► Tesla installs its 500th Supercharger in UK
► First high-speed 250kW chargers in London
► V3 could speed up charging by 50%
Tesla has installed its 500th Supercharger in the UK, marking an important milestone in the roll-out of its proprietary charging network in Great Britain.
The first Tesla charging point was installed in London's Royal Victoria Docks in 2014 and the 500th point was installed in June 2020 on the A12 outside Colchester. That's the total number of posts or plugs - and they're spread across 63 locations dotted around major transport corridors around the country.
Tesla Superchargers are slowly becoming a common sight in service stations and car parks across the UK, and according to the EV maker there are now more than 12,800 of the charging points worldwide. They're one of the reasons that Tesla electric car ownership has been so viable, even for the early adopters. The company claims that owners of its cars have now driven more than 10 billion all-electric miles since the Model S launched way back in 2013.
You'll probably have seen the banks of futuristic-looking, white Tesla Superchargers at motorway service stations dotted around the UK's main trunk road network. Owners can see where the stations are on their sat-nav, which even indicates which chargers are in use and which are free.
Further electric car charging reading
What is the latest Tesla V3 Supercharging?
V3 Supercharging uses the same principle as Tesla’s current Superchargers, but adds a 1MW power cabinet to the equation. That means 250kW peak charging rates per car, with Tesla saying a Long Range Model 3 can theoretically top up 75 miles of range in just five minutes.
What’s more, V3 charging also means no shared power – so charging speed won’t be hindered when two Teslas charge up together. Handy for those peak busy hours.
What else is new?
Alongside the infrastructure upgrades with V3, Tesla is also rolling out an OTA update called On-Route Battery Warm-up. Batteries are essentially portable chemical reactions, and their efficiency is sensitive to heat.
Tesla’s new warm-up feature gets the cells at the exact temperature for charging on the way to the charger, and that means when the car is connected the Supercharger, power transfer is as efficient as possible – right from the start. The result? More miles for your time stationary.
Charge rates for the current V2 Superchargers should also be climbing to 145kW in the near future, according to Tesla.
How much does Supercharging cost?
It's a bit of a minefield over who pays for Suprcharging, and which models get it for free. All Tesla EVs used to come with free Supercharging, but for the past few years the company has been phasing that out - and then offering tactical sales incentives bundling it in. Check before you buy, is our advice.
Still, you’ll find Supercharging is still considerably cheaper than using petrol. Just like running EVs compared to their ICE counterparts. When running a Tesla Model S long-termer, CAR consumed £294 of power over 5600 miles, the equivalent of just 5p a mile. That's cracking value and the 85D's 200-mile usable range meant we could easily take it on long trips to the other end of the country – so long as we factored in detour time for finding working charging points en route. Normally that's quite easy, but there are still large swathes of rural Britain where charging up is not as easy as it should be.
How to plan a trip with Tesla Superchargers
Tesla has launched a journey planner which helps you map out any route with your EV. And because the tool is specific to Tesla, it’s able to carefully calculate your route based on the range of your car. It’ll also favour Tesla’s own speedier Supercharger network, too. You can try the tool out here.