Teslas and other electric vehicles can already help you find public chargers available now, but what if you’re on a longer road trip and need to charge in, say, two hours? A clever upcoming Tesla software update will soon be able to predict the future availability of its Superchargers.
In the new software update 2023.38, Tesla introduces a new Predictive Charger Availability feature. This can predict availability and wait time at upcoming Supercharger stations by taking into account the travel time for you and other Tesla vehicles on the road.
The update is aimed at cars in North America, but it is not yet known whether British and European Tesla owners will also benefit from the same technology. We’ve asked Tesla if the feature will be rolled out outside the US and will update this article as soon as we hear back.
While there are already a number of apps and tools that EV owners can use to locate local charging infrastructure, much of the software on the market provides live information about the number of vehicles using chargers and whether they are actually working or not. In Great Britain at least this is very useful, as many often break.
Currently, Tesla owners can use the in-car navigation to check the Supercharger network and discover what’s available nearby. But the new Predictive Charger Availability feature sounds like it could be very useful when planning longer trips.
Tesla has often been bashed for not wanting to introduce Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to its cars, while third-party apps have been fairly limited until now. However, Predictive Charger Availability is a good example of why the company wants to keep owners within its own ecosystem.
As drivers use in-car navigation, Tesla can collect data on the number of cars heading to the same Supercharger locations and then accurately predict what availability will look like for individual vehicles based on their expected time of arrival.
Only good for Teslas?
While the feature will be very useful for those who drive Teslas – as long as they use the built-in navigation functionality – it won’t be good news for customers of any other brand.
This is especially relevant as Tesla is currently opening up its Supercharger network to virtually every rival automaker in North America.
While Predictive Charger Availability can paint an accurate picture of how many Teslas will be at a Supercharger location, it cannot account for the fact that owners of Kia, Hyundai, Nissan and BMW Group vehicles are hogging the charging point . .
This won’t be an issue until more automakers adopt the NACS hardware, which will slowly creep in next year. But a compatible solution that collects data from all manufacturers will soon be needed if the software has any hope of being accurate in the coming years.