On Thursday, Tesla announced the opening of a new V3 Supercharger station in Las Vegas. The fully-featured charging station uses the V3 charging platform along with solar power and batteries to reduce the dependency on traditional grid-electricity.
Tesla’s V3 architecture for Supercharging is designed to cut the charging time in half. A V3 Supercharger supports a peak rate of 250 kiloWatts per car. The catch there, is the fact that currently only the Model 3 Long Range can utilise that much of capacity. According to Tesla’s stats, at this rate, a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can gain up to 120 km (75 miles) of charge in 5 minutes. Whereas Model S and Model X can charge at a rate of 200 kiloWatts.
The new charging station has 24 V3 Superchargers each of which, in just 15 minutes of charge time, can add a range equivalent to 290 km (180 miles). Besides, Tesla has installed 15 Level 2 wall chargers, which charge at a moderate rate (for Tesla owners who aren’t in a rush).
The charging station built below the High Roller, near The Linq Hotel in Las Vegas, is constructed on the property owned by Caesars Entertainment. This site is a part of Caesars Entertainment’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2025.
Tesla currently has over 12,000 Supercharger stations around the globe. V3 Supercharger is its new and improved supercharging technology. V3’s predecessor V2 Supercharger was able to produce 120 kW of power which was later improved to 140 kW. What is notable here, is the fact that V3 isn’t just an upgrade to V2, its more of a completely new tech architecture.
A V3 Supercharger requires more power to feed which is why has been fitted with a 1-megawatt power cabinet for 4 stalls. Unlike V2 supercharger sites where two stalls would power split thus decreasing the charging speed if two cars are plugged together into the same charging station, each stall will get its own dedicated 250 kW supply from that 1MW power cabinet.
The charging station in Las Vegas is Tesla’s third V3 Supercharging station. The first one is located at Tesla’s Fremont, California factory and the second near the company’s Design Studio in Hawthorne, California. Both these were used as test sites and unlike the one in Las Vegas, aren’t fully featured.
