Seriously, Elon Musk wants these places to be filled with superchargers

Elon Musk, who doesn't use Facebook, always likes to make moves on Twitter. On May 26, he pinned a tweet announcing Tesla's plan to expand its super charging stations.

In the charging pile distribution map he released, Tesla's charging pile icons are densely distributed in the United States, Asia, Europe and other places. Among them, the red charging pile icons represent existing charging piles, and the dark gray and light gray charging pile icons represent the super charging piles that will be built soon. After clicking on the dark gray charging pile icon, you can also see the specific address and approximate completion time.

It seems that Tesla started preparing for this expansion plan a long time ago.

Leifeng.com learned that super charging piles can allow car owners to charge their electric vehicles to 80% in half an hour. However, the distribution of super charging piles around the world is not enough. Currently, there are only 1,200 Tesla charging stations in the world, with a total of 9,800 super charging piles.

Elon Musk has expressed his hope to add more than 10,000 superchargers worldwide by the end of next year. He also recently revealed that Tesla is developing more powerful chargers. They will be available in "late summer". Currently, Tesla's superchargers have a charging power of 120kW, while the newly developed charging power can reach 240kW. In addition to superchargers, Tesla is also building a charging station (Megacharger) for its semi-trailer electric truck Semi, which it claims can be fully charged in half an hour.

Elon Musk seems to be a little "disdainful" of the 350kW fast charging station Inoity created by BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen. At the first quarter earnings conference this year, he bluntly stated that without a large-capacity battery pack, a high charging power would not make much sense.

Elon Musk also said that as long as they pay, Tesla also welcomes other electric car manufacturers to use super charging piles by changing the charging configuration of electric vehicles.

Elon Musk's announcement of the expansion plan of charging stations at this time may be related to the recent increase in the production of Model 3. According to Eletreck, Tesla's current Model 3 production has reached 500 units per day.

Another recent move by Elon Musk also indirectly reflects that the "production hell" of Model 3 has been alleviated. Also on May 26, he tweeted that the left-hand drive Model 3 will be launched in Asia and Europe in the first half of next year, and the right-hand drive will be launched in the middle of next year.

On May 20, Elon Musk also announced the "dual-motor all-wheel drive performance version" of Model 3. Excluding the Autopilot function, the price of the dual-motor all-wheel drive version of Model 3 is US$78,000, which is equivalent to about RMB 500,000, which is about RMB 280,000 higher than the starting price of the initial version of Model 3.

However, shortly after his announcement, the US Consumer Reports said it would remove the Model 3 from its recommended list because in their tests, the Model 3's braking performance at high speeds was very unstable and the braking distance was too long. Regarding this issue, Elon Musk said on Twitter that it would be improved through firmware upgrades.

The expansion of super charging stations is undoubtedly a prerequisite for Tesla's long-term development. Although the plan has been detailed to the location and completion time of the expansion, whether Tesla, which has been losing money, can complete this plan is not something that Elon Musk can say in a few words on Twitter.