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Tesla Superchargers were over 10 times as reliable as these rivals
Tesla and Rivian topped this charger reliability study, outperforming competitors by a wide margin.
A new study shows that many electric vehicle (EV) charging networks were substantially less reliable than Tesla’s Superchargers or Rivian’s Adventure Network (RAN), while hardware problems accounted for the most common issue experienced
In a Consumer Reports study shared last week, Tesla and Rivian’s charging networks were found to be significantly more reliable than those of other companies, though EV owners reported a problem with about one out of every five charging sessions initiated overall. Respondents said they had issues with just 4 percent of charging sessions at Tesla’s Superchargers, making them the most reliable, while issues with Rivian’s network were reported for just 5 percent of sessions.
Comparatively, Shell Recharge users faced the most issues, with respondents detailing problems in 48 percent of charging sessions. The next least reliable networks were EVgo and Blink, which followed with 43 percent and 41 percent problems reported, respectively. DC fast-chargers had a reported issue rate of 34 percent, while owners faced problems with Level 2 chargers in 25 percent of sessions.
“The findings show that the public charging experience can vary widely based on the vehicle and the charging networks operating in one’s community and along frequent trips,” writes Drew Toher, Consumer Reports’ Campaign Manager for Sustainable Transportation projects. “This is an important consideration for those without access to home charging. With these findings, CR is encouraging all charging networks to take ownership of their performance and implement measures to improve reliability.”
The survey included responses from 1,230 owners of BEVs and plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs), detailing experiences from roughly 5,700 individual charging sessions. The majority of issues customers faced were related to hardware, while they also reported problems with payment, charging power, and other factors.
Out of those who said they had issues directly with the chargers, 76 percent said they encountered broken or unresponsive screens, or those with error messages.
Credit: Consumer Reports (graphic by Sharon Seidl)
Credit: Consumer Reports (graphic by Sharon Seidl)
Credit: Consumer Reports (graphic by Sharon Seidl)
Credit: Consumer Reports (graphic by Sharon Seidl)
Teslas constant push for improvements in action.💪
Superchargers are already among the best in the industry, but Tesla is still improving the system.⚡️ https://t.co/wD9D2Z1CJe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 21, 2025
READ MORE ON EV CHARGING: Tesla Superchargers dominate J.D. Power EV Charging Study
“By calling out broken screens, payment issues, and slow charging power, community members are crowdsourcing data that will hold charging networks accountable and improve drivers’ experience with public charging,” Toher adds. “This will help tackle the biggest impediment for consumers looking to purchase a more efficient vehicle.”
The release also notes that EV owners planning to charge beyond their home can take a few steps to help ensure the best experiences possible, including making accounts for several different charging networks, getting apps like A Better Route Planner, Plugshare, and CR partner Chargeway, and performing battery preconditioning, among others.
Tesla’s Superchargers have repeatedly been found to be the most reliable in markets around the world, and in surveys from Consumer Reports, JD Power, and other auto industry research firms. Rivian has also followed Tesla in taking routine measures to keep owners informed about the reliability of chargers. One such example includes the automaker’s deployment last April of “charging scores” for the RAN network, to help improve customer experiences by directing them to working stations.
Tesla exec highlights advantages of prefabricated Superchargers
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a photo of himself standing with the Optimus production team inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, arms crossed amid workers in hard hats and safety vests. The image captures a pivotal industrial shift: the same facility space once dedicated to building Tesla’s flagship Model S sedan and Model X SUV is now home to the company’s humanoid robot manufacturing line.
Walking the Optimus production line in Fremont pic.twitter.com/ABS0tuRibW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2026
Tesla’s Fremont Factory, acquired in 2010 from the former NUMMI joint venture between Toyota and GM, has been the company’s original U.S. manufacturing hub since Model S production began in 2012.
The Model X followed soon thereafter. These premium vehicles offered lower annual volumes, recently around 30,000 combined, compared to the high-volume Model 3 and Model Y lines that continue around the site. Over their combined run, the S and X accounted for roughly 610,000 units.
In late January 2026, during Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, Elon Musk announced the end of Model S and Model X production in Q2 2026. The final vehicles rolled off the line in early May. Rather than retooling for another vehicle, Tesla chose to convert the dedicated S/X assembly area into a dedicated Optimus Gen 3 production line.
Model 3 and Y manufacturing remains unaffected. Tesla’s official Fremont Factory page now lists Optimus alongside the 3 and Y as core products.
The conversion was executed with remarkable speed. After production stopped, crews dismantled the existing vehicle line and installed entirely new modular equipment—including lines sourced from Germany and dozens of sub-lines for actuators, batteries, and other components—in roughly four months.
Musk described the timeline as “insanely fast,” noting it would be unprecedented for any other manufacturer. Initial Optimus output is expected to ramp slowly due to the robot’s roughly 10,000 unique parts and the brand-new production processes involved. The Fremont line targets an eventual capacity of 1 million Optimus units per year.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Optimus Development Timeline
- August 19, 2021: Optimus (then called Tesla Bot) formally announced at Tesla’s first AI Day. A concept video showed a person in a suit demonstrating the vision for a general-purpose humanoid capable of dangerous, repetitive, or boring tasks using the same AI architecture as Full Self-Driving.
- 2022: Early prototypes displayed. At the second AI Day in September, semi-functional units demonstrated walking across a stage and basic arm movements
- 2023: September videos showed improved capabilities, including sorting colored blocks, precise limb awareness, and holding a Yoda pose.
- 2024-early 2025: Factory integration videos showed Optimus navigating workspaces and handling objects like battery cells.
- January 2026: Gen 3 mass-production activities began at Fremont, with reports of over 1,000 Gen 3 units already operating inside the factory for real-world learning and AI training
- April 2026: Musk confirms Optimus production on converted Fremont line would begin in late July or August 2026. The Gen 3 reveal, originally eyed for Q1, was pushed closer to production start. A second, much larger Optimus factory at Giga Texas is under construction, with volume production targeted for Summer 2027 and long-term capacity of 10 million units annually
- July 1, 2026: Musk’s on-site visit and team photo confirm the Optimus line is operational and the transition is actively progressing
Tesla positions Optimus as potentially its largest project ever, leveraging vertical integration, AI expertise, and car-like manufacturing know-how to scale humanoid robots first for its own factories and later for broader industrial and consumer use.
The Fremont conversion serves as a critical proving ground for this ambitious new chapter in Tesla’s already-rich history.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
