For Tesla Motors Inc vehicles owners in Manhattan, it will be easier now to get their vehicles charged than to gas them up. “Looking to make driving less of a pain for the 1,500 Big Apple owners of its electric cars,” the firm intends to greatly expand its network of charging stations in Manhattan to 105 by the end of March, says a report from the New York Post.
More Tesla charging stations than gas stations
All the new charging stations in Manhattan will take as little as four hours to provide a full charge to a Tesla vehicle, and most of them will be free to use. Tesla CEO – Elon Musk – green lighted the expansion, which could result in the number of electric-car charging stations in Manhattan growing to three times that of the gas stations.
As of now, there are 40 gas stations in the city, and the number is declining fast with developers continuing to raze them in favor of more lucrative projects. Drivers of gas cars usually complain of rush-hour log jams at Manhattan gas stations because of which they are required to wait for up to 40 minutes, but Tesla drivers won’t have to wait long or not at all to ‘fill up,’ the report says.
Paul Gardi is an Upper West Sider, who owns a Model S P85D and takes it to the office downtown few times a week, told the Post, “The garages have a better sense of what’s going on now.” Gardi, the 49-year-old entrepreneur and investor, said, “A year ago, the garages were saying, ‘Whoa, what’s this thing?’ But now, they know what to do — you can just leave it and say, ‘Plug it in,’ and come back in an hour.”
As of Thursday, Tesla Motors Inc had fitted 68 Manhattan garages with ‘destination chargers,’ which are capable of adding about 60 miles of range per hour of charging to a Model S or Model X. The EV firm aims at establishing a charging station every three blocks by September. Four-hour chargers already exist in Manhattan, and in addition, Tesla has installed ‘supercharger stations’ as well along area highways that take just 40 minutes to charge a car.
Model 3 will net be delayed
Tesla is all set to introduce its full-electric mass-market car, and on March 31, we will get to see the first glimpse of it. Until now, the firm has not revealed much about the new car except releasing a teaser image. Whether we will get to see the entire car on the reveal date or not is not clear as of now.
The Model 3 is expected to be the first affordable car from Tesla. The EV firm will start taking reservations for it at its showrooms on the same day for which the interested buyers will have to make a deposit of $1,000. The online reservations will begin on April 1, reportedly.
Tesla Motors Inc insists that the Model 3 is on schedule, and will hit the roads late 2017. But if we go by the history, then this may change since all its previous car’s – Roadster, Model S and Model X – had missed original launch dates. Musk claims that with the designing of the Model 3, engineers have been able to save both time and money, since the build is simpler than the Model S and Model X.
The fact that Model 3s won’t be available with a whole suite of features also points to a speedy production timeline. This will make it possible for the EV to meet Tesla’s $35,000 base price goal before federal and state tax credits.
