Charging

XPeng and Halo Energy opened a four-bay X-Energy site in Hong Kong on 22 September 2026 with one 1,000 kW liquid-cooled charger, backed by a 400 kWh battery that lets it hit 1,040 kW peak from a 120–240 kW grid connection. Single-gun output is up to 250 kW depending on the car, and XPeng's fastest models peak at 619.6 kW. He Xiaopeng says more than 1,000 XPeng stations are planned across 13 European countries, without a timeline.

Tesla energised a four-stall Supercharger at Vanderhoof on Monday 21 September and an eight-stall site at Terrace on Tuesday 22 September, both V4 at up to 325 kW and both priced at CAD $0.24/kWh for Tesla drivers against $0.32/kWh for other brands. They are part of a planned 720 km corridor from Prince George to Prince Rupert that is not yet continuous.

Verivox published an analysis on 17 September 2026 putting home charging at 5.44 euros per 100 km against 18.02 for petrol and 12.47 for diesel, a record 70% and 56% gap. The headline holds only for wallbox charging, and the public-charging figures it compares against are from March 2025.

EnBW has begun deploying XCharge C7 cabinets rated at up to 480 kW across its German network, starting at its Karlsruhe headquarters site and the Nettetal hub near the Dutch border, with a two-digit number of charging parks planned by the end of 2026. No Tesla can accept 480 kW, and that is not the point: the headroom means two cars sharing one cabinet can both charge at full speed instead of splitting a smaller budget.

E.ON Drive Infrastructure has opened Czechia's first public 600 kW charging point at Dolní Dvořiště on the Austrian border, on the E55 transit route south. The upgraded site offers 300, 400 and 600 kW and is the operator's third Czech location built to serve electric trucks and buses. Tesla passenger cars peak at 250 kW, so the value to a Tesla driver is headroom at a busy site rather than a faster charge.

From 1 January 2027 the EU's alternative fuels regulation reaches backwards for the first time, forcing card readers or contactless terminals onto public chargers of 50 kW or more that were installed before 13 April 2024 - but only those on the TEN-T road network or in safe and secure parking areas. Older chargers elsewhere have no retrofit obligation at all, which is why 'card payment everywhere from January' is the wrong reading.

Lidl France cut its Lidl Plus AC charging rate from €0.29 to €0.18/kWh on 18 September, a 38% reduction across more than 5500 charging points at over 1000 stores; DC stays at €0.29 with the app. European Model 3 and Model Y cap at 11 kW on a 22 kW AC post, so a half-hour shop is about 5.5 kWh for a euro — cheap, but incidental rather than a Supercharger substitute. An earlier Lidl France discount ran for a fixed window and expired.

R.R. Plett Trucking of Langley, British Columbia will begin construction in October 2026 on Canada's first Tesla Megachargers: two 1.2 MW MCS units, at its Langley headquarters and at Kamloops, with BC Hydro supplying capacity. They are being built nine months ahead of the 12 Tesla Semis due in June 2027. Trevor Plett says the chargers cut turnaround from three hours to thirty minutes, enabling double shifts. The company has run eight Volvo VNR Electric tractors since 2024; the Semi is under 19,000 lb against about 23,000 lb and carries roughly 500 km of range against 300-350 km. The Semi is not eligible for British Columbia's Go Electric commercial vehicle rebates but is said to cost less upfront than the subsidised Volvos. Further sites at Golden, B.C. and Calgary are under consideration over three to five years.

Tesla raised the price of its home charging hardware again on 18 September 2026. In Canada the Wall Connector reached CA$815 and the Universal CA$945, the fifth increase since early June and 75% above the unit's former low of CA$465. US prices rose the same week to $585 and $660. Tesla has offered no reason for any of it, and European pricing is set separately on a different unit.

On 16 September 2026 Tesla Charging made forecasted Supercharger stall availability work over Android Auto, widening it from June's rollout to EVs with Google Maps built in. The feature estimates how many stalls will be free when you arrive rather than how many are free now, and it is opt-in: participating drivers share navigation data that improves the forecast.

Forum Mobility announced four new Californian heavy-duty charging depots on 17 September 2026, adding 30 MW. Tesla will operate public Megacharging sites at three of them, marking a shift towards a partner-built Semi network rather than Tesla-owned stations. Over 330 Tesla Semis are contracted across Forum's network.

