Tesla drivers in Sweden are stuck in wait lines at Superchargers stations. Tesla blames union strikes preventing them from connecting their new stations to the grid.
For more than a year now, Tesla service workers in Sweden have been on strike, demanding inclusion in a collective agreement.
Tesla has historically opposed unions and successfully resisted unionization at its manufacturing facilities. Initially, this strike in Sweden seemed manageable, involving only a few dozen workers. However, Tesla underestimated the strength of solidarity among Swedish workers.
While the automaker managed to get around the service workers strike, it is now feeling the impact of “sympathy strikes” from other unions in Sweden.
Several other unions in the country, including port workers, electricians, and cleaning services that work with Tesla, have refused to cooperate with the company in support of the strike.
Now, one of those sympathy strikes is really starting to cause trouble to Tesla owners, and other EV owners.
Union IF Metall used its influence to prevent Tesla from powering new Supercharger stations to put pressure to bring them to the negotiation table, and during the holidays, it is resulting in extremely long lines at the working Supercharger stations, as some posted on X (Nicklas Nilsso):
We have seen long wait lines at Tesla Superchargers before, but I think this might be the longest I’ve ever seen.
The same Tesla owner posted a local Supercharger map that showed that the vast majority of stations in the country currently required wait times to access a charger:
Max de Zegher, Tesla’s head of charging, commented on the situation and blamed the union strikes for preventing over 100 new Superchargers from being energized:
One of those “sympathy strikes” is getting pretty impactful As forecasted, Swedish EV drivers are suffering and EV infrastructure is not keeping up unless Superchargers get energized by the utilities blocking them from getting energized. Tesla Superchargers are critical infrastructure, especially for peak travel days like this. 100+ stalls in Sweden would have been energized this winter, if it wasn’t for sympathy strikes.
He added that there’s “no clear path” to fixing the situation:
Despite no clear path yet to getting turned on, we will also continue to invest and build sites for Swedish EV drivers, including more capacity in Malung, Käppen, Vansbro, Idre, Särna, and Sunne. We appreciate the support from the public to help us get Superchargers energized asap. Waiting in line like this is super painful, hurts EV adoption and totally fixable!
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken a hard line against unions and shown unwillingness to negotiate with them.
The automaker is also facing growing union pushbacks in Germany.
Electrek’s Take
That’s a bummer. As de Zegher says, wait lines at chargers are not a great look for EVs. The good news is that most people know the reason for this problem in this specific case is this union dispute rather than an actual problem with EVs.
Now, of course, Tesla blames it on the unions, and the unions blame it on Tesla for not engaging with them.
Can’t we just all be friends?