If one of the big barriers to widespread electric vehicle adoption is the availability of charging stations, then it stands to reason that if any vehicle, not just a Tesla, could be charged at a Tesla charging station, it would be a boon for the EV industry. Tesla, fortunately, is hearing that, and has started modifying some of its Superchargers with a Magic Dock adapter so that non-Tesla vehicles can use them too.
There’s one problem, though. The Magic Docks don’t change the length of the charging cords, which are so short that most people can’t get them to the outlets on their non-Tesla vehicles. The outlets are all in the exact same spot on a Tesla, so when the Superchargers were originally designed exclusively for Teslas there was no need to add extra cord length to accommodate different vehicles.
A number of reporters and YouTubers have encountered this flaw when they tried to use one of the 1,700 newly modified Superchargers. In most cases, they had to maneuver their cars to take up two spaces just to get the cord to fit. “People are going to start to get upset here with the fact that Tesla has delivered this Magic Dock station capability, but they haven't thought through the logistics as far as how people are going to charge,” said YouTuber Dave Conner after he encountered the problem with his Genesis GV60 electric SUV. Looks like if Tesla wants to make all of its vast Supercharging network available to other brands, it may want to rethink some things first.