Tesla has been ramping up the rollout of its supercharger network in Australia as the total sales exceeded 46,000 EVs in just 2023 alone.
Some states across the country have not seen much activity for a while and South Australia in particular, has not seen a supercharger site commissioned for nearly 18 months.
Now, an application for a new supercharger site has been spotted by Tesla drivers on the TMC forum which hints at a site very close to Adelaide CBD.
The latest site is located in Norwood and is only 4 km from the heart of Adelaide. The application on the SA government website shows that it is likely to be a 6-stall supercharger site in an existing car park area.
This comes at a time when Tesla uptake in the state has surpassed 3,000 EVs. The latest data from carloop shows the total number of Tesla EVs has reached 3,400 vehicles on South Australian roads. This is an increase of 134% in 2023 alone.
Charging speeds of 250 kW per stall are expected as it is expected to be a Tesla V3 supercharger site. This would help charge most Tesla vehicles in under 30 minutes when charging up to 80%.
Like various other supercharger sites across Australia, the proposed site is located near a Coles supermarket and other amenities.
After this site is commissioned, it will be the 6th supercharger site in the state, making up a total of 30 active stalls. It would also be the third V3 supercharger site in the state.
In August 2023, Tesla opened its supercharger fast-charging network to non-Tesla EVs at 30 locations across Australia. This was a huge step to allow many more EV drivers to travel further.
Since then various other sites have been added to allow non-Tesla EVs to charge there. This site is also expected to be opened to non-Tesla vehicles as stated in the application: “Installation of 6 EV charging stalls in existing car park area, open to all public use.”
Tesla is rapidly expanding its supercharger network in many parts of the country. In November, the company was hiring more members to its local supercharging team. At that time, the company listed in the job position: “We are looking for a highly motivated Project Deployment Manager to support the Supercharger deployment team in Australia.”
Since then, Tesla has opened various new charging sites, including:
- Albury in NSW
- Hawthorn in Victoria
- Rockhampton in Queensland
- North Coogee in WA
South Australia has not received a new site in nearly 18 months, the last of which is Mt Gambier. It was opened to drivers in September 2022.
With Tesla sales and EV uptake soaring in South Australia and other parts of Australia, it’s great to see more supercharging capacity on the way to support the boom in EVs we expect to see in 2024.
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.