If you visited Elon Musk’s X on Saturday and clicked on Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office account, you could look at him Pull up to a Tesla charging station, step out of the electric Ford Mustang Mach-E, and announce that Tesla Superchargers are now open to non-Tesla electric vehicles.
This is a questionable assertion. Owners of electric vehicles from Ford, Chevrolet, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lucids, Nissan, Rivians and others can’t count on it just yet.
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On Monday, two days after Newsom released the video, news broke that Tesla’s Supercharger network was in chaos. According to multiple media reports and social media posts, Musk has fired the entire Supercharger team, including senior director Rebecca Tinucci.
A source who declined to be named for fear of retaliation from Musk told the Times: “They are not firing the entire Supercharger team. They are mainly laying off website acquisition, project management, marketing and other functions.
Whatever the loss, Musk isn’t denying it.but he did it Post on X Tesla plans to slow the growth of new Superchargers and focus on existing ones.
At the same time, California electric vehicle sales data were released on Monday. The situation is grim, especially for Tesla. Its new registrations in California fell by 7.8% in the first quarter of this year after falling by 9.8% in the previous quarter.
Sales of the entire California electric vehicle market did grow by 555 units in the first quarter. According to the California New Car Dealers Association, the number of cars and light trucks increased from 89,741 to 90,296, an increase of less than 1% and just one step away from being flat. Electric vehicle market share is also actually flat, down slightly from 21.2% of all new vehicle sales in the fourth quarter of last year to 20.9% in the first quarter of this year.
That’s bad news for EV proponents and Newsom, who in 2020 mandated that all new cars sold by 2035 must be what the state calls zero-emission vehicles. (Plug-in hybrids burn fossil fuels, thus producing emissions, but because they can also run on batteries alone, California includes them in its definition. As many as 20% of new cars sold in 2035 could be plug-ins hybrid electric vehicle.
Under the mandate, automakers would have to sell such cars, but customers wouldn’t have to buy them. If the steady growth of electric vehicles becomes a trend rather than an anomaly, it could undermine a key pillar of the state’s clean climate plan.
“Everything from interest rates to inflation to growing awareness of the costs and challenges of EVs is having a negative impact on EV demand,” said iSeeCars.com industry analyst Karl Brauer. “Even Tesla, a brand long seen as the shining example of how every automaker should approach personal transportation, now looks an awful lot like a traditional automaker, with shrinking market share, stagnant sales, and declining profits. and massive layoffs.
One reason potential EV buyers are holding on to gasoline: Public chargers subsidized by state and federal governments are too few and too unreliable. Tesla chargers are generally considered more reliable. They were built with money brought in by the sky-high price of Tesla stock. Early last year, Tesla agreed to open up its charger network in exchange for federal subsidies to help pay for Tesla’s planned but now-scaled charger expansion.
It’s unclear why the governor released his video. Tesla itself has made no recent announcements about non-Tesla charger access. More than a year ago, in March 2023, the company began launching some stations for other brands in California and other states.
Whether intentional or not, the announcement caused some misunderstanding in the media. False headlines—such as “Tesla Supercharger in California now available for all electric vehicles”—started appearing.
Newsom said: “Today we are announcing that Tesla will open its charging network to more electric vehicle models. This is all about building infrastructure in California, which currently has 105,000 electric vehicle chargers for public use. and approximately 10,000 Supercharging stations.
There are no new additional models. A quick read might lead one to believe that all Tesla charging stations are now available to EV drivers who don’t drive a Tesla. But the actual number is far less than this number. Tesla knows how many, but the company did not respond to media inquiries.
The country itself doesn’t know.
“We don’t have specific numbers yet on how many cars will be open to other drivers,” said Lindsay Buckley of the California Energy Commission, the state agency responsible for electric vehicle infrastructure. “I know the rollout will be gradual. . Certain chargers are now available to Ford and Rivian drivers, and the program will soon be available to General Motors, Polestar, and Volvo.
Tesla divides its chargers into three types. One is only for Tesla drivers. The other is for driving electric vehicles whose brands have been approved by Tesla. The third type, which is currently severely limited in quantity, can handle almost any electric vehicle through a built-in adapter called the “Magic Dock”, which allows the Tesla charger plug to fit into non-Tesla electric vehicles.
A map of Supercharging station locations on Tesla’s website shows that sites open to other brands are still in the minority. There are five Tesla charging stations in the Palm Springs-Coachella area. Two of them can accept a Ford or Rivian. There is no magic dock.
There are six Tesla charging stations between Culver City and Santa Monica. Only two are open to Ford and Rivian. There is no magic dock.
According to Tesla’s map, there are three Magic Dock stations throughout California — two near Sacramento and one in Silicon Valley.
Why is it incompatible? The auto industry sets standards for charger plugs, but Tesla doesn’t follow them. Tesla’s version is smaller, lighter and easier to operate. Some other brands have created snap-on adapters to provide or sell Superchargers to their customers. Several companies, including Ford, have announced that future electric vehicles will accept Tesla plugs without the need for an adapter.
A Ford spokesperson relayed the company’s reaction to the Supercharger layoffs: “The plans we offer our customers will not change.” When asked whether Tesla’s management changes and Musk’s announcement of slower Supercharger growth have put the company back on track A spokesman declined to comment further while it was under consideration.
Some EV proponents look to the bright side. When asked about layoffs at Tesla’s Superchargers, Matt Petersen, CEO of the Los Angeles Clean Technology Incubator, said: “While it’s concerning, if there’s a silver lining, it’s in the charger space. There are many good, talented people available at other companies.
