Tesla Launches New V4 Supercharger Stations That Fold

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After more than 7 years and 15,000 units deployed, Tesla is transitioning from V3 Superchargers to V4 Superchargers. There are a few notable improvements to these Superchargers.

First of all, these Supercharger stalls can provide up to 500 kW of power to individual cars. In the case of the Tesla Semi, they can provide up to 1.2 MW of power. Considering that it feels like only yesterday that 50 kW chargers were the norm for fast charging, reaching the 500 kW marker (10×) does feel like quite the milestone — even if it’s still not close to the new BYD Flash Charging, which offers 1.5 MW charging.

Another notable thing is that Tesla has made the station “foldable.” You can watch the video in the embedded tweet below to see what that means, but note that it’s not what I was initially thinking (and confused about). The stalls themselves don’t fold, the base of the station platform does that allows you to either keep stalls back to back or extend the station out into one row of stalls twice as long. There are 8 Supercharger stalls/posts in a station.

This new design allows for much more efficient transport. Tesla says that 33% more units can fit on a delivery truck, overall installation costs are cut 20%, and deployment is twice as fast.

The Supercharger network remains one of Tesla’s top assets, and this upgrade keeps that going. It’s good to see one of Tesla’s original, core products progressing and remaining a valuable accelerator of EV adoption, especially now that electric cars from just about every automaker can use these Supercharger stations.