Here's the thing about Tesla ownership: They're electric, and you've got to charge the damn things. To make it easier, Tesla said they would provide superchargers across the country. They haven't. At least not yet.
David Noland of Green Car Reports, himself a Tesla Model S owner, highlights a notable stumble in Tesla's quest for world domination. Last year, the company promised to build 18 supercharging stations by the end of summer 2013. The majority are to be located on the coasts with a few in between.
If you've walked outside lately, it's not really summer anymore. So how did Tesla do? Noland reported that only nine of the 18 were built, basically showing that no matter how successful a company can be, all are prone to overpromising and underdelivering.
Noland predicted it would be awhile before Tesla completed the program and Tesla quickly updated its "summer 2013" date on its supercharger map. But somehow, Mark Rogowsky, a contributor at Forbes, was able to count 21 Tesla superchargers. Huh.
As of today, Tesla claims not just the 18 locations it promised in May but instead has 21 Superchargers up and running, making official a dozen in the past week alone....Green Car Reports joins a long list of bettors against Tesla, which has made a habit of defying expectations ever since the company came up short last year on its production targets. But the blog has the dubious distinction of being especially wrong, especially quickly.
Not so fast, Noland says. A little bit of Tesla math mixed with faulty journalist math shows the number of yet-to-be-built superchargers still stands.
First, the 21 Supercharger stations he cites are the total number now operational throughout the U.S. But eight of them were already up and running by May—when Tesla promised 18 additional Superchargers in specified locations by Summer 2013. Rogowsky wrote, "before summer was through, [Tesla] would have 18 of its high-speed Supercharger stations up and running." That's wrong. Tesla promised a total of 26 Superchargers by the end of summer. One week ago, when we published our article, 17 of those 26 total stations were operational. Today, with four days left to the deadline, 19 of those 26 promised stations are now operating—plus two more that weren't on the summer list.
No matter how you do the math, it seems Tesla is still short nine superchargers.
A Tesla spokeswoman told Noland last week that five more superchargers would be on the way by the end of this week. Considering there's only a few days left at this point, we'll see if they can pull it off.
Bored Elon Musk is just all like, "whatever, keep buying the Model S."
[Photo via AP]