Tesla has announced that the Supercharger network will use only renewable energy this year, according to a post by Tesla's mid-Atlantic market lead for Superchargers, Justin Lange, and pointed out by Electrek on Tuesday.
Should we be impressed? Renewable energy is great and its adoption is critical to the continued survival of our planet. The thing is, though, this is hardly the first time that Tesla is making this claim -- as pointed out by journalist E.W. Niedermeyer on Twitter. Tesla promised this back in 2012 during the company's Supercharger unveil event in Hawthorne, California. Niedermeyer linked to examples again in 2013, 2017 and 2019. Here we are in 2021 and we're still waiting.
Now, it's true that some Tesla Supercharger stations feature solar panels, but not all of them. And solar power by itself would not likely be enough to completely offset the massive amounts of energy sucked down by Supercharging Teslas, let alone enough to power the 2,699 Supercharger stations and their 24,515 connectors around the world.
Don't get me wrong, we want Tesla to succeed here, but until it provides a solid plan with hard numbers for making the renewable energy-powered Supercharger network a reality, it may be a good idea for all of us to take the company's announcements with a grain of salt instead of just clapping along.
