Tesla electric car owners, listen up! Christmas might have come and gone, but this does not mean that there are no more goodies in store for you. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stepped forward to tease a brand new generation of its Supercharger, calling it version 3.0. What will the Tesla version 3.0 Supercharger bring to the table? Well, do you fancy enjoying up to 350 kilowatts of power each time you plug your ride into one of these special DC fast-charging stations? Then that is exactly what Musk and his company are also working on, keeping their fingers crossed that they will be able to deploy it all over the country sooner rather than later. Just like president elect Donald Trump, Musk has made this particular announcement through Twitter, which is his medium of choice when it comes to sharing his thoughts with the rest of the world.
In Musk’s older tweets, he did mention that Tesla will begin the charging of fees for selfish drivers who decide to leave their Teslas at Supercharger stations long after their rides have already been “filled to the brim”, so to speak, leaving other Tesla owners without a chance to charge their energy thirsty rides. This time around, Musk’s response was to a tweet from Electrek writer Fred Lambert, where the question concerned future plans that will involve the installation of solar arrays at Tesla’s Supercharger sites.
Right now, a solitary site that sports solar arrays happens to be located in Rocklin, California, where it went online in March last year. Other places have seen the solar arrays installed, but have remained offline until now, and this means that Tesla is still pretty far away from the dream and promise of offering fully solar-powered Superchargers to the masses. Musks reply? There have been "some" installations already, although a "full rollout really needs Supercharger V3 and Powerpack V2, plus SolarCity."
Now that various pieces of the proverbial puzzle are starting to be in place, what next for the Supercharger’s future? Well, there might be a Supercharger V3 in the pipeline that might just offer charging capability at 350 kilowatts. In his very own affable manner, Musk tweeted, "A mere 350 kw...what are you referring to, a mere children's toy?"
Such a response would certainly whet the appetites of Tesla owners all over the world. Does this mean that the Supercharger V3 will arrive with more than 350 kilowatts of power, where that amount would be the bare minimum in which Tesla is looking into? We do not know for sure, but right now, even 350 kilowatts would be a huge leap in performance as existing Tesla Supercharger sites are capable of delivering a maximum of 135 kilowatts, with another pair of DC fast-charging protocols—CHAdeMO and Combined Charging System, otherwise known as CCS, being limited to 50 kilowatt at stations in operation at the moment.
We will simply have to sit tight and wait to see how everything will pan out, especially matters that concern Supercharger V3.
