Tesla is rolling out its destination charger network around the country, recently signing off on its 300th fast residential-grade charging station near Melbourne. At the same time, though, a little bit of corporate intrigue means that its secondary high-speed Supercharging station in Sydney’s CBD has been closed, almost halving the number of high-speed chargers available to Tesla owners.
Business Insider reports that Tesla’s four-bay Supercharger station in the basement car park of The Star casino in Pyrmont has been closed for around three weeks, with the casino complex unhappy with the partnership. Gizmodo understands that The Star essentially wasn’t making any money off the Tesla owners, who would either wait in their cars or would only buy a coffee or lunch rather than visiting The Star’s casino facilities.
The length of time that Tesla Superchargers were leaving their cars at The Star was apparently also a point of frustration. Recently one-hour parking signs were installed on the four-bay charger; a Tesla Supercharger can deliver a full charge from a completely empty battery in around 90 minutes. On previous occasions where we’ve charged at The Star, we’ve been informed by employees that chargers were to be occupied for no more than an hour at a time.
With the four-bay charger in Pyrmont gone, Sydney Tesla owners that want to use a Supercharger have to travel to Tesla’s St Leonards location, where five chargers are installed at the site that the company opened its first Australian