The Tesla supercharger network is the largest EV fast charging network in the world with over 50,000 active stalls and 5,500 sites globally. And, from time to time, the company asks its customers where the next ones should be located.
Initially, in 2012, the network started out as a way to help Tesla market its EVs to those thinking about buying a new Tesla Model S with locations of the supercharger sites carefully selected. But last October, Tesla started to ask drivers to vote on new Supercharger locations as well as suggesting new ones.
Since then, Tesla has been running multiple rounds of voting.
Earlier this month, Tesla had its supercharge voting system opened for owners to suggest locations. In Australia, Tesla owners have voted strongly and two sites have been selected for the summer round of voting in Australia.
The winning sites for Asia-Pacific were shared by Tesla Australia and New Zealand account on Twitter/X. They included Mansfield in Victoria and Batemans Bay in NSW.
Summer 2023 Supercharger location votes are in
Congratulations Batemans Bay, NSW and Mansfield, VIC https://t.co/YMUP1OuHhV
— Tesla Australia New Zealand (@TeslaAUNZ) October 29, 2023
Mansfield is located 210 km northeast of Melbourne, which also happens to be at the foothills of the Victorian alps. Batemans Bay is on the south coast of NSW, approximately 280 km south of Sydney.
Other successful sites in the region were all based in Japan, and included Takayama, Ito and Yamaguchi.
Given Tesla calls it the “Summer 2023 Supercharger location votes”, it’s likely that these sites may end up being built and commissioned before March next year.
The next round of voting has also already begun with only one Australian site making it to the list. This location is at Rockhampton city in Queensland with 511 votes. The top 5 locations in this round include:
- Uljin County, South Korea – 990 Votes
- Fukuchiyama City, Japan – 719 Votes
- Hokkaido, Japan – 700 Votes
- Asahikawa, Japan – 685 Votes
- Rockhampton City, Australia – 511 Votes
Another local site makes it into the top 10 with Mildura sitting at number 6, having collected 459 votes.
When the last round was opened, an Australian Tesla supercharger tracker and reader of The Driven, Charles G described why few Australian sites make it into the top-5 list.
“Australian locations were up against sites from heavily populated areas like Japan and South Korea. I also noticed that there were over 20 Australian locations on the voting list, and we were struggling to get any of them into the top 5.”
With many more votes coming in before the voting for the last round closed, we did manage to get two sites in that round.
An overview of Tesla’s voting system can be seen on the overview page with Tesla describing how the process works: “Vote on Tesla’s next Supercharger site. Every 3-month voting cycle, you can cast multiple votes to help us decide on new Supercharger locations. Check the leaderboard to see which proposed locations are most popular.”
For the current round, interested EV drivers are encouraged to select their top 5 supercharger sites by navigating the Tesla supercharger voting page which can be accessed by logging in with a Tesla account.
This is the first step of the process where up to 5 votes can per cast by each voter: “Cast a total of 5 votes (1 per location) for proposed Supercharger sites.”
Non-Tesla drivers are also encouraged to vote given many of these sites are likely to be opened to non-Tesla in the future. For those without a Tesla account, it’s easy to set one up to begin voting.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.