Over the past 4 years, Tesla has held a quarterly vote on where to install new Superchargers. Voting is split into 5 regions including Asia-Pacific which takes in Australia and New Zealand.
Tesla supplies a list of sites to be voted on, and Tesla account holders get to allocate 1 vote to up to 5 different sites during that quarter’s voting period. The tally of votes for each site is visible to anyone viewing the Voting page at Tesla.com anytime right up to the end of the voting period.
The latest voting period started around May 20 and ended on August 24. Australia had 43 different sites that votes could be allocated to. At the end of the voting period Tesla refresh the map of Australia that highlights the voting locations and the number of votes received, clear all votes and add a Trophy icon to the winning site.
All good and above board, right? It certainly doesn’t appear so.
During the last voting period Balladonia – the first stop east of Norseman on the long stretch to South Australia (and where chargers of any sort are a rare and precious item) – raced out to a commanding lead in the first weeks of voting and stayed clear in front to the last day.
Of the 9300 votes allocated to Aussie sites 814 had gone to Balladonia, or almost 9% of total votes. Second was Ceduna (at the start of the Eyre Highway on the South Australia side heading west) on 714; third was Norseman itself on 567 votes.
Despite Balladonia dominating the vote count throughout the 90 days, Jurien Bay – on the coast north of Perth – was named the winner with only 353 votes.
Was this an honest mistake by Tesla that would be corrected in the next few days, or did Tesla think no one was keeping a regular check on the vote count?
Many EV owners in Australia have always seen Supercharging voting as nothing more than a marketing stunt, but for the loyal owners that bothered to vote, Tesla need to answer a few questions:
What was the final official vote tally for each site?
If the highest votes are not the only criteria to decide the winner, how is it that the highest vote tally in all the other Asia-Pacific countries were declared the winner?
If Balladonia received the most votes, why was it even a candidate if Tesla didn’t see fit to declare it the winner?
If Tesla overlooks Balladonia as a winner, would they have any intention of building a Supercharger at that location?
The latest quarterly voting round has now started and instead of once loyal Tesla owners not bothering, I can assure you they’re going harder, this time Eucla (on the Eyre Highway near the border between Western Australia and South Australia as the pin drop) as well as Balladonia have been named.
Eucla is already well in front and I’m fairly confident it will stay that way throughout the 90-day voting period. Let’s see how Tesla behaves this time knowing they’re being watched. Let’s also see how Tesla choose, knowing that other charging infrastructure providers are looking at these polls with interest and may show far more respect to the Australian EV community.
Editor’s note: Tesla was invited to comment on the article, but declined.
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