Tesla to open charging stations to all makes of electric car

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) will allow drivers of other brands to use the company's electric vehicle charging network from later this year. Chief executive Elon Musk – who has not yet been into space unlike Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson – revealed the news in a Tweet, adding that it will be the case in all countries. “We’re making our supercharger network open to other EVs later this year,” the billionaire said on Twitter. READ: Tesla faces environmental fine for Berlin car factory Tesla has 25,000 charging points at over 2,700 stations around the world, with over 900 charging stations in the US and over 1,000 charging points in the UK. Musk explained that Tesla initially created its own 480-volt plug-in connector technology as there was no standard platform at the time and the company was the only maker of long-range electric cars, so needed low- and high-power charging. There are over 42,000 public charging stations in the US, but only about 5,000 are considered fast chargers according to the Department of Energy. In the UK there are a total of 42,791 connectors at 15,797 charging stations, according to the Zap-map service, with the biggest providers being ubitricity, Pod Point and BP, with Tesla in sixth place.