SUTHERLIN, Ore. — Tesla is planning to build a massive Supercharger station in Oregon, an outpost apparently rivaled in scale only by one operating station in California and another under construction in the Golden State.
The Oregon site is right off Interstate 5 in the Douglas County town of Sutherlin, 165 miles south of Portland and home to 8,563 people. Plans submitted to Sutherlin and Douglas County officials call for 51 charging stalls on a now-vacant lot between Taco Bell and Starbucks stores.
Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) has about two dozen Supercharger stations in Oregon. Most have eight charging stalls, a few have 12 and one, in Springfield, has 14.
According to Drive Tesla Canada, which first reported the Sutherlin plans, the largest operating Tesla Supercharger site is a 56-stall station near the town of Firebaugh off I-5 in Fresno County, Calif.
A 98-stall station is in the works just 35 miles south of there, at Harris Ranch, a popular I-5 stop about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Tesla owns and operates Supercharger stations. With more than 30,000 chargers, the company calls the network the "largest global, fast-charging network in the world."
"When it comes to charging networks, they have set the standard for what a really good national charging network looks like," Jeff Allen, executive director of the Portland-based EV advocacy Forth, told the Business Journal.
The Tesla Superchargers can charge at up to 250 kilowatts, adding as much as 200 miles of driving range in about 15 minutes. There are also thousands of privately owned slower-charging Tesla Destination Charging sites at commercial establishments such as hotels and resorts.