Tesla plans to make an announcement about its Supercharger network on Thursday morning, but on Wednesday night at the AllThingsD D11 conference (our live blog here), Tesla CEO Elon Musk let the cat out of the bag early and said “What we were going to announce tomorrow is that there is going to be a dramatic expansion of the Supercharger network. By next month we’ll triple the coverage area.”
Musk said that on Thursday they’d unveil a detailed map and that Tesla Model S drivers would “be able to drive all the way from LA to New York using the Supercharger network.”
Superchargers are basically fast chargers that can charge up one of Tesla’s Model S cars in around 30 minutes (depending on how low the battery is). The idea is that because the market for electric cars is so new, there isn’t enough charging infrastructure out there to enable EV drivers the comfort of driving wherever they want, whenever they want — like taking a road trip up and down the state.
“Range anxiety is real,” said Musk at D11. That’s why Tesla has become an infrastructure provider as well as a car maker. The chargers have solar panels on them from Musk’s other company SolarCity, and Tesla has been building out the chargers along well trafficked long distance highways.
Until now most of the Superchargers had been installed on the coasts. But back in September 2012 Musk had said that within two years he wanted the U.S. to be covered in Superchargers. Tesla also wants to build them in Europe and Asia, too.
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