Tesla accepts charge cards as payment in Europe

Tesla has begun accepting charging cards as payment for the use of its own Superchargers in Europe, albeit only indirectly. Thirty-four charging cards are available at launch, with over 40 more to follow soon.

Charging cards still cannot be used to charge at Supercharger stations themselves. What is new is that charging cards can now be stored as a payment method in the Tesla app. The cost of charging is then billed to the charging card rather than the credit card stored in the app. With Teslas, charging still starts immediately after plugging in the charging cable, while third-party vehicles must go through the usual procedure via the Tesla app to start charging.

“We’re onboarding charge cards to the Tesla App in Europe. Tesla drivers can now add this payment method for Supercharger use. 34 cards are live today, with 40+ more coming in the next few weeks,” posted the @TeslaCharging account on X. The short video shows the new process for adding a charging card to the app – and it also briefly shows that the DKV Mobility and UTA eCharge offers, which are popular among company car drivers in Germany, are included. Other providers currently available include Chargemap, Fleetcor’s Travelcard, Avia Volt Suisse, the ‘enercity EasyGo’ tariff from Hanover and the manufacturer charging services Polestar Charge and Cadillac Charge. However, it is not entirely clear what electricity costs will be charged for charging at a Supercharger: the Tesla tariff, the third-party vehicle tariff or the charging card provider’s usual roaming tariff? One thing is at least clear: Tesla’s free Supercharger kilometres cannot be used when paying with a charging card.

It should be noted that it was already possible in the past to store a few fleet cards in the Tesla app, since the end of 2023, for example, with DKV Mobility and Fleetcor’s Travelcard. The procedure tested and established with these partners is now being extended to other providers.

This continues the series of innovations in Tesla’s charging sector. Around two weeks ago, Tesla also introduced the ‘MultiPass’ function, which was presented in September, in Europe – this allows charging at other operators’ charging stations via the Tesla account.

And last week, @TeslaCharging announced that Tesla is now also sharing real-time data on its Supercharger locations with Google Maps. This means that Google’s popular map app can now be used to see how many charging spaces are available at any given charging station.

x.com

This article was first published by Sebastian Schaal for electrive’s German edition.