Tesla has announced plans to triple the size of the Supercharger network within the next two years.
It’s an ambitious goal, but the automaker has fallen short of its growth goals for the fast-charging network in the past.
During Tesla’s Q3 2021 earnings call yesterday, investors asked Tesla about what they are doing to prevent congestion at Superchargers.
It has been a problem in some regions where Tesla owners can experience long wait times for a charge during high traffic times.
Drew Baglino, Tesla’s senior vice president of powertrain and battery engineering, responded:
“On the Supercharger side, the supercharging team monitors congestion and plans expansion to ensure customer experience with minimal wait times alongside the growth in our vehicle fleet. While we certainly have work to do in expanding capacity in some congested areas, average congestion on the network has decreased over the past 18 months. Nonetheless, we’re not standing still.”
The engineering executive then announced Tesla’s plan to triple the size of the network within the next two years:
“We are executing on accelerating expansion plans globally. The network has doubled in the last 18 months, and we are planning to triple it over the next two years. And even so on an individual-site basis to combat existing congestion more quickly where it is isolated and problematic, we expedite local relief sites, deploy mobile Superchargers, and we try to introduce pricing strategies that encourage more off-peak usage to avoid the waiting.”
That’s an ambitious goal considering Tesla ended the last quarter with 29,281 Superchargers at 3,254 locations worldwide. That’s a 50% increase over the last year.
As we previously reported, Tesla has fallen short of its Supercharger expansion goals in the past.
However, the automaker finds itself in a different situation today.
Earlier this summer, we reported on how Tesla is gearing up for a giant Supercharger expansion ahead of opening the network to other EVs.
In the US, the automaker started hiring many new charging design managers in charge of opening new stations.
The new hiring spree came after Tesla confirmed its plan to start allowing electric vehicles from other automakers to use the network for the first time.
As we noted, the move coincides with a new $7.5 billion federal program to fund EV infrastructure that is currently being adopted, and one of the requirements to get access to the funds is that the charging stations are open to vehicles from more than one automaker.
By opening its network, Tesla will increase traffic, but it will also have access to more funds to grow the network faster.
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