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Tesla has had a massive EV advantage in one of the areas where EVs have been inferior to gas cars, and that is fueling up (or in the case of EVs) charging. That advantage only exists with Tesla Superchargers, but while other EV owners have to load an app and jump through a large number of unique challenges depending on the car and Level 3 public charger, a Tesla driver needs to pull up to a Supercharger and plug in, the rest is automatic.
Well, the 2025 “Plug and Charge” protocol will change this and should improve the charging experience for non-Tesla EVs and Tesla EVs charging on non-Tesla Level 3 chargers.
The Problem With EV Charging
I recall my first reasonably long drive in my 2019 Jaguar I-Pace. We drove to the closest Indian Casino because it had a Level 3 charger, and I wanted to try it out. Sadly, when I got there, the only charger they had that fit my car was a Level 2 charger, which just put a handful of miles on my car while we had lunch. Their Level 3 charger used the now obsolete Japanese charging standard, so the plug would not work with my car (and it was a very low-powered Level 3 charger anyway).
For much of the time I had that car, I was fine as long as I could charge from home, but finding an open, working, public charger was generally a pain with issues ranging from broken chargers to too short charging cables to having to drive miles out of the way even to find a charger.
The chargers were poorly maintained, the app didn’t always work as intended, and this hit-or-miss problem made it so I didn’t want to drive the car farther than half the estimated range because it was just a ton easier to charge at home.
Since the dealer was 180 miles away and at a far lower altitude, driving home from the dealer was a nightmare, and the first time I made that drive, I rolled into my garage just as the car was powering down out of juice (I likely aged 10 years on that drive I was so stressed out).
Today, there are far more Level 3 chargers, but they are still tough to use and too often not operating correctly.
Tesla vs. Everyone Else
Since the car needs to communicate with the charger in any way to regulate the charge (typically slowing charging down significantly after 80% to preserve and not overheat the battery), Tesla uses this link to set up and close the related transaction. Something that even gas cars can’t do. You plug in, and the charge is automatically charged when you are done. No hitting non-standard buttons on the charger, no having to sync your phone’s app to the charging service, and far less plugging and unplugging the car trying to get the charger even to start (all things I’ve had to do in the past).
You drive to the charger, plug in, wait until you need the charge, unplug, and drive away. I can almost hear the angels singing.
Well, with this new “Plug and Charge” protocol, all of us should have a similar experience to Tesla's, and future EVs will even use the much easier-to-use Tesla charging plug. (And that also means if you have a Tesla and another EV from a different company, in the future, you’ll be able to use the same home Level 2 charger for both cars without an adopter (my last adopter, which cost $250, got stuck on a Tesla charger where the car was being worked on and I had to buy them a new charger).
Wrapping Up: A Better EV Future
This new “Plug and Charge” Protocol will do two things: it will close a significant competitive gap that exists between Tesla and other EVs while vastly improving the public charging experience for the rest of us who don’t know and plan never to own a Tesla.
With 1,000-mile batteries coming, the future for EVs is always looking brighter.
Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.
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