Tesla has an ambitious new plan to increase the number of superchargers by 3 times

Tesla has an ambitious new plan to increase the number of superchargers by 3 times

Tesla's Supercharger network is one of the most extensive charging systems for electric vehicles, but it can still fall short during peak traffic congestion. Elon Musk has an ambitious plan to change that, and that is to aggressively expand the number of Superchargers within the next two years.

As reported by Electrek, during Tesla's Q3 2021 earnings call, Drew Baglino, Tesla's senior vice president of powertrain and battery engineering, detailed what the company is doing to address Supercharger congestion

"We've been working with the Tesla team to address congestion in the Supercharger.

"We are executing the acceleration of our global expansion plans," Baglino said. The network has doubled in the past 18 months and we plan to triple it over the next two years.

Baglino further stated that Tesla is taking concrete steps to improve congestion at charging sites, including deploying mobile superchargers and implementing pricing strategies to encourage Tesla owners to charge during off-peak hours.

"While there is certainly work to be done to expand capacity in congested areas, average network congestion has declined over the past 18 months. However, we are not standing still.

Currently, Tesla has 29,281 Superchargers installed at 3,254 locations worldwide. This is not enough considering that last quarter's sales volume was 241,000 units and profits quintupled to $1.6 billion. Not only that, but Elon Musk had already announced that the Supercharger network would be open to non-Tesla EVs, although owners of the 2022 Nissan Leaf and 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 may have to use adapters.

Tesla owners may bemoan the fact that Superchargers will be used for other EVs, but if the company wants to get its $7.5 billion EV infrastructure funding, it will need to keep the stations open to multiple automakers.

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