Tesla Rolls Out (Literally) 100-Car Portable Superchargers For Holiday Carmageddon
If you live on planet Earth, you surely know that holiday weekends can generate an enormous amount of traffic. Thanksgiving weekend is probably the worst in the United States. Historically, Tesla drivers on certain high-volume routes, especially in California (where Teslas are most abundant), have faced some struggles while stopping to Supercharge before continuing on to grandma’s house (actual lines, and sometimes long ones).
This was an issue at least a couple of years ago, so it was certain to be an issue this year now that oodles more Model 3s are on the road. Well aware of that threat, and all the harm it could do to Tesla/EV adoption (while also being a total PITA for Tesla owners), Tesla has apparently started rolling out a clever solution:
The answer to holiday crowding??? With Elon there is always an innovative solution to any problem. https://t.co/97snxH81lh
— mymodl3 (@mymodl3) November 27, 2019
Megapack charger is open for charging! pic.twitter.com/QAVEOqvVH1
— Brian Swenson (@t3knerd) November 27, 2019
Much thanks to @mymodl3 ♥ Cybertruck for sharing this with us, and to Brian Swenson for the original photos and tweets. The former, in response to a question about the number of stalls, wrote, “It appears that 100 is the number of total charges that the pack carries. The original post doesn’t indicate the number that can charge simultaneously. I’d love to have more details. Great topic for an article @cleantechnica @tesletter. This could be an answer for power losses.” Duly noted, mymodl3 ♥ Cybertruck! (Though, tbh, I noticed your main tweet on the Twitter home feed, not from the CleanTechnica account’s Twitter mentions, and thought we should cover this news just from that.)
I’ve reached out to Tesla asking about the number of cars this portable Tesla Supercharger thingie can charge, how many have rolled out and will roll out, and their locations. If Tesla responds, I’ll update the article to add that info.
This definitely seems to be a clever and highly efficient approach to holiday Carmageddon charging congestion, and it again shows how Tesla’s scrappy, capital efficient culture solves problems.
I remember learning in city planning graduate school that all of those giant Walmart, Target, and other “Big Box” parking lots are basically designed around one weekend a year. All that extra concrete wasteland is sitting there 364 days a year because of Black Friday. It’s highly inefficient, creates all kinds of issues — from harmful amounts of stormwater runoff to essentially unwalkable places — and it’s just ugly. I’m happy to see that Tesla has a smarter approach to rare peak demand challenges. No point in overbuilding for 360+ days a year when you can just spend a little money rolling out Superchargers with Megapacks on high-traffic routes on Thanksgiving weekend.
If you stumble across any more info these portable Carmageddon Superchargers before we do, please drop us a note down in the comments.
Update: Here’s another tweet about these mobile Tesla Superchargers, this one featuring a short video:
My wife @veganShelly stopped by the San Luis Obispo #Tesla #Supercharger and got the scoop on the new mobile #megapack! It’s a bank of urban chargers on wheels! Also #V3 coming soon, like I suspected!!!😍😍😍 pic.twitter.com/J5HDaO4Tbu
— Sofiaan Fraval (@Sofiaan) November 28, 2019
If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X and get some free Supercharging miles, feel free to use my special, magical, unicorn-blessed referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404. You can also get a $100 discount on Tesla solar with that code.
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