[AUTO] Tesla installs 500th Supercharger device in UK

[FalCoNNN-]

Tesla continues to expand its electric vehicle charging network to meet growing demand and has now installed more than 500 of its Supercharger devices across the UK and Ireland.The devices, which first arrived in the UK in 2014, can now be used at a total of 63 locations, following the opening of new sites in Birmingham, London and Bristol since January. The latest addition to the map, on the A12 near Colchester, offers 12 charging posts, bringing the total installed so far this year in the UK to 42.Tesla said: “Despite most electric vehicle charging taking place at home, in 2019 alone, Supercharging facilitated over 60 million electric miles across the UK and Ireland, which is the equivalent of over 100,000 trips to the International Space Station and back.”The latest iteration of Tesla’s charging device - the Supercharger V3 - offers Model 3 drivers up to 1000 miles of range per one hour, charging at a capacity of up to 250kW compared with the recently upgraded V2’s 150kW, which takes around 75 minutes to fully charge an entry-level 85kWh Model S to 100% capacity.An added benefit of the new units is that charging times are not lengthened when two cars are plugged into the same device, and Tesla estimates that they will bring average charging times down from half an hour to around 15 minutes.A new feature called ‘On-Route Battery Charging’ heats the power packs while en route to a charging station so that they are at the optimum temperature before being plugged in, further speeding up the process.To date, just eight V3s have been installed in the UK - all at the brand’s Park Royal service centre in London. The Model 3 is compatible with the device as standard, while the Model S and X are supplied with an adapter that allows them to use the same system.The firm said more Superchargers will be installed in the UK, with planned future sites in Brighton, Leicester, The Wirral and Edinburgh, among others. Also on the cards is a so-called ‘Megacharger’, which would be able to give Tesla’s new Semi HGV 400 miles of charge in 30 minutes with a likely output of more than one megawatt (1000kW).