Yesterday evening, it was made known that Tesla Malaysia had started opening up its Superchargers to EVs from other brands. This is a big deal, given that they are some of the most reliable DC fast chargers around; the move also represents the Silicon Valley carmaker’s fulfilment of its long-overdue obligation to open at least 30% of its chargers to other vehicles, as part of the BEV Global Leaders programme.
We wanted to try out these chargers for ourselves, and fortunately I had just the car for the job – my trusty Hyundai Ioniq 6. With its 800-volt architecture enabling DC charging at up to 235 kW, it was the perfect vehicle to stretch the chargers’ legs, what with their claimed output of 250 kW. Or at least, so I thought.
First, some housekeeping. Superchargers carry preferential pricing for Tesla owners starting from only 93 sen per kWh, but non-Tesla EVs get slapped with a fee of RM1.80 per kWh. There’s also an “congestion fee” (i.e. an idle fee) of RM2.00 per minute if the chargers are busy, applied once the state of charge exceeds 80%.
That’s not cheap by any means, given that there are plenty of other high-powered DC chargers – including the 350 kW Xpeng-branded Charge+ chargers at KL Eco City – that cost as low as RM1.50 per kWh. When you consider that battery capacities can exceed 100 kWh these days, this 30 sen difference can lead to a significant extra outlay.
Tesla currently operates Superchargers at 17 locations in Malaysia, but only four of these are open to other brands. These are the V3 stations at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur and Gamuda Cove, as well as the V4 stations at i-City Finance Avenue in Shah Alam and IOI City Mall in Putrajaya.
It seems that Tesla has been rather strategic with its choices – the locations within the core Central area had other chargers that were either much slower (Pavilion) or much more expensive (i-City). The other two were far away enough from civilisation that the presence of cheaper high-powered DC chargers nearby would not hurt it. Naturally, as I live in KL, I chose Pavilion as it was by far and away the closest one (by the way, the stations still carried a sign saying that non-Tesla vehicles hogging the chargers would be clamped).
Parking up, I realised the error of my ways. The V3 chargers there had very short cables that were specifically designed for Teslas – their charging ports are located on the left rear side. As mine was on the opposite side, I could not plug up until I repositioned my car to take up about a third of the next bay.
Yes, for a short period of time I was one of those people, but thankfully there was no one else there. No doubt that a V4 charger – which has a much longer cable to better fit a wider variety of EVs – would’ve made for a better (and less embarrassing) experience.
Opening the Tesla app, I was prompted to input my billing particulars and, oddly enough, my IC number. Since the Supercharger had no way of talking to the car, I could not use the brilliant auto charge feature – another area where using a Tesla would still be superior. Still, starting the charging process was simple enough – just select the charger and tap on “Start Charging.”
Charging initiated, I looked at my phone and…what? Only 97 kW?
That’s right – despite my car’s fancy 800-volt system, I was pulling less wattage than a lowly Proton eMas 7. Granted, I did start at 50% charge, but I knew the Ioniq 6 was still capable of much more than that. It was then that I realised the problem with using a charger uniquely configured to maximise Tesla’s low-voltage, high-amperage charging strategy.
You see, Tesla vehicles charge at 400 volts, so to pull the full 250 kW requires them to accept well north of 600 amps. The Hyundai is capable of just over 300 amps, so even in an ideal world the maximum it could’ve accepted is 120 kW. That’s even before you take into account the fact that the Ioniq 6’s built-in DC-DC converter limits 400-volt charging to a measly 100 kW or so, and it’s been reported that many other 800-volt vehicles also suffer from the same limitation.
As such, you will rarely be able to hit the high charging speeds a Supercharger is capable of, unless you have a 400-volt vehicle capable of that high an amperage (such as the BMW i5, which can accept up to 205 kW). We should also point out that 800-volt EVs without a built-in DC-DC converter – most notably, the new Mercedes-Benz CLA – would likely not be able to charge at all.
For the small but growing group of 800-volt EV owners, using a non-Tesla DC fast charger – the vast majority of 100 kW-plus chargers in Malaysia are 800-volt capable – is a far better solution. To illustrate that point, I later plugged into the aforementioned KL Eco City chargers, which had longer (and far less awkward to use) cables and almost immediately provided my car with a solid 155 kW of power, despite my car being at a higher state of charge by then.
