If you own an electric vehicle that isn’t a Tesla, your struggles at Tesla Superchargers could soon be over.
EV charging equipment supplier A2Z plans to launch an extension cable this summer that solves one of the most annoying aspects of charging non-Tesla EVs at Tesla Superchargers: short cables designed mainly for Teslas.
An increasing number of car buyers with EVs from General Motors, Ford, Polestar, Honda and other brands, now have Tesla Supercharger access with the NACS-to-CCS adapter. V3 Tesla Supercharger cables are optimized for vehicles with a rear-left charging port—perfect for Teslas but awkward for other EVs that have ports in different locations on the vehicle. That means owners have to park creatively at Superchargers to access the cable, and sometimes even take two spots. A2Z wants to solve this problem with its new Supercharger extension cable.
Photo by: State Of Charge
Tesla Supercharger extension cord A2Z
InsideEVs contributor and the host of the YouTube channel State of Charge Tom Moloughney recently got an exclusive look at the Supercharger extension cable. He tested it on his Rivian R1S using a Level 2 home charger and the Tesla Supercharger. It worked flawlessly on both.
The cable he tested, however, was a prototype and the final version will likely be different. The unit tested here is a 16-foot-long extension cord weighing over 21 pounds. That’s unnecessarily heavy and owners would have to lug it around. The final design is shorter and lighter. It’s estimated to be five feet long and weigh seven pounds. Unlike most NACS-to-CCS adapters rated for 1,000 volts and 500 amps, the cable is rated for 1,000 volts and a slightly lower 350 amps. A2Z said it favored ease of use over outright charging speeds. A higher-rated cable could be much heavier due to extra thermal insulation requirements.
So how does it work? The extension cable has NACS pins on both ends, so you still need a NACS-to-CCS adapter to plug it into your non-Tesla EV. You simply latch the cord into the adapter, plug it into your EV and connect the other end to the Tesla Supercharger cable. On both of Moloughney’s tests, charging started seamlessly and the speeds were near-identical to what they would have been without using an extension cord. That means owners would no longer need to overstretch the small V3 Supercharger cables or hog multiple spots at Supercharger stations. The extension cord would solve this problem.
What about safety? A2Z said the extension cord has four thermal sensors, two on each end. One pair of sensors de-rates the charging, meaning it lowers the charging speeds when temperatures get hot, and the other pair of sensors can completely cut off charging if the thermal threshold is surpassed. “Think of it as a giant elongated adapter,” A2Z engineer Robert Powell—who was formerly at Tesla—told Moloughney in an interview. “It keeps the communication going for not only the vehicle side temperature sensors but also the charger side temperature sensors.” The enclosures are also IP-67 rated, so snow or small puddles around the charger won’t be a problem, Powell said.
He added that he has tested the 5-foot extension cable on several EVs, including the Chevy Equinox EV, Ford F-150 Lightning, Chevy Bolt EV, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and more—it had no issues reaching the charging port on any of these models.
There are more solutions on the way. All major automakers have announced that their future EVs will get the Tesla connector factory fitted. Plus, the newer V4 dispenser has longer cables, and the current V3 stations are on track to be upgraded with longer cables, too. But Tesla has over 2,500 charging stations with nearly 30,000 ports in the U.S. alone, as per the latest publicly available data. It could be years before all of them are upgraded. The extension cord could bring relief to both Tesla and non-Tesla EV owners in the interim, with better use of the space available at Supercharger stations.
Amine Zitore, the CEO of A2Z said a broader testing program for a select number of EV drivers will open in February and market launch is expected this summer. Preorders will open a month before the launch date (Which we don’t know exactly yet) and it’s currently listed for $285 in the U.S.—that’s without factoring in any potential tariffs the Trump administration might finalize on Canadian-made products. Zitore also added that it won’t go on sale without proper UL or other equivalent safety certification, and the company is already in the process of obtaining the safety certificates.
“We announced the product a year ago and then postponed the release date,” Zitore said. “But it’s for the good. We are trying to release a safe product to avoid injuries, damage or any recalls.”
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