During the recent 2023 Investor Day, Tesla revealed very interesting data related to the charging of its electric vehicles.
The numbers are worth a closer look, as they throw new light on how Tesla users charge their vehicles and how the Tesla Supercharging network is utilized.
First of all, let’s note that there are some 4 million Tesla electric cars in the world (excluding a small number of vehicles that were scrapped for a variety of reasons).
According to Tesla (presentation from March 1, 2023), the cumulative total vehicle mileage of all models is close to 80 billion miles (129 billion km), which translates to about 20,000 miles per car (including one-day-old or 15-year-old cars).
The chart included below says that the fleet drives some 123 million miles per day and notes 1.9 million charging sessions per day (on average).
- 4 million Tesla cars
- 123 million miles per day
- potentially roughly 30+ miles (48 km) per day per car
This gives us an interesting number: Tesla cars are driven, on average, 65 miles (105 km) between charging sessions (AC or DC). That’s just a fraction of their typical range.
- 123 million miles per day
- 1.9 million charging sessions per day
- 65 miles (105 km) between charging sessions (average)
It seems also that many owners do not charge their cars every day, because the average daily mileage appears to be two times lower than the distance between charging sessions.
Now let’s move on to Tesla Supercharging. As of the end of 2022, Tesla had:
- 4,678 stations
- 42,419 individual connectors (stalls)
- 9.1 connectors (stalls) per station on average
In the next slide, Tesla notes that the weekly number of Supercharging sessions amounted to 1.5 million (about 214,000 per day) and that the network provided some 9 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2022.
It would mean that weekly, an average Supercharging station is used some 320 times, while a single charging stall is used 35 times. All of the numbers are just very rough estimates.
- stations: 320 sessions per week (46/day)
- stalls: 35 sessions per week (5/day)
Nonetheless, the numbers indicate that the network is far from being overwhelmed in an average week, although there might be issues during peak demand periods.
In terms of Supercharging time, the company says that the average session time is gradually decreasing and currently is somewhere around 27.5 minutes.
The graph provided below shows that Tesla managed to reduce the time through various measures including higher charging power (V3 Supercharger and 250 kW peak output), battery pre-heating, and other things that encourage users to charge only to a level that is necessary to reach the next charging stop.
We can also note a seasonal increase in charging time (probably in the winter, when the battery is cold and can’t accept maximum power), although the seasonality factor decreased, which might be a result of pre-heating.
If the trend continues, in the future, an average Supercharging session might be less than 25 minutes.
