| Tesla has a new, ambitious plan to expand its Supercharger charging network from a handful of spots today to triple that by the end of June, and then to a number large enough to cover the whole U.S. in the next few years. (The latter is shown in the map above.) The aim is to bring Tesla's free, high-speed charging to people in nearly any metro area in the country. There's just one catch—Tesla may not be able to sell its cars in every metro area in the country. Triple the Stations, Half the Charge Time In a recent announcement, Tesla's founder Elon Musk said the company would triple its current number of high-speed Supercharger recharging stations in the next month, adding locations in the northeast and California. Of interest, he reiterated that use of the Supercharging stations will always be free for Tesla owners. This is a highly ambitious promise, and should Tesla expand to the size of a real mainstream automaker, we're imagining the free juice offer will have to go. (It also conjures memories, for this author, of the early e-mail provider Juno, which promised "free e-mail forever" right until it became irrelevant.) The company is also working on new charging systems for the Supercharger stations, which it says should cut recharge time roughly in half, from today's 40ish minutes down to 20. We're geting into convenient territory here. It will be backwards compatible with existing Model S sedans, fortunately.
Don't Go There Unlike other car companies, which sell franchises to dealers—essentially licenses to sell their cars—Tesla hawks its own product, more like Apple or the Gap. Influenced by car dealerships and their powerful industry lobby groups, state lawmakers in many states have over the past few decades actually made it illegal for a car company to sell its product directly to consumers. Tesla's efforts to set up its retail network have resulted in headaches in a number of states, with the automaker going to court—and winning in Massachusetts—for the right to sell its own cars. North Carolina's legislature is on its way to passing a bill that will make it outright impossible for Tesla to sell cars directly there, forcing the company either to sell franchises to dealers or stop selling cars in the state completely. The law has little public support, with a regional business web site's online poll drawing 97 percent of respondents in favor of Tesla selling cars freely in North Carolina.
In Texas this week, a bill that would have carved out permission for Tesla to sell cars failed to make it out of the legislature. As a result, the company is sitting on two "showrooms"—one in Dallas, the other in Houston—with cars on display, where employees are forbidden from talking about pricing or referring customers to Tesla stores in other states. If a Texan takes the initiative to buy a Tesla out of state, he or she will be free to bring it home and register it, of course, but we expect state regulators to be watching showroom staff for winks and nods. Celebrity Bond villain Elon Musk will have to wait a little longer for Tesla's world domination.
 from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||
| | |||
| | |||
|
No comments:
Post a Comment