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Maybe one day you'll be able to chahge ya cah in Hahvihd Yahd

But in the meantime, downtown Boston will have to do. Tesla announced today it's planning a new generation of urban "superchargers" for its cars - starting with downtown Boston and Chicago:

Superchargers in urban areas have a new post design that occupies less space and is easier to install, making them ideal for dense, highly populated areas. To increase efficiency and support a high volume of cars, these Superchargers have a new architecture that delivers a rapid 72 kilowatts of dedicated power to each car.

The company did not specify where, exactly, it'll be putting the things.

H/t Pat from Boston.

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Comments

"dense, highly populated areas" or, in other words, parts of the city that should be pedestrian only zones.

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But the people who can afford to pay $70K-$140K for just a car are going to get their way.

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I'd bet they're the same NIMBYs that oppose various cycling infrastructure improvements or the latest HUBway location because it'll take away parking spaces. Money talks.

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With the old housing stock that Boston has, this is great news! "Charging at home" is much easier for suburban homes than it is for dense areas (ie old triple deckers) not all homes/condos/apts have dedicated parking, unsure how street parking would really work out for home charging either. Factor in that getting more than one 3 prong outlet in an apartment bedroom is a luxury. All of this adds up to home charging being quite challenging in the urban Boston environment, making this a great move on Tesla's part.

This development will end up opening the door for renters and older condo owners to have a realistic path to owning an EV in Boston.

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When the last person gets their pre-ordered Model 3, they'll have wireless charging by then!

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There's an enlightening story in The Washington Post about how Tesla sent a wireless software update to some of its cars as Hurricane Irma was threatening Florida. The software change gave those cars additional battery life, to help their owners evacuate and escape the storm.

The Model S and Model X vehicles updated Saturday were all built with a 75-kilowatt-hour battery. At full capacity, that’s enough for a Model S to travel about 250 miles. When those cars were first sold, Tesla gave customers the option of a lower-capacity battery at a more affordable price, and some decided to take the savings rather than purchase the full 75-kWh battery.

But downsizing didn’t mean replacing the big battery with a physically smaller one; it just meant using a bit of computer code to restrict how much of the battery the car could access. If the customers wanted, they could later have Tesla lift the software lock by paying an additional fee, which can run into the thousands of dollars.

Over the weekend Tesla temporarily lifted that software lock at no cost to owners, after receiving requests for help from customers whose cars were stuck in Irma-related traffic.

It would have been irresponsible for Tesla not to temporarily unlock the batteries in a life-treatening situation such as a hurricane, so I'll give them credit for that. But crippling the batteries on those cars in the first place, for no other reason than to extract thousands of dollars of extra profit, is rather shameful.

Even if you don't buy a Tesla, it affects everyone else. Deliberately crippling the batteries also deliberately lessens the vehicle's environmental benefits. More charging stations have to be installed to support the cars that need to be recharged more frequently, inevitably taking away parking spaces for other drivers.

Tesla charges customers to use these stations — more than half the cost of an equivalent amount of gasoline energy, so it's another significant source of revenue. The whole scheme sounds like a really sleazy way to make extra profit.

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Tesla hasn't made a dime in profit.

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Musk has personally by skimming billions off the top of corporate welfare paid for by taxpayers like you during the Bush and Obama administrations.

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or his company?

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Musk has pocketed billions of dollars skimming money from companies which despite billions of dollars of subsidies and investment by private investors have never turned a profit.

If Musk had any integrity and wasn't the biggest conman of the 21st century he wouldn't be drawing anything more than a modest salary.

Jeff Bezos is the real deal while Musk is another Ponzi/Madoff in the making.

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Someone please remind me why Tesla still needs tax payer subsidies???

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