Tesla claims record uptime of 99.97 per cent for Supercharger network

Over the years, Tesla has been rolling out its superchargers across the world, including in Australia, to allow millions of EV drivers to get around every year. The reliability of the network has been one of the key benefits for owning Tesla cars, although many are now able to be used by other EV drivers.

To underline the reliability, Tesla has released new figures that claim 2023 had its highest reliability rating with an average uptime of 99.97%, up 0.02% on 2022.

The latest update was featured in the company’s impact report which was released last week and shared by EV enthusiast, Sawyer Merritt on X:

It’s important to note that the uptime rating refers to sites, rather than individual charging units – and Tesla tends to have multiple units at its sites, which means that drivers can depend on their being at least one operating at all times. Tesla says its sites are 100 per cent renewable power, either through onsite generation or matching contracts.

This news comes only weeks after reports surfaced in early May highlighting that Tesla was to slow down the rollout of its supercharger network to save costs in the company. 

One of these measures was to make key executives and hundreds more employees redundant globally, including those in the supercharger team.

Since those early reports, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk shed some light on the status of the rollout in 2024 and beyond. 

This included sharing that Tesla will complete its current charging station contracts and invest over $US500 million further into the network this year.

Signs of this were spotted last week with local supercharger site construction activity south of Brisbane in Springwood where a 6-stall supercharger site is being built.

The reliability of the Tesla network has been recognised by the charging industry more broadly. 

In October last the company shared that it will start selling its industry-leading charging hardware to other charge point operators, starting with BP in the US with a deal worth $US100 million.

Since then, in November 2023, a convenience store retailer in Europe has gone ahead and started installing Tesla’s supercharging hardware, calling Tesla’s chargers “Best in class”.

In March this year, EG Group which also has operations in Australia, opened its first charging site featuring Tesla superchargers, but without the Tesla branding.

With the improving reliability of Tesla’s global supercharger network and a clear rise in the number of charging stations locally across the country, thousands of new and existing EV drivers will find making journeys in their EVs easier.