Tesla Turmoil Means Make-or-Break Moment for EV Charging
The EV charging industry faces a make-or-break moment.Tesla rattled the U.S. charging industry in late April with deep cuts to the team that created the country's most successful charging network. Since then, comments by Chief Executive Elon Musk have left other charging companies scratching their heads about Tesla's plans.Immediately after the layoffs, Musk tweeted that Tesla would build Superchargers, the web of fast chargers that enable cross-country road trips, at a slower pace for new locations. Then on Friday he took to his social-media site, X, to say: "Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year.". Any shift in Tesla's rapid building pace opens up a massive opportunity, though there is no obvious No. 2 in the race to build a U.S. highway network.Tesla has more than 25,500 Superchargers in the U.S., part of a global network of more than 50,000 fast chargers, according to government data and the company. Tesla