Tesla opening up its huge Supercharger network to cars from other brands is maybe the best thing to happen to electric vehicles in America since the federal $7,500 tax credit. Heck, maybe even the lithium-ion battery itself.
It could be a game changer for thousands or, someday, millions of drivers mulling over a switch to an EV. And I can personally attest to the fact that Supercharger access saved my ass when I was traveling in a Chevrolet Blazer EV SS.
Up until that point, I hadn’t visited a Supercharger in a non-Tesla since the early days of the Magic Dock, an early solution for enabling non-Tesla cars to work with some Superchargers. A lot has happened since then.
Pretty much the entire car industry has announced a gradual switch to Tesla’s plug design, known as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. In recent months, over a dozen brands have announced access to well over 15,000 Supercharger stalls across North America, mainly via adapters that convert the NACS plug to the prevailing non-Tesla port design, CCS.
I understood in theory how revolutionary widespread Supercharger access can be for drivers of Chevys, Rivians and the like who are tired of crummy, hard-to-find public charging infrastructure. But I’d never experienced it firsthand. Now I’m sold.
2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV at a Tesla Supercharger
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
I spent the long weekend up in Nevada City, California, a charming mining town about a 150-mile drive from my apartment in the Bay Area. After seeing the sights for the weekend, the Blazer I was testing was down to around a 30% state of charge. I knew I’d have to stop and charge on the drive home at some point. Or, ideally, before setting out. Because I’d rather just crush the three-hour drive in one go.
When I searched for nearby charging stations, I found that the immediate vicinity around Nevada City is pretty much a ghost town as far as EV charging is concerned. With one exception: There was a 12-stall Supercharger—one open to non-Teslas—less than a 10-minute drive away.
Plus, this oasis in a charging desert was in the right direction, and the Tesla app showed eight stalls available as I set out.
Huzzah. I plotted a route in the Blazer and set off.
2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV at a Tesla Supercharger
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
Don’t get me wrong. There were other options on the route home, too. Mainly, a seven-stall Electrify America station that I would’ve hit about an hour into my journey. But this being Memorial Day in Northern California, I was worried about charging stations being backed up with other road trippers. And it was already lunchtime, so it was the right time to hit the day’s charging stop. A big, dependable Tesla station located a mere six miles away was a big score.
Tesla owners have always enjoyed the best and easiest charging experience in America, and now others are getting a taste of that magic.
For one, there are simply lots of stations all over the place. That’s what happens when you have an EV company that needed to build out infrastructure for its earliest adopters and continued doing so for well over a decade. The other edge Superchargers have is the number of plugs per station. Whereas other charging stations often have two, or four, or six plugs, Superchargers often have 12 or far more. And they’re known to be more reliable than the often-broken and glitchy chargers that every EV driver has seen more than once.
Superchargers are also easy to use, even for outsiders, as I found when I arrived at the Grass Valley station. I had already loaded my billing info into the Tesla app. So when I showed up, all I had to do was find an open stall, plug it in using the Chevy-approved adapter that came with my loaner and initiate a charge via the app. The juice started flowing within seconds and quickly peaked at 183 kilowatts.
2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV at a Tesla Supercharger
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
Let me give a quick shout-out to the Tesla app here, too. It was super sleek and intuitive. And, much like Tesla’s in-car interface, it felt like technology made by a tech company, not an automaker. After all was said and done, the Blazer had recharged from 30% to 76% in 25 minutes, giving me more than enough range—242 miles—to get on my way.
When I got to the station, I thanked my lucky stars that it had a couple of pull-through stalls, where the charging post itself is situated on the line between two parking spots. That meant I could easily plug in the Blazer, despite its charging port being in the “wrong” spot for most Superchargers. You see, Superchargers were designed with short cords that only reach a car’s back left corner—because that’s where the charging door is on every Tesla.
2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV at a Tesla Supercharger
Photo by: Tim Levin/InsideEVs
That orientation poses a problem for lots of non-Teslas, and it means sometimes you need to block two Supercharging spots, like a jerk. The guy in an F-150 Lightning next to me and I were spared that embarrassment. And in that way, this was kind of an ideal non-Tesla Supercharging experience.
I was so enamored by the whole thing that I decided I’d start using Superchargers whenever possible—starting with the next time I needed to charge the Blazer. I felt like a whole world of abundant, dependable chargers had been unlocked. That glee didn’t last long.
Chevy Blazer EV owner Mack Hogan illustrates the parking issue.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
Back home in Berkeley, there are several Superchargers, including a few open to non-Teslas. But the whole double-parking issue nuked my enthusiasm. I got lucky that the Grass Valley station had multiple spots friendly to non-Teslas, but that’s not always the case. I found one in my city where about half of the 12 stalls were available, but every other plug was taken.
In the Blazer, I’d need two spots side by side. And even then, I didn’t want to be that guy. I hit up my local EVgo station instead.
Tesla is working on this, deploying both pull-through spots and next-generation posts with longer cords.
Supercharger access for non-Teslas is a big, big deal—as evidenced by the two Rivians and F-150 I saw charging in Grass Valley. When it’s good, it’s really good. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some kinks to iron out.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
