Tesla’s initial Supercharger expansion goal was to have an ambitious 18,000 chargers globally by the end of 2018. After lagging behind, Musk gave a new target number of “double by end of next year” (2019). The company ended 2018 with just ~12,000 chargers and 2019 ~15,500 missing both of their self-stated goals. Today, in 2020, we currently sit at 15,911 chargers globally with 1,804 stations.
For a while there Tesla held the far lead when it came to the vast amount of available chargers. Unbeknownst to us, expansion progress slowed down and others surpassed. We now suspect that was due to Tesla’s new high speed charger development. After all, why continue producing slow chargers if a new, twice as fast, one is right around the corner? Musk first hinted at a Tesla Supercharger V3 location way back in 2016.
In March of last year Tesla unveiled an industry leading charge rate. With Supercharger V3 outputting 250 kW, Tesla owners can gain 75 miles of range in a mere 5 minutes. The lack of charge splitting allows for every vehicle at the station to charge without limitations. Tesla is not only set to release these new stations around the globe, but also convert all existing V2 stations.
The rollout began gradually as the company wanted to rid of any issues before executing in masses. Only one full-fledged Tesla Supercharger V3 location was completed in a span of six months. Two other stations had a limited amount of V3 chargers placed.
Today supercharge.info is showing over 50 stations already opened with 250 kW charging availability. Roughly 20 are currently under construction with about 10 in the permit stage. All locations are verified with 250 kW Supercharger V3 according to the site. There could possibly be even more under permit without specification on the charging rate.
Overall it seems like Tesla is just about ready to make the full transition over the V3. The Majority of new North American charging locations opened in the last couple of month have had 250 kW power. Interestingly enough we have only seen one Supercharger V3 location opened in Europe and another in Asia. There are also no new permits or construction taking place in those markets.
I’m hopeful we’ll see the Tesla Supercharger network expansion pick back up in the upcoming months. With V3 already here, there’s just about no excuses left. Maybe the original 2018 goal can be met this year. Who knows, we could possibly even surpass the 20,000 mark before the year is up.
