Tesla is working to ‘dramatically increase’ Superchargers within cities, European expansion, and more

As a late Christmas gift, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced some expansions to the Supercharger network, including ‘dramatically increasing’ Superchargers within cities, a European expansion, and more.

Last month, Musk announced another expansion of the Supercharger network in order to cover “95% to 100% of the population in all active markets.”

He also said that the next expansion will include the Supercharger V3, a new version of the fast-charging station with a higher charge rate, which is finally supposed to be released ‘early’ next year.

Now Musk is talking about also ‘dramatically increasing’ the number of Superchargers within cities in order to address the problem of charging for apartment dwellers:

We are dramatically increasing Tesla Superchargers within cities & working with landlords to add home charging to apartment buildings

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2018

That’s a problem that Tesla and other EV charging companies have been trying to address for a while now.

Tesla has been deploying its ‘Urban Supercharger stations’ in cities to address the situation and Musk says that they are working with landlords to add charging options to apartment buildings.

Other companies, like FLO, have developed new curbside electric car charging solutions to enable urban EV ownership.

Furthermore, Musk also commented today on a European expansion of the Supercharger network for “100% coverage” as soon as next year:

Yes. Supercharger coverage will extend to 100% of Europe next year. From Ireland to Kiev, from Norway to Turkey. https://t.co/7FQZgLCTVJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2018

That’s something that Tesla has been promising for a while, but it has yet to deliver on the promise.

While Tesla has the most extensive electric vehicle fast-charging network in the world, the company has fallen behind its own ambitious goals.

It aimed to have 10,000 Superchargers around the world by the end of last year, but it came short by a few thousand units.

By the end of 2018, the company wanted 18,000 Superchargers around the world.

Tesla is now operating about 11,852 Superchargers at 1,426 stations around the world and with only a few days before the end of the year, it’s clear that it will fall short of that goal too.

Electrek’s Take

As per coverage, I’ll believe it when I see it. Elon has made too many predictions about this that didn’t materialize and this could very well be another one like that.

But I feel like Tesla might have slowed down the deployment of the new stations to wait for Supercharger V3, which has been delayed a few times.

If it’s indeed coming in “early 2019”, then maybe we will start to see a significant increase in the speed of deployment and Tesla could actually deliver some of those coverage promises on time.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.