Tesla Supercharger network plans $500M expansion despite layoffs

Despite recent layoffs, the Tesla Supercharger network is due for an expansion, CEO Elon Musk claims.

Tesla will spend “well over” $500 million on the Supercharger network this 12 months, Musk said Friday on X (formerly Twitter), the social media network he owns, adding that this investment will fund “1000’s” of recent chargers and is separate from any operating costs needed to easily keep the present network going. For perspective, there are currently 25,507 Tesla Supercharger ports within the U.S. and a pair of,264 station locations, in response to the Energy Department’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.

Musk earlier this month fired nearly the whole Tesla Supercharger team, including Rebecca Tinucci, the chief who has accelerated growth of the network in recent times and helped persuade nearly the whole U.S. EV market to modify to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector. 

Simply to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create 1000’s of NEW chargers this 12 months.

That’s just on latest sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, that are much higher.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2024

Ford led the way in which in adopting the Tesla charge port, in May 2023, at a time of great expansion for the Supercharger network—and nearly every other U.S. EV brand soon stepped up to verify they’d also make the switch.

Within the 12 months since Ford’s announcement, NACS has also turn into an official standard—SAE J3400. That is paving the way in which for more charging networks so as to add the NACS connector, including BP, which just this week said it’s trying to purchase stranded Supercharger sites should Tesla contract the network.

EV advocates could also be hoping for increased reliability from switching to NACS, given the Supercharger network’s solid fame in that area. But reliability gains across the industry will take greater than a Tesla connector. With about 100 charging station manufacturers and 500 mixtures of cars and chargers, it’s lots that should be cross-compatible. 

Musk has also suggested previously that the Supercharger network might charge extra for slow-charging non-Tesla EVs. We’ll see if that is something the automaker introduces in some unspecified time in the future soon. 

There’s been little backstory about why the Supercharger division was nearly shuttered. Musk had recently actually praised the team as the important thing to its future. And he’s given no indication how the Supercharger network will proceed to operate at its current level—let alone expand—after so many key personnel were dismissed.