Tesla’s Awesome Supercharger Map Update Takes The Guesswork Out Of Finding A Plug

• Tesla’s 2025 holiday software update has arrived, with a new Supercharging feature. 
• Supercharger Site Maps display exactly which stalls are occupied. It’s being piloted at select locations. 
• The clever feature shows the kind of edge Tesla has when it comes to the end-to-end driver experience. 

Every EV driver has been there. You show up to a station—especially a big one in a crowded parking lot—and you embark on the scavenger hunt of actually locating an available plug before someone else snags it first.

Tesla and other charging providers have long communicated how many chargers are open versus occupied at a particular location. So you can at least get there with some confidence that you won’t have to wait. 

On Friday, Tesla announced a clever feature that should make things even easier. In its big holiday software update—basically Christmas for Tesla fans—Tesla is rolling out a “Supercharger Site Map.” And it shows that Tesla’s still the one to beat in America when it comes to vehicle software and, broadly, how its whole car/charging/software ecosystem comes together. 

Now, as Tesla drivers approach a Supercharger they routed to, a 3D map will pop up in the navigation that shows exactly which stalls are taken, available or down for maintenance. Tesla says you can also tap a “View Site Map” button to show the map on command. 

The map also displays where the actual Supercharger post is at each parking spot. And Tesla says it shows nearby businesses too. So you can make sure to park closest to the Starbucks. 

The feature is piloting at 18 sites now and will eventually hit all Superchargers, Tesla said, without specifying a timeline for that broader rollout. 

This looks like a big upgrade to the charging experience. What’s more, it’s really only possible for Tesla to implement so seamlessly. After a bad route-planning experience in a Hyundai, Mack Hogan argued in a column that other car companies should take note of the Tesla way—that is, extensive vertical integration and control over the entire vehicle experience. And this little, clever charging improvement validates the hypothesis. 

“It’s amazing what Tesla can do with its vertical integration. This should make Supercharging a little more magical, especially at larger & busy sites,” Max de Zegher, Tesla’s director of charging across several regions said in an X post about the new feature. 

The feature is piloting at 18 Supercharger locations, with more on the way. 

Photo by: Tesla

And he has a point. Tesla was able to do this because it owns the chargers, the cars, the navigation system—at least, until the Apple CarPlay integration rumors come true—and the entire back end. Think about the coordination it would take for another charging network to implement this across dozens of car models from different brands. I’m not saying it would be impossible. Or that this kind of feature won’t hit Google Maps someday—it could, and it should.

But it would be a lot harder. This shows that for now, despite the vary fair criticisms about stagnant Tesla sales or its failure to roll out innovative new models, when it comes to overall driver experience Elon Musk’s company still has the edge.  

If you experience this in the wild, let us know how it went—and where you found it. 

Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com