Tesla Plans To Launch 18,000 Superchargers By End Of 2018

With Model 3's production rate expected to hits tens of thousands next year, Tesla is planning to build their Supercharger infrastructure at a rapid pace. Musk believes that the company will triple their stall total by the end of 2018.

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Nov. 19 2020, Updated 9:38 p.m. ET

With the recent release of the Model 3, Tesla has a lot of motivation to get Superchargers launched all over the world. Elon Musk revealed at last week’s release party that in order to meet the needs of all Model 3 units being shipped, they want to reach 18,000 Superchargers by the end of 2018. Assuming they can nearly reach a prior goal to hit five figures by the end of the year, that’s a pretty obtainable outcome.

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Superchargers refer to each stall at a Tesla Supercharger station, giving owners the ability to use the manufacturer’s Model S and Model X units to charge up their cars extremely quickly. Just how fast is it? They can add 170 miles in 30 minutes, which is enough to get you a good distance. A mobile app will be able to daisy-chain stations along trips so owners wouldn’t be caught in a tight spot when driving outside the initial charge range. If you're not in an urban area, you're still in luck; even in the nation’s heartland, there are plenty of stations along major highways.

However, a common issue has been that Superchargers in urban areas are constantly full. Musk mentioned at the Model 3 release that he gets questioned and name-called about capacity all the time on Twitter. He then noted: “By the end of next year, there will be three times as many Superchargers as there are today. So that should really help out a lot.”

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As of an August 6th update on Supercharge, there are 6,209 Superchargers out in the wild at 931 stations. Over the last three weeks, that’s an addition of 162 stalls. As mentioned before, they needed an average of 150 per week to meet their goal of 10,000 Superchargers by the end of 2017, but it was anticipated that they could reach around 200 launching per week in the future.

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Since May 27th, there’s been a rampant increase in Superchargers per week in comparison to earlier in the year. Tesla has been averaging about 63.8 stalls every seven days. Even if we adjust that to about 65 per week through the end of December, that’s an addition of 1,365 stalls when 2018 rolls around. 

Granted, this average should be much higher as we press on and they’ve shown growth over the summer months. Between April 15th and May 27th, they were barely getting above 40 new Superchargers per week. They’ve hit a peak of 96 new stalls in the middle of June, so they can nearly hit the century mark in such a short time span.

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The United States and Canada account for around two-thirds of the total amount of Superchargers in the world. California, predictably, is the state with the most stalls at 60, including ones under construction or at the permit level, while Texas meets half of that. France is the third-highest country with 60 currently installed.

If Tesla can hit over 8,000 Superchargers worldwide when the new year comes, perhaps hitting the five-figure mark in a more rapid pace could happen. After all, Musk soon expects to roll out 10,000 Model 3 units per week next year. 

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