Tesla Will Begin Building Upgraded Supercharger Stations In United States
In order to keep up with electric vehicle demand, Tesla is going to be upgrading existing Supercharger stations across the United States. They will also be adding two 20-stall facilities in New York and California to improve both long distance traveling and urban areas.
Updated May 26 2019, 2:15 p.m. ET
Having trouble finding room at a Tesla Supercharger station to get your electric car charged up? Many United States locations are getting an upgrade while two new stations in Albany, New York, and Burbank, California, will have 20 stalls available. This will be an attempt to fix an overflow problem that some stations have to deal with while also preparing for the new Model 3.
In the beginning, Supercharger stations had anywhere from four to six stalls when first built. That number has gradually bumped up from six to eight, then 10 to 12, and now 20 based on the latest report from Electrek. Tesla’s Supercharger in Norway was the first 20-stall location when it launched last September.
Albany’s large Supercharger station is made with highway traffic in mind as it will be located along I-90 and I-87. Burbank’s version has a focus on urban living and will complement another often-busy Supercharger a mile away. The older station has six stalls and there are constantly lines of cars waiting. Tesla even sent letters to Model S owners in the area back in 2015 to stop using the station as much and to charge more frequently at home.
Since that strategy predictably took a blow to the car manufacturer’s image, they’ve been focusing on upgrading and making their charging stations work even faster. Adding more stalls at Superchargers across the US have been a “top priority” since early this year. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that vision on Twitter when answering somebody’s question on if older Superchargers would receive more stalls.
Tesla is preparing for a boost in the electric vehicle’s automobile market share. Their Model 3, which will be their most affordable vehicle yet, has well over 300,000 preorders. It could take them over two years to finally meet the demands, but they are expecting to deliver roughly 20,000 units by December of this year.
These new Superchargers are not the massive editions announced back in April. There have been visions of large stations in urban areas that would have anywhere from 50 to 100 stalls. Those would also be equipped with “Supercharger V3” technology that output at a rate of 350 kilowatts.
On top of telling their consumers to use their charging stations less, the company has also received some criticism on using fossil fuels for their Superchargers. While it would be very hard to run a station with 50 or 100 stalls just on renewable energy, Musk has stated that they could run off the grid assuming they’re in “moderate use” and they have the ability to absorb lots of sunlight.
