Tesla has unveiled plans for a brand new Supercharger venture referred to as ‘Oasis’, which can embody 168 Superchargers mixed with its personal photo voltaic farm and Megapack battery system.
Early within the deployment of the Supercharger community, Tesla promised so as to add photo voltaic arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even stated that the majority stations would be capable to function off-grid.
Whereas Tesla did add photo voltaic and batteries to some stations, the overwhelming majority of them don’t have their very own energy system or have solely minimal photo voltaic canopies.
Again in 2016, I requested Musk about this, and he stated that it could now occur as Tesla had the “items now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
Effectively, we now have Supercharger V4, Megapack, and SolarCity, which have been absorbed after which mainly rejected by Tesla, and but, we nonetheless have restricted photo voltaic and battery deployment at Superchargers.
Earlier this yr, we reported on a deliberate Supercharger venture in Misplaced Hills, California, that we stated may give us “a glimpse at the way forward for charging” attributable to the usage of photo voltaic, a microgrid, and several other pull-through charging stalls for vans.
Tesla has now unveiled the venture referred to as ‘Oasis’ on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and the Bay Space. Right here’s a render of the venture:
Max de Zegher, Tesla’s head of charging, launched some particulars of the venture:
- 168 stall Supercharger in Misplaced Hills, CA
- Just one.5 MW grid service, forward of a future growth
- 11 MW of floor mount photo voltaic and canopies, on 30 acres of land
- 10 Tesla Megapacks with 39 MWh of storage
The primary characteristic right here is the massive 11 MW photo voltaic capability mixed with 39 MWh of Megapack storage capability, which allows Tesla to have a minimal grid connection.
Tesla has damaged floor for the venture:
de Zegher explains the necessity to go partly off-grid:
We’re working in lockstep with the utility, however attributable to native substation improve timelines, we’d not have been capable of meet 2025 charging demand. Though we’re sometimes grid linked, on this case, we’re leveraging the total Tesla ecosystem and our vertical integration.
Nevertheless, Tesla continues to be planning so as to add extra grid capability at this website if there’s a necessity to extend the variety of stations. de Zegher says that Tesla is ready to double the capability.
Electrek’s Take
That is superior. It’s nearly a decade after Musk stated it could occur, however it’s nonetheless superior.
Earlier than Musk followers use this to justify firing the complete charging crew (and hiring again lots of them), because it’s now occurring after that, we’ve identified about this venture since February, which was earlier than the crew was fired.
So, the brand new crew merely continues the venture began by the earlier crew.
Tesla’s Supercharger deployment has gone down this yr each on the variety of stations and the variety of stalls, however it’s nonetheless rising and not too long ago hit the 60,000th Supercharger milestone globally.
FTC: We use earnings incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.
