Aside from adding new Superchargers or residential charging facilities, Tesla recently announced it will set up more downtown charging points in some large cities in the United States, so as to provide more convenient charging options for drivers.
Tesla explained that in urban centers, small size charging stations will be set up in Chicago and Boston first. These city center charging stations can only offer about 72kW of power, which is about half of Supercharger’s 120kW. In other words, charging time will be slightly longer, at around 45~50 minutes in total.
Let’s compare an urban charging station to a Supercharger. A supercharger’s two chargers will usually split the current to each pole, and its total charging power will drop because of the split. In contrast, in a downtown charging station, a Tesla vehicle at one charging pole with another vehicle using the same pole will not experience lowered charging power.
In this way, drivers in a high-population-density city can enjoy fast and prudent charging.
In addition, to avoid boring drivers during charging, Tesla plans to set up these charging stations near supermarkets, shopping malls, and downtown attractions, so drivers can use the charging time to shop. Urban center charging station will ask for the same price as a Supercharger will, and the price will cost the drivers much less than gasoline will.
By setting up downtown charging stations, Tesla hopes to provide a new option, other than a home charger or destination charger.
Gradually, a complete charging network will be built, so that Tesla drivers can drive to everywhere in the world. That was one part of Tesla’s great plan.
“The ongoing expansion of the networks will ensure that Tesla drivers are able to quickly and easily charge their vehicles no matter what,” stated Tesla.