Polestar, the Chinese-owned, Swedish-based electric car maker is among the companies that have a deal with Tesla to gain access to the Supercharger network of DC fast chargers in North America.
However, that hasn’t happened yet–it will sometime this spring, according to Tesla–but if you’re a Polestar EV owner who lives in China, you can brag to your American friends that you can recharge your zero-emissions ride at Superchargers now. Well, at some of them, at least.
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Polestar gets Tesla Supercharger access in China
Polestar EVs, which are made in China, can now recharge at select Tesla Superchargers in their home country after the two companies put into effect a deal that was announced last year. A similar thing will happen in North America this spring.
Earlier this week, Polestar announced on its Weibo page that owners of its EVs in China will get access to a part of the Tesla Supercharger network. In total, Tesla said it operates around 1,900 Supercharger stations consisting of over 11,000 stalls in China, but out of these, only 450 or so stations are open to EVs made by other companies, including Polestar.
This is a similar but not identical solution to that adopted in the United States. Here, Tesla vehicles are fitted with the NACS plug and the vast majority of Superchargers have cables that only cater to this requirement. Meanwhile, EVs sold in North America that are made by Ford, Rivian, and just about every other carmaker have a CCS1 inlet, which is why an adapter is needed.
In China, all EVs, including Teslas, have a pair of GB/T inlets–one for AC and one for DC charging. As a result, Tesla Supercharging stalls also have GB/T connectors at the end of the charging cables, so there’s no need for an adapter. But just like in the U.S. and Canada, Tesla has to first enable access to a particular model before it can top up its batteries at a Supercharger.
What’s interesting, though, is that Polestar’s integration with Tesla’s DC fast-charging network seems to go a bit deeper than a simple smartphone app. From the video posted on Weibo, we could see that the owner of a Polestar 4 could navigate to a compatible Tesla Supercharger by using the car’s infotainment system as well as unlocking the parking barrier from inside the car.
In China, Polestar EVs can draw up to 120 kilowatts of power from a Tesla Supercharger, Polestar said in its social media post.
