Tesla continues to roll out its Supercharger network across Australia, and is in the process of building the country’s biggest fast-charging site – a 20-stall facility – in Goulburn, between Sydney and Canberra.
Now it has emerged that another unique charging site is under construction in western NSW, that will feature 12 stalls and a 100 kW rooftop solar system, backed by a 3.9 MWh Tesla Megapack battery.
The development was first spotted by Tesla and EV charging enthusiast, Richard on X, but has since been confirmed with Tesla Australia boss Thom Drew in his interview with The Driven editor Giles Parkinson earlier this week.
The 12 stall supercharger site is being built at The Coolac Hotel, in the town of the same name. On top of the 12 superchargers, the Coolac site will feature a 100 kW of solar array and a large Tesla Megapack battery to help with energy storage on site, and to avoid any local network constraints.
Update for readers: See the update from Tesla below on the site’s status and the Megapack and Solar canopy use, which is now not required to power the site.
This new site in Coolac is located about 19 km from Gundagai on the popular Sydney to Melbourne route. The works are coinciding with renovations at the hotel itself.
Tesla opened a small site at Gundagai site back in 2015 with Tesla V2 superchargers and these have been very popular amongst Tesla owners and drivers.
The new site will feature the latest V4 chargers with faster charging speeds, and will also be open to non-Tesla vehicles.
The next town along the highway with superchargers is Yass, which also has 12 V4 superchargers and came online at the end of 2023.
NSW appears to be the hot spot for bigger fast charging sites, partly thanks to NSW government’s focus on getting more high-powered chargers across the state.
Tesla also has other key sites under construction in the state, including at New Italy in the north of the state, Cooma, Goulburn, Armidale and multiple other important locations.
With over 260,000 EVs on Australian roads, it’s crucial that larger sites are put into place and Drew also confirmed that larger sites are on their way, pleasing many existing and future EV drivers: “We’re looking at 8, 12, 15 stalls as a normal install for us now.”
It’s great to see Tesla leading the charge with building bigger and bigger sites to further drive EV adoption and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for transport.
Article Update: Tesla has now advised that the site is on track to open shortly, and while the Megapack and Solar canopy was originally part of the plan for Coolac, it is no longer needed for that part of the grid. Tesla say they will be considering the options in future Supercharger sites where required.
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.