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2015 Supercharger map significantly down-scoped

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MarcG

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,307
6,250
San Francisco
Since January of this year, I've been keeping track of the three maps on Tesla's "Supercharger" website tab (today-northamerica, 2015-northamerica, and 2016-northamerica).

The "Today" maps have been very dynamic obviously, since they show the "coming soon" superchargers in gray pins and those can change every couple of weeks. There have been 17 different maps that I was able to keep track of.

The "2016" maps have been fairly static, with 6 total image updates including two changes in pin styles only (no changes in supercharger locations).

Interestingly, the "2015" maps have also been fairly static, however there was a significant change in the last week, which took out MANY pins in what I believe reflects the inability of Tesla to bring up superchargers by the end of the 2015 per their original plans.

The first image below was likely posted on 2015/11/22 since the image suffix was 20151122. However the second image below, which is the current "2015" map on Tesla's site, has a suffix of 201511222 (note the extra 2 at the end there) although it was posted more recently than 11/22 (I checked on 11/23 and it was still the first 11/22 version0.

Anyway, comparing the two images, you'll notice that quite a few superchargers that were planned in 2015 are now gone from the latest map. Notably, many pins are now missing in the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, along highways 1 and 395 in CA, down by the LA/SD region, and in the Northwest & BC regions.

I haven't counted them, but it's probably two dozen supercharger locations that were originally planned by 2015 are now being pushed out to 2016. Bummer!

2015-11-22.png


2015-11-23.png
 
Someone over in the Supercharger thread keeps track of all numbers and it looks like Tesla opened just as many new Superchargers in the US as they did in 2014. So at least it's not a slow down. And we still have a month left.
 
Nothing wrong with Tesla starting the year with an aspirational plan and failing to achieve it 100%. I think the work they have done in building out the Supercharger network is simply outstanding. True visionary leadership - may it continue!!!
 
Good catch. Yes, it looks like Western Canada lost three planned installations (Vancouver, Calgary and Merritt). In the case of the last two, this is not surprising, since we have had a fairly early winter onset, and conditions in the interior are quite challenging for construction.

- - - Updated - - -

Looking again, it seems that of the "coming Soon" grey pins, roughly half or a third of them are shown as being completed in 2015 and the rest in 2016. That seems about right.
 
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Looking at daxz GIF, it's good to see that the big crossing routes (through the middle) are mostly the same -- only a few missing pins.

Well that's because those are already in place, are installed, and exist in the Today map... there are a LOT of missing pins in the south, at least a dozen between TX/LA/MS/AL alone!

Here's an animation of the 7 images I have from January 29th till now, you can see the steep drop-off in the last frame relative to the previous one (which have the same date of 2015/11/22):

 
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The first 1122 picture was removed only a few hours after being posted. There was some surprise to some that were added to that graph and then subsequently removed within hours. I appears to have been a mistake in its original posting.
 
I noticed the same thing in the European map.
My guess is that they wanted to give priority to the expansion of the network in Asia.
Since sales were slow in China, they might have thought it was better to "move" planned Supercharger opening from Europe/US to Asia.
I have no data to support my thesis. It would be interesting to see how the 2015 Asian map was compared to how it is now.
 
when I got my car there were no superchargers yet. If they were planned, no one knew. Now able to go cross country by several routes. Perhaps frustrating to some but amazing to me. Several things have probably limited rate of installation but I am sure if possible to go faster they would. The company does not have unlimited resources and is not yet cash positive. The maps are aspirations not promises.
 
I'm not sure if Jim was being sarcastic (although he's free to respond for himself!). Our SvC manager used extremely similar words to me a week ago. Now, he's the same one who told me 15-18 months ago that Anchorage would be receiving its own SvC, so between that and much else I long ago have learned to take his words with the same confidence I do Mr Musk's forecasting aptitude.

That said, it is reasonable to assume that some personnel learn company plans before releases to the general public; in that it also is clear to those who consider Tesla's larger picture, the cost-benefit to increasing the pace of SpC installation bears strongly on a lot more sites being built a lot faster than has been the rate in the past.

I look forward to when we seriously can be discussing the Yukon Territory Gap.