‘Superchargers’:
6 installed to extend range of Model S
Tesla Motors has installed six charging locations for owners of its Model S electric sedan.
Drivers of the Model S electric sedan from Tesla Motors now have a perk no other car owners can claim — their own network of recharging stations.
Tesla has installed six recharging stations on California freeways, the Palo Alto company reportedMonday night. The stations — most of them located in the busy corridor that connects Sacramento and the Bay Area to Los Angeles — feature Tesla’s new “supercharger,” a device that can add 150 miles of range to the car’s battery pack in a half hour. In contrast, the recharging stations that Model S owners install in their garages can add only 31 miles worth of charge in a half hour.
Tesla plans to install the roadside stations throughout the United States and southern Canada. But only Model S drivers can use them. The supercharger won’t work with any other electric car. That includes Tesla’s own Roadster, the sleek sports car that built the company’s reputation. Even the cheapest version of the Model S can’t use the supercharger, because it doesn’t have the right battery pack.
The service will be free. And it comes with
an environmentally minded twist — the station canopies hold solar panels. Over time, the panels will place more electricity on the state power grid than the cars use, said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The common criticism that electric cars “pollute at the power plant rather than the tailpipe” won’t apply.
“You’ll be able to travel for free, forever, on pure sunlight,” Musk said while unveiling the supercharger at an event at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, near Los Angeles. “I think it’s pretty hard to beat that.”
Solar panels
The solar panels will be provided by San Mateo’s SolarCity, a company run by Musk’s cousin, Lyndon Rive. Musk also serves on SolarCity’s board of directors.
The supercharger stations are Tesla’s latest effort to combat “range anxiety,” the fear of running out of electricity on the open road.
The Model S already has the longest range of any commercially available electric car. Depending on how much buyers want to spend, they can choose from three different battery packs with different ranges — 160 miles per charge, 230 miles, and more than 300 miles. For comparison, the Nissan Leaf gets about 73 miles.
Not for basic Model S
The most basic Model S, which can’t use the supercharger, costs $57,400 before state and federal incentives are factored in. A fully loaded Model S with the biggest of the three battery packs costs $105,400.
Even with the priciest battery pack, however, Model S drivers can’t take extended trips without recharging. So Tesla placed recharging stations in Gilroy, Folsom, Harris Ranch, Tejon Ranch, Hawthorne and Barstow.
“This is not some figment of the imagination, like maybe it will happen at some point in the future,” Musk said. “These are installed. We built them up in secret.”
Within two years, Musk said, the company plans to install enough roadside superchargers to cover most of the United States. Within four to five years, the company will have the whole country covered, plus southern Canada.
Blanketing the United States with its own stations may seem like an odd move for Tesla, given the company has sold relatively few electric vehicles so far. The company just started delivering the Model S in June and is still trying to rev up production at its Fremont factory.
In a document filed with the federal government on Tuesday, Tesla acknowledged that it won’t hit its original target of shipping 5,000 sedans this year. Instead, the company expects to deliver 2,700 to 3,225.
132 sedans delivered
Just 132 have been delivered to date.
But the roadside recharging stations only cost about $250,000 total, according to the company. At that price, the added public visibility it will give Tesla could be worth it, said Ben Schuman, senior research analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.
“Given the cost of ramping up the factory and everything else, it seems pretty insignificant,” he said. “And it does address one of the concerns about electric cars — range anxiety. It also provides some marketing value. Just having the stations around will get the name out there.”