faster charging stations are 1 MW by some other brands. Tesla is not the fastest charger, and there are brands that have 900kW,” Lohse says.

 Beyond cars, ABB E-mobility and MAN have demonstrated megawatt charging on the eTruck. Higher-powered charging rates reduce charging time, and they can over the course of the day increase vehicle range. Less time is spent idle.

Tesla’s Superchargers, says Carter, are slower because most of them use 400V and not 800V setups. “A 350-kW, 800V charger should be able to charge an 800V EV up to 350kW,” Carter says. “However, a 400V charger will only be able to charge up to 175 kW, depending on the car’s capabilities.”

Tesla has achieved up to 250kW, which Carter suggests is impressive for a 400V system, and is still ahead of some 800V systems. To obtain that high output, Tesla employs thicker wire in the batteries and charging points, he says.  

Kalpesh Chaudhari, the principal for e-mobility solutions at Sargent & Lundy, says if Tesla had simply tried to upgrade its existing Supercharger technology, then concerns that they aren’t sufficiently fast enough would be valid. “However, the reality is, Tesla is upgrading their Superchargers and planning to maintain their higher market share of charge point operators in U.S.,” Chaudhari says.  

Anu Jose, principal consultant-mobility at Frost and Sullivan, adds that ultra-high-power charging requires BEV architectures of 800V or higher. “Manufacturers like Lucid and VW Group, with 900V and 800V architectures respectively, and others such as GM and Hyundai Group with 800V battery systems, have the potential to charge above 300 kW,” Jose says. “Hence, they do not benefit from the current NACS due to its design limitations.”

Porsche, Audi and Lucid have vehicles capable of high-speed charging beyond what NACS can provide. Chaudhari says they charge at speeds of up to 350 kW, while NACS is often limited to 250 kW. The key difference, though, is in the charging architecture as well as in the types of connectors used.

The current Tesla Supercharger network uses NACS or NACS J3400 ports as standard. The latter supports 800V architectures which Tesla is rolling out to the existing Supercharger network through V4.

“Hence, even though currently these cars would not charge in their full capacity on the existing supercharging network, they will be able to charge at upgraded V4 Superchargers and at other charge point operators, such as EVgo, at a higher capacity even with the charging standard NACS-J3400,” Chaudhari says.

Despite this potential challenge, Porsche Cars North America says its customers are supported by a variety of charging suppliers including Electrify America which operates ”Hyper-Fast” sites. Next year, its owners will also be able to access the Tesla Supercharger network. Hyundai says it’s on track to deliver NACS cars this year.

Making NACS Accessible

Meanwhile, Tesla’s Superchargers have an accessibility issue. Frost and Sullivan’s Jose says third-party automakers’ users must access Tesla’s Supercharger network through the Tesla web or app user interface. However, a benefit includes uptime exceeding 99%. Jose thinks Tesla’s Supercharger network provides an excellent opportunity to showcase its products and customer experience, potentially converting non-Tesla users into loyal Tesla customers.

While NACS is less bulky than CCS type 1 connectors, there are some design issues to overcome. Tesla CEO Elon Musk sacked many interface experts earlier this year. Carter says they were updating the latest charging stations’ software.

Industry standards body CharIN[BG1]  – a global, cross-industry association with over 300 members dedicated to promote standards in the field of charging systems for charging EVs of all types – is leading the improvements, helped by every automaker belonging to it. They want a single standard for EV charging, handing that task over to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE[BG2] ) upon agreement. The IEEE is a technical standards setting body and a professional society.

Working for Interoperability

With many automakers transitioning to CCS and NACS, CharIN has been working on NACS to figure out any issues that have been occurring. Carter finds the weakness is the transition from CCS to NACS. “The only thing that is problematic is that NACS is Tesla’s, and when you look at it from (a) user point of view, NACS is better,” Carter says. After all, EV supercharging customers want reliable charging that works properly all the time, industry observers note.

NACS (SAE J3400) is still evolving. While CCS supports bi-directional charging (a vehicle can power a worksite or home during power outages), NACS doesn’t.

A limitation for non-Tesla vehicles is the additional expense of a CCS adapter. Tesla is also in the process of upgrading with a built-in Magic Dock (Tesla’s CCS adapter). Chaudhari says this will eliminate the need to carry a CCS adapter for non-Tesla cars.

With more automakers adopting NACS, and allowing their customers to use Tesla’s Supercharger network, Tesla will gain financially through the creation of a new revenue stream.

However, this may not mean that Tesla will dominate the market, despite the size of its charging infrastructure. It’s a case of the more charging stations, and the more operators, the better. The consensus is that it will create healthy competition, which is crucial for the advancement of technology and consumer choice.

To that end, the IONNA consortium recently gained a key investor and partner with Toyota coming on board. That system promises 350kW charging speeds from CCS and NACS connections.