A Siemens study commissioned by EIT Urban Mobility, ACEA and the European EV-charging industry association finds Europe needs about €24.7 billion of electricity distribution grid investment by 2030 to absorb EV growth — falling to about €14.1 billion if charging is actively managed. Most of the spend is street-level low-voltage cable, and the national BEV shares behind it range from 4.6% in Italy to 27.3% in Sweden.

An independent charging test of the Mercedes CLA 350 4MATIC recorded a 349 kW peak, about 29 kW above Mercedes' own 320 kW figure, and 10-80% in 26 minutes against a claimed 22. The average over that window was 193 kW. The 85 kWh pack is shared with the European CLA 250+, and the 800-volt architecture is the reason the peak sits where a Tesla's cannot.

Porsche opened orders on 16 September 2026 for an 11 kW inductive charging system on the Cayenne Electric, available in Germany and other European markets. The vehicle-side pad and the floor plate together list at 6,961.49 euros on a car that starts at 105,200 euros. It charges no faster than a wallbox and loses more energy doing it — but it is the first factory-fitted wireless charging a European buyer can actually order, and it arrives while Tesla's own inductive work is still aimed at cars with nobody in them.

Ionity's direct-payment price runs to 0.91 euro per kWh in Italy against 0.62 euro in France, and its cheapest subscription rate is 0.48 euro against 0.31 euro. Ionity blames energy and operating costs; utilisation explains the rest, with BEVs at 8% of Italian new-car sales against 29% in France. The Power subscription repays itself in one motorway charge.

Tesla unveiled a pre-assembled Accordion Supercharger on 15 September 2026, designed to expand along a trench between facing parking rows where a conventional kerb-line install will not fit. The 20%-cheaper-to-install and 16-stalls-per-truck figures quoted with it are the same numbers Tesla published for the folding Supercharger in March.

Slovak operator ejoin says it successfully tested a 1 MW charging station for passenger cars at a motorway rest area, with a photograph showing 918 kW. The hardware is going into about a dozen trans-European corridor sites with CCS2 and MCS connectors, opening through the end of September 2026. At the same operator's existing 600 kW hub, a Cybertruck peaked at 405 kW and then averaged 113 kW.

AEDIVE counted 52,746 operational public charging points in Spain on 1 September 2026, below the 52,985 it reported in March. The drop is a counting change, not a loss of hardware: the association now strips duplicates, dead installations and older equipment that fails payment and interoperability rules.

On 14 September 2026, the press day of IAA Transportation in Hannover, Tesla opened Semi Charging for Business in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. Fleets can order a Megacharger or a 125 kW Basecharger for their own depots. Tesla has published no European prices, and European Semi deliveries are not due until early 2027.

Tibber launched Grid Rewards in Germany on 11 September 2026, letting EV drivers earn credits by allowing charging to be shifted at under an hour's notice and the flexibility sold on the intraday power market. Tibber quotes up to EUR 150 a year from Grid Rewards, up to EUR 440 with Smart Charging and up to EUR 630 including reduced grid fees, at 10,000 km a year.

Tesla Charging says its off-grid Oasis Supercharger at Lost Hills handled 6,038 sessions across 164 stalls over the 2026 Labor Day weekend with no queues, peaking at 11.2 sessions per stall and 116 cars drawing 11.4 MW at once. The site runs on an 11 MW solar array and 39 MWh of Megapacks.

Tesla changed Supercharger prices across Canada on 11 September 2026 without announcing it: up at more than 200 sites, down at 65, unchanged at 10. Most increases are 1 to 3 Canadian cents per kWh, but Alberta sites jumped from CA$0.51 to CA$0.57. The same day, Tesla cut German prices.

Tesla lowered Supercharger prices across many German sites overnight into 11 September 2026, in places by more than 10 ct/kWh. Magdeburg-Rothensee is now the cheapest in the country at 20 ct/kWh off-peak, and peak rates at many sites sit between 36 and 39 ct. Tesla has said nothing about why, or whether the cut is permanent.

Audi has released bidirectional charging for the A2 e-tron and the updated Q4 e-tron in Germany, paired with an Octopus Energy V2G tariff that charges at 18 ct/kWh below the standard rate and pays a EUR 30 monthly bonus. The bonus needs the car on the cable for 300 hours a month, Audi has not said which wallbox qualifies, and no start date has been given.