Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla’s slower deployment of Supercharger V3 was due to production, but it is now ramping up.
Musk said that he wants the Supercharger network to cover “95% to 100% of the population in all active markets.”
Tesla’s goal was to have 18,000 Superchargers around the world by the end of 2018.
Unfortunately, Tesla ended up having only about 12,000 Superchargers at the end of 2018, and now two years later, the automaker has 16,585 Superchargers in operation around the world.
It’s still far behind schedule, but it was believed that Tesla slowed down deployment ahead of the launch of its third-generation Supercharger station.
Last year, Tesla finally launched the new version of its Supercharger (V3) to enable a new top charge rate of 250kW.
But it didn’t enable the anticipated acceleration of Supercharger deployment. In fact, Tesla is still building new stations with the previous Supercharger technology to this day.
Now Musk has confirmed on Twitter that Tesla was still ramping up production of Supercharger V3 and that it will now “speed up”:
We slowed down a bit to allow Supercharger V3 production to get going, but now will speed up!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2020
The CEO added that Tesla has more Supercharger stations “coming soon.”
Earlier this year, Tesla updated its 2020 Supercharger map with new locations — many of them listed as “coming later this year.”
According to Supercharge.info, Tesla has currently at least 93 stations under construction and over 120 in the permitting phase.
At an average of 8.8 Superchargers per station, it would mean almost 2,000 new Tesla Superchargers.
Electrek’s Take
It would be nice to finally see a significant acceleration of Supercharger station deployment.
It’s something that both boosts the satisfaction of current customers and also creates demand.
I often hear from prospective buyers that they are waiting for a Supercharger station to be deployed at a strategic location that is critical for a regular long-trip route they are taking before pulling the trigger on a new Tesla.
As Elon said himself, service centers and Superchargers are Tesla’s biggest demand from drivers.
On the other hand, it’s also important to increase the capacity of the network for existing customers who often have to wait at some stations in regions where there are a higher concentration of Tesla vehicles.
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