Tesla has added another V4 Supercharger station in Europe, this time at Gigafactory Berlin. This brings the number of V4 Supercharger stations to six, but there was something far more significant about this installation than all of the others.
We first officially learned of Tesla’s latest Supercharger posts earlier this year during Investor Day, with the company making the surprise announcement that they were already building the first station in Europe. It only took a few weeks from that announcement until fans founds that installation in the Netherlands.
Since then Tesla has built several more, including stations in Austria, France, and Italy. Germany can now also be added to that list, as Tesla has added V4 Supercharger posts at Giga Berlin. However, the significance of this installation is that Tesla replaced the existing V3 Superchargers with the new V4 units. This confirms that Tesla is able to convert existing V3 stations to their latest charging technology, and by the looks of it, fairly quickly and easily.
Gigafactory Berlin V4 SUC are finished installing today. Roof is also finished. Looks amazing 🤩 @Gf4Tesla @EstherKokkelman @teslaeurope @TeslaOwnersDEU pic.twitter.com/kUoTZqU6oB
— ⚡️Felix⚡️🔋 (@EinfachFelyx) August 7, 2023
There has been a lot of discussion around how quickly Tesla will be able to deploy their V4 Supercharger stations. As we have previously reported V4 Supercharging posts feature longer charging cables, making it easier for non-Tesla EVs with non-standard charge port locations to plug in and use the Supercharger network. This makes the V4 rollout in North America particularly important as several major automakers have signed on to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) in their future EVs, meaning there will soon be a lot more traffic at Supercharger stations.
With Tesla being able to convert their existing V3 stations to V4, that rollout could be accelerated significantly. However there is a bit of a catch, as converted stations will also need their supporting infrastructure updated to allow for 350kW charging speeds, specs which were revealed in planning documents last month.
