Newest Tesla V4 Supercharger station comes with trailer pile as summer camping trips peak

Tesla is rolling out its new V4 Supercharger stations on the hush-hush, as they are not yet hooked to charging infrastructure that can deliver NACS' promised up to 1MW output. Instead of providing V4 charging speeds, they beckon with longer cables and more ergonomic pile placement that grants easier access to Tesla and non-Tesla electric vehicles alike.

The next V4 Supercharger station of Tesla has just opened next to an Ibis hotel in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and aims to accommodate all those long summer trips with camping trailers that European families are so fond of. There is a dedicated charging pile with big open space for electric vehicles with trailers hitched to pull through. The other 11 V4 charging piles are covered by a metal structure that seems to be meant for a canopy on which a solar roof will be installed.

The first V4 Supercharger that Tesla opened is again in Europe, near a highway to Amsterdam. Some curious drivers of non-Tesla electric cars already tested that one and confirmed the advantage of a longer cable when it comes to approaching and parking at a charging pile.

While Teslas have their NACS charging port at the rear and make do with the relatively short cable that regular V2 or V3 Superchargers offer, other electric car brands can have their ports all over the place. When Tesla opened its first Magic Dock Superchargers with a CCS adapter in the US for other EVs, it warned their owners to avoid blocking two chargers at once. Its experience in Europe showed that non-Tesla drivers often took more space while trying to find the best approach for their respective charging port placement.

The V4 Superchargers, however, are taller, with a much longer charging cable running on the outside of the pile. According to their specifications, they could eventually offer faster charging speeds than the current V3 Superchargers, within the theoretical maximum of 1MW that Tesla lists for its open-source NACS charging standard.

For automakers like Hyundai, for example, whose EVs come with a modern 800V powertrain, the comparatively slow charging rate of Superchargers has become a hurdle before the eventual adoption of Tesla's NACS connector.

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