All in all, I spent six minutes and 30 seconds at the Pavilion Supercharger to charge from 50 to 61%, netting me 9.81 kWh and costing RM17.65 in the process. At the 97 kW that I managed to hit, it would’ve taken me about 15 minutes to charge to 80%; as a comparison, it would take me 18 minutes to charge my car’s 77.4 kWh battery from 10 to 80% at the KL Eco City chargers.
So, until Tesla Malaysia either upgrades all its chargers to V4 and offer full 800-volt charging, or drastically reduce its per-kWh prices to mitigate the various inconveniences, I’m afraid the move to open up Superchargers to other brands is not the game changer that we all hoped it would be.
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so much fuss and effort and wasted time just to charge your car. smart T20 better pay RM3.2 per liter for Ron97 to fuel their AMG45 or BMW M4 because ron95 will cause engine pinging premature detonation
Making yourself a slave
Is like hire a worker and still
need to worry his happiness
Such a brainless take, classic dumbo around these parts.
Talking so much smack just to drive a hyundai. Brother, use your brain and think abit la. All of your so called arguments can be easily dismissed.
You focus heavily on the RM1.80/kWh pricing compared to RM1.50 alternatives, but that ignores reliability, uptime, payment integration, and the fact that most charging sessions aren’t full 100 kWh fills where a 30 sen difference becomes dramatic. You speculate that Tesla “strategically” opened less competitive sites without evidence, when rollout sequencing could just as easily be due to grid capacity, demand management, or phased software deployment. On the technical side, you’re effectively blaming Tesla’s V3 400-volt architecture for your Hyundai Ioniq 6 limiting 400V charging to around 100 kW via its own DC-DC conversion design, even though that’s a constraint of Hyundai’s system rather than a flaw in the Supercharger. Starting your test at 50% state of charge also skews the comparison because charging curves naturally taper there, so highlighting 97 kW as disappointing lacks full curve context. Comparing a hypothetical 50–80% session at Pavilion with a 10–80% session at KL Eco City isn’t apples-to-apples either. The short V3 cables are a known legacy design optimized for Teslas, and Tesla has already addressed this with longer-cable V4 units, so presenting it as systemic inefficiency feels transitional rather than structural. You also speculate that some 800V cars might not charge at all without providing evidence, which risks sounding alarmist. Ultimately, it seems like you measured instantaneous peak kW and cost per kWh but didn’t account for uptime, power stability, integration simplicity, or long-term network strategy. To me, what you demonstrated isn’t that Tesla Superchargers are inefficient — it’s that a 400V-optimized network won’t maximize an 800V car’s peak numbers, which is a compatibility nuance, not a failure.
On the CLA point specifically, I think that was one of the weakest parts of your argument. You singled out the new Mercedes-Benz CLA and suggested that 800-volt EVs “without a built-in DC-DC converter” would likely not be able to charge at all on Tesla Superchargers. The problem is that this is speculative and presented without evidence. Modern 800V platforms are almost always engineered with some form of voltage flexibility — either through onboard DC-DC boosting, split battery architecture, or wide input tolerance — precisely because 400V DC chargers are still extremely common worldwide. It would be commercially reckless for Mercedes to release a mass-market EV that can’t use a large portion of global CCS infrastructure. Unless you have confirmation from Mercedes’ technical documentation stating the CLA cannot accept 400V DC input, implying it “likely won’t charge at all” reads more like fear framing than engineering analysis. At most, the realistic scenario would be reduced charging speed — not total incompatibility. That’s a big difference, and presenting the worst-case scenario as probable weakens the credibility of the broader critique.
how outdated are you. living inside your musk bubble. the cla inability to use 400v is very well documented
bro…. shushhhhh. we are trying to get the non tesla ev to forget about using tesla so its exclusive for us
Poor Tesla fanbois. Now u will get all the cheap cina ev hogging your bays. Plug in and dont kena idle charge. B40 ev will sure door ding yr precious tesla.