There’s no doubt that Tesla Motors has been kicking ass recently. Despite popular pundits constantly trying to find something wrong with the Cali-based tech/car company, Founder and CEO Elon Musk has managed to take Tesla from a simple tech startup to a company that’s beginning to really scare the biggest car companies out there.
Within the past few weeks, they’ve managed to not only repay a $465 million loan from the US government in May, but more than double their stock price, pissing off thousands of short-selling Wall Street types who were sure Tesla was just a fad.
And to further twist the proverbial knife, Tesla just announced that they’re greatly expanding their (confusingly named) Supercharger network.
The Tesla Superchargers are high-speed charging ports that allow you to travel up to 200 miles on a half hour of charging. To put that into perspective, a regular 30A charging station gives you about 10 miles in the same charging time, and the supposed high-voltage chargers give you around 15 miles in 30 minutes. Fine if you drive to work, charge up during the day, and drive back, but if you want to take a trip somewhere you have to bust out the ol’ Camry.
This is a major step forward. They’re building an infrastructure for electric cars here, people. Long distance driving was the bane of EVs since the start, and not only do they have a plan to implement a solution, they’re doing it.
Currently, there are seven Superchargers spattered around CA and the New England area, and Tesla’s plan of expansion includes stations in Vancouver to Seattle to Portland, Austin to Dallas in Texas, Illinois and Colorado first, then a few months later, building some in the Midwest and some stations connecting Ottawa to Montreal, and across North and South Carolina into Georgia and Florida.
Basically, they’re building the damn things across the entire continent. Oh…and they’re entirely free for Model S drivers with the Supercharger option. Bet some of you are kicking yourself in the ass for not checking that box, eh?
Admittedly, they are taking an Apple-like proprietary approach to all of this, but they do have to recoup the cost of building a country-wide infrastructure by themselves somehow.
Tesla’s goal within a year is to allow Model S (and Model Whatever’s-out-by-then) drivers to be able to drive across the country, take any road trip, “LA to New York, Vancouver to San Diego, or Montreal to Miami” without spending a dime on fuel.
And by now I’m convinced that if anyone can do it, Tesla can.