Tesla deploys record number of Superchargers as usage increases with growing Model 3 fleet

With Tesla’s new focus on turning a profit during the second half of the year, we are keeping an eye out for some programs potentially slowing down as Tesla cuts spending.

Superchargers apparently don’t represent an area where Tesla plans to cut spending since the company deployed a record number of Superchargers during the last week and ahead of the rollout of the third generation ‘V3’ Supercharger.

Early last month, Tesla achieved an important milestone for its Supercharger network: it reached 10,000 Superchargers worldwide.

It was about 5 months behind Tesla’s planned deployment, but the automaker now seems to have picked up steam in the rollout of its fast-charging stations.

In the past week alone, Tesla opened over 20 new Supercharger stations – several of them with over 12 stalls for a total of more than 250 Superchargers in the space of 7 days.

According to Supercharger.info, Tesla opened new stations or added stalls to existing stations at 24 different locations in the past week – resulting in a spike of new stalls:

There are some stations that haven’t even shown up on the Supercharger network tracking site yet.

One of those stations is in Islandia in Long Island, New York. Electrek reader Ronald Chiu stopped by the new station and shared a few images with us:

Tesla is opening new stations around the world, but the recent burst is focused in the US where the need for Superchargers is accelerating at a higher pace than anywhere else since Tesla is currently delivering the Model 3 only in North America.

The automaker could virtually double the size of its customer fleet in the space of a year in the US, which would significantly increase the burden on its charging networks.

Most of the charging is done at home, but with a higher charge rate than most other EVs on the market, Tesla’s vehicles enable long-distance travel and therefore, customers like to take advantage of the growing network allowing them to travel long-distances at low costs.

Though that cost has recently increased for owners without unlimited free Supercharging since Tesla increased the cost of using its Supercharger stations – even doubled it in some regions.

That said, it still remains less expensive than gasoline.

The cost of using the stations mainly applies to Model 3 owners as most Model S and Model X owners have access to free unlimited Supercharging through Tesla’s referral program.

Tesla plans to use the money generated through its Supercharger stations to expand the network.

Last month, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla has thousand more Supercharger stations in the construction/permit phase.

The company released a new map of its planned expansion for the rest of the year and into next year.

Electrek’s Take

It’s going to be an exciting year for the Supercharger network. Evidently, Tesla is accelerating the deployment right now with more stations opening virtually every day and more going into the construction and permitting phase, but we are also apparently going to see Supercharger V3 by the end of the year.

Musk first talked about the Supercharger V3 in December 2016. We haven’t heard much about the system for over a year, but that changed in the last few months.

In May, Musk said that they plan to finally release the Supercharger V3 “late this summer” and last month, the timeline was updated to “the end of the year.”

Let’s keep an eye out because some of those many new stations currently in the work could actually be Supercharger V3 stations.