Why can't other cars use Tesla's charging network?

Just got back to home after a week in France, charged at various SC enroute, never saw more than 2-3 other cars charging, even at Hopwood this lunchtime. So how has the 'carnage' been like here in the UK with charing over the long bank-holiday weekend.

Well, my parents who live there would have to pay the same rate, so how could the charger possibly know if you're a tourist or not ?

What a stupid thing to say.

Sorry I meant surely locals would leave home with full charge so not really needed

The point is that non-tourists can charge at home. Take-up is going to be hardest
You only need these chargers if you want to exceed your full EV range in one day, something most owners will only do a couple of times/year.
It's city people that NEEDS these chargers to operate their EV, not rural.

That's not new though? Last summer there were similar queues at Tebay- Combination of been a 'nice' service station to stop for lunch and the only real option until you get up to Gretna. The solution is to build more SC, as without expansion and with more Teslas on the road the congestion will simply get worse and worse.

Whats interesting is Gridserve has put in x6 chargers at Kendal, and if they can do the same for sites north and south of Tebay, the congestion will all but disappear as the only reason you would than wait in a queue at Tebay is if you have 'free' SC.

Down south where there are now lots of other charging options, Bristol, Exeter, hopefully soon Oxford, actually am quite optimistic about the future of UK M-way charging. The new Gridserve charging hubs really are fantastic, loads of connector options, even separate 22KW AC points, so enticing I was even tempted to put my hand in my pocket and try one.....Though after £10 I lost my nerve and unplugged...£10 isn't alot, but compared to 'Free' it seems like a fortune .

More DC rapid chargers for everyone is what needed, between Tesla, Grideserve, maybe Inonity, actually if the government could guarantee/force/support all M-way services to have 6-12+ DC rapid charger the issue of charging EVs on long trips would be sorted. Pricing will mean people will only use them when they need to, most combustion cars at service stations don't stop to fill up at the crazy prices, and as EV range increases the need to recharge at service will reduce........The exception is ofcourse for S/X owning cheapskates, who will sit there sucking juice at 10KW at 95% SOC just because its 'free'!

Tesla really shouldn't be allowed to install/activate any more SC site unless they are open to all EVs, its pure madness to allow Tesla to only serve one group of EV owners when Gridserve is doing such a better job. If the government is serious about EV uptake they also need to make Tesla install longer charging cables at existing sites, they retrofitted CCS cables to V2 stalls pretty quickly so its not beyond their resource or skills.

It's not exclusive to Audi, as the article you posted states.

Reservations for charging?! Much like booking a table at a restaurant i suppose. What happens if you're late? Will people make multiple reservation "just in case"? We're in a new era of electric angst!

Well... it does. You just need to get a Tesla then.

American superchargers are starting to open up to non Tesla cars. I don't know whether they are all like this with the charge points between the bays and a short cable because all Tesla's plug in to the same place on the car so reverse into the bay. But with other cars parking up that charge on the front, back, either side wing or wherever else, a non Tesla might take the charger cable from the bay next to it, or the cable might not reach.

Ah, see that the videos of the US based YouTubers charging at Superchargers are linked.

From what I understand, its a pretty neat solution that Tesla has come up with. I was wondering how they would provide the converter and what they have is a simple but effective solution. Pricing seems to be a bit of an issue, but I guess this is the price you pay for convenience. And the good part, certainly for the US, is that the operation is very straightforward. App, locate, turn-up, find the charger number, click button, charge. Electrify America is NOT that simple or reliable as an example.

Only limited availability so far though, so lets see how this rolls out. Tesla need to be careful to not detriment the experience for Tesla owners, but from what I am seeing and hearing, a lot of Supercharger locations in popular areas are getting very busy a lot of the time (not just that example that was reported at ThanksGiving etc). Its very specific to locations though and Tesla needs to get on top of the demand.

On the price thing though - I see a lot of people here complaining that Tesla charging is expensive unless you get the subscription. Yes, that is true, but Electrify America (and others) can be super expensive too. And if you are going on a road trip here, you absolutely expect to pay more for fuel because the pricing can be extremely variable. Supply and demand can make a dramatic difference in the price, so a lot of people are just used to this. I dont think that it will put people off from using the service - Americans just pay the price for convenience.