Tesla broke its own record last year by selling almost a million vehicles. Now updates Supercharger map, as more Superchargers were installed last year. In 2021 there were 8,221 new Superchargers installed, where 912 stations were opened. The total number of superchargers grew to 31,498 Superchargers all over the world.
That equals a year-over-year growth of 35%, which is still far behind Tesla’s year-over-year sales growth (87%). Also, the automaker has started opening up its network to other non-Tesla EVs in Europe and is mulling over doing so globally.
However, the updated map shows plenty of planned Superchargers that are set to open this year in more rural locations, particularly in Canada. Factored in with the strong growth of other charging networks such as Electrify America / Canada in NA and Ionity over in Europe, we aren’t expecting a shortage of public chargers anytime soon.
Tesla Supercharger growth
Tesla’s Supercharger network has grown from around 1,200 stations in Q1’18 to over 2035 stations as of Q2’20. The number of Supercharger connectors, which indicate the number of vehicles that can be charged simultaneously, has expanded from 9.3k to 18k over the same period. The number of Supercharger connectors per Supercharger location has expanded modestly from 7.7 to 8.9 over the period. However, with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y, and Tesla’s rapid production scale-up, the number of Teslas on the road is outpacing the growth of its Supercharger network. As Tesla’s Cumulative deliveries have grown from 320k in Q1’19 to 1.1 million in Q2’20, this means that the number of Vehicles per Connector has grown from under 35 in early 2018 to about 60 presently. Tesla owners can still use third-party networks (which may require adapters) although the speed and experience are unlikely to be the same as using Tesla’s own supercharging.
Tesla is still ahead of its rivals when it comes to fast charging – with a total of over 9,600 supercharger points in North America. In comparison, ChargePoint, an independent network of EV chargers, has about 2,020 DC fast charging points while Volkswagen’s Electrify America network has about 2,000 points. However, Tesla’s overall network, which includes fast chargers and slower Level 2 chargers stands at about 20k in North America. This is well behind ChargePoint which has close to 35k charging connectors. However, there are a couple of ways Tesla could address a potential congestion issue. The first and most obvious solution would be to build out more Superchargers. Tesla now has adequate capital to do so, holding about $9 billion in cash as of the most recent quarter. In addition to this, Tesla will likely count on improving the range of its new cars to reduce their dependence on chargers. Tesla can do this via more compact and cost-efficient batteries or other drivetrain improvements.
Superchargers from Forbes
