Michael Bettencourt charges a Chevrolet Equinox EV at a Tesla Supercharger, in Vaughan, Ont., in early September.Michael Bettencourt/The Globe and Mail
After months of delay, General Motors says that starting Wednesday its electric vehicle owners in Canada and the U.S. now have access to high-speed charging on Tesla’s vaunted Supercharger network, which is generally acknowledged by EV owners and enthusiasts as the most reliable, extensive and easy-to-use DC charging network in North America.
GM becomes the third automaker with access, but with almost a dozen different cars under three brands, this almost triples the number of non-Tesla car models that will use the Superchargers.
As with Ford and Rivian EV owners now, late model GM EV owners will need a NACS (Tesla connector) to CCS adapter for the different charging standards to speak to each other to provide high-speed charging. GM also confirmed Wednesday that this adapter is now available for preorder at all GM Canada dealers, at a cost of $310, though the adapters themselves are not set to arrive until later this year.
There have been production and distribution delays on factory adapters for Ford and EV startup Rivian, the first two companies with access to most (but not all) of Tesla’s Supercharger network. Some EV drivers have gone outside auto manufacturer circles and purchased aftermarket charging adapters available more quickly online, in particular by companies such as A2Z EV and Lectron.
I had suspected this change was imminent when test driving a Chevrolet Equinox EV in early September when I managed to quick charge it at a Tesla station in Vaughan, just north of Toronto.
I used the Tesla app and the A2Z Typhoon Pro adapter to successfully quick charge the Equinox, where it reached a peak of 75-kilowatt charging speeds with the Equinox roughly 60 per cent charged. This was close to the charging speeds I saw later that week at the same state of charge and in similar conditions on a 180-kilowatt Shell CCS quick charger with the Equinox EV.
The Equinox EV charging speeds at a Tesla Supercharger weeks before the public launch were similar to charging speeds days later at a regular DC quick charger.Michael Bettencourt/The Globe and Mail
GM says it will “begin opening up access to over 17,800 Tesla Superchargers” starting Wednesday, while Tesla’s consumer site currently notes more than 15,000 stalls are currently available for NACS charging. Earlier V1 and V2 Tesla Superchargers are not compatible with the North American Charging Standard (NACS), while Tesla likely will maintain exclusive access to some busy V3 stations, as it has done so far with Ford and Rivian.
Drivers of the now-discontinued Chevrolet Bolt and all of GM’s current EVs will be able to access the Tesla Supercharger network using the Tesla app, or their own app from Chevrolet (Blazer EV, Equinox EV and Silverado EV), Cadillac (Lyriq, Escalade, Celestiq, Optiq) and GMC (Hummer EV, Sierra EV) models, including future BEV models to come.
The low-volume Chevrolet Spark EV had a CCS connector but is not expected to have access to the Supercharging network, while the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid never offered DC high-speed charging, nor a CCS connection.
Owners with any of these GM brand apps, once updated, will be able to find and pay for Tesla Supercharging on their Chevrolet, GMC or Cadillac app, or on the Tesla app. GM is hoping that its customers will use its own apps, which the company has developed to help find charging stations – whether Tesla or other DC quick chargers – and to plan routes that will be able to combine any kind of compatible quick charger.
But what GM won’t offer, at least at launch, is full plug-and-charge (P&C) capability, where drivers connect directly to the Supercharger using the adapter and it recognizes the vehicle and associated payment card automatically. Ford owners can currently do this with Superchargers and some other P&C-capable high-speed DC chargers, but GM EV drivers will need to access Superchargers through an app.
Official GM adapters, produced by Lectron and Tesla and possibly others, are expected to arrive at dealers later in Q4, said GM. Customers will be able to see and route to Tesla Superchargers on their native navi screens as well, even if they’re not enrolled in any OnStar subscription package.
GM’s BEV drivers were originally promised Supercharger access in the spring, after Ford began offering it in late February, and Rivian weeks later.
Ford offered to provide its customers with these official adapters for free to any F-150 Lightning or Mustang Mach-E owner who requested one, but because of production shortages, many owners still haven’t received them.
Tesla around the same time publicly fired its entire Supercharging team, and then hired members of the team back, all while GM worked on its apps to integrate the payment and charging systems with the Supercharger network.
All GM BEVs from the Bolt forward will have access to Tesla Superchargers, but will need a NACS-CCS adapter to connect to them, until GM moves to a native NACS connector.Michael Bettencourt/The Globe and Mail
And as I discovered with the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Blazer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq, their charge port located on the driver’s side fender combined with the short cords of Tesla’s Superchargers means that GM’s EV drivers may have to take up more than one charging spot. There’s a reason why all Tesla drivers back into their Supercharger spot, as it’s the only way their rear taillight-mounted charge ports will reach with those short charging cords.
On Tesla’s ‘Coming Soon’ list for Supercharger access are Nissan, Volvo, Polestar and Mercedes-Benz, in that order. Tesla had largely followed this list sequentially until General Motors was moved up to the Supported list, skipping ahead of Nissan.