Can Tesla Open Sufficient Superchargers To Fulfill Wants Of New Teslas + Present Vehicles + Different EVs?

With Tesla producing one million automobiles per yr within the US quickly, and in addition opening up Superchargers to different EVs, how can Tesla open sufficient Superchargers to satisfy the charging wants of all of these new Teslas plus the wants of present Tesla automobiles plus the wants of different EVs that can presumably achieve entry to Tesla Superchargers?

“A hen in each pot and two Teslas in each storage.” Major Road, Orem, Utah. February 20, 2023. Picture by Mary Hasler.

President Hoover was imagined to have mentioned “a hen in each pot and two automobiles in each storage” throughout his US presidential marketing campaign in 1928. The image above was taken a couple of blocks from my home in Lindon, Utah. What number of two-Tesla properties are there now? What number of will there be in 2025, or 2030?

In case you aren’t acquainted with my story, my spouse and I reside in Lindon, Utah, within the winter and in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, in the course of the summer season. Our Tesla Mannequin 3 Lengthy Vary has served us nicely for over 3 years and over 90,000 miles. We have now commuted the 1500 miles to Wisconsin twice, to our daughter’s home in North Carolina as soon as, and to our buddy’s apartment in Southern California as soon as. We have now commuted the 300 miles to Saint George a number of instances. I additionally commute 100 miles spherical journey twice every week within the winter to show snowboarding on the Brighton ski resort. I’ve been extraordinarily impressed by Tesla’s Supercharger community. The chargers are spaced at 70 to 120 mile intervals on all of the Interstate highways. They’re by no means out of service, and also you simply plug in they usually mechanically cost your automotive and invoice the bank card that Tesla has on file for you. Whereas I can’t touch upon Supercharger demand and response throughout the nation, I can let you know what I see in my house space and on my cross-country journeys. This additionally appears to be the expertise of different Tesla house owners.

A number of days in the past, I needed to watch for a Supercharger stall for the primary time. For years, in Salt Lake Metropolis, Tesla has made do with one 10-stall, 150-kW Supercharger that opened March 6, 2015. On March 10, 2021, Tesla supplemented that by opening a 12-stall, 250-kW Supercharger within the southern Salt Lake Metropolis metro area within the metropolis of Draper. On December 9, 2021, Tesla additionally opened an 8-stall, 250-kW Supercharger close to downtown Salt Lake Metropolis. My main charging is finished with a L2 charger in our garages in Lindon, Three Lakes, and Saint George. Nevertheless, in the future not too long ago I had already made my run to the Brighton ski resort and knew I’d be making one other spherical journey to Salt Lake Metropolis that day, so I ended to prime off on the Draper Supercharger. All 12 stalls had been occupied! Happily, I solely needed to wait 5–10 minutes for a stall to liberate.

Stress on the Supercharger community from Lyft and Uber drivers: I’d estimate the overwhelming majority of Supercharging has been performed by drivers making cross-country journeys. Even the unique Tesla Mannequin S and X house owners that get free Supercharging seldom use them for native driving since charging in your storage is a lot extra handy, and simpler on the batteries. Solely a small proportion of Tesla drivers don’t have any charging at house and depend on Superchargers for many of their charging.

I normally use my time at Superchargers to speak with different drivers to see what I can be taught. The driving force within the subsequent stall at Draper was an Uber driver. He had rented his Tesla from Hertz. It was one of many 50,000 Teslas delivered as a part of the 100,000 Teslas ordered by Hertz for its rental fleet. I assumed they’d be used principally at airports for vacationers who would then normally do solely a small quantity of native driving. Nevertheless, if Hertz is certainly renting Teslas to many Uber and Lyft drivers, they’ll put quite a lot of stress on the Supercharger community, as a result of they’re typically going to want to cost a number of instances per day. Since Tesla not too long ago put in two new Superchargers and has a 3^rd scheduled for later this yr within the Salt Lake metro space, Tesla could possibly sustain with rising demand.

I’ve been very impressed with the Supercharger additions Tesla has made to the cross-country routes I’ve been driving within the final 3 years. On the 300-mile route from Salt Lake to Saint George, Tesla has upgraded the mid-route charger at Beaver from 8 stalls at 150 kW to 32 stalls, with all the brand new ones at 250 kW. They’ve additionally added a 16-stall, 250-kW Supercharger in Cedar Metropolis not removed from Saint George. That leaves the 8-stall, 150-kW Supercharger in Nephi nearer to Salt Lake Metropolis because the weak hyperlink within the system. Happily, I see that Tesla is placing in one other Supercharger in Nephi, Utah, in Q3 of 2023, which can remove that final weak spot on the Salt Lake to Saint George run. Not solely do many Utahans drive the route due to the delicate dry climate in Saint George, however it’s on the favored route between Southern California, Las Vegas, Zion Nationwide Park, and Salt Lake Metropolis. On my Utah-to-Wisconsin cross-country run, Tesla added chargers in Casper, Wyoming; Mankato, Minnesota; and Menomonie, Wisconsin; which make the journey simpler for me driving with a motorbike rack and two large mountain ebikes on again.

How do I do know what future chargers Tesla is planning for areas that I do know want consideration? There are two web sites, Tesla’s personal Supercharging web page and a web site referred to as supercharge.information. In my area, I do know that Tesla is planning a brand new charger I discussed in downtown SLC for Q2 2023, which can alleviate a number of the oversubscription of chargers in Salt Lake. Supercharge.information additionally tells me that the Minocqua Supercharger has 8 stalls at 250 kW and that it opened November 17, 2022. Additional, that’s how I do know that the Nephi charging scenario will enhance quickly.

Additions like this proceed to open up the state, on this case to Northern Wisconsin and the Higher Peninsula of Michigan. You may examine Supercharger availability and plans in your area to see if Tesla is quickly filling in gaps there as nicely.

What about tremendous busy routes just like the SoCal-to-Las Vegas run? Final yr we drove from St George in Southern, Utah, via Las Vegas, and on to Southern California. That means we acquired to see what Tesla is doing on routes the place there are muchos Teslas. Shock! The Supercharger in Baker between Las Vegas and California already has 40 stalls. Sadly, these solely have a most of 150 kW. We slipped into the one vacant stall (see image under). Nevertheless, simply 50 miles to the north on I-15 on the Primm Nevada Supercharger there are 42 non-shared stations with a 250 kW max capability every. Tesla is upgrading the Supercharger in Quartzsite, Arizona, to 88 stations and a Tesla worker on the Nephi Supercharger reported that at the least two Superchargers in California have already got over 100 stalls. One among these is in Barstow, California.

40-station Tesla Supercharger in Baker, California. February 21, 2022. Picture by Fritz Hasler.

Nevertheless, these Superchargers are pipsqueaks in comparison with the most important Supercharger station on the planet, the 637 stall Supercharger in Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen, with 12.6 million residents, is the companion metropolis to Hong Kong. It’s the house metropolis to BYD company, a world chief in batteries and electrical autos.

Backside line: Tesla is making a monumental effort to maintain up with Supercharger demand. What is going on in my area is unquestionably occurring in lots of others. Solely time will inform if it’s sufficient.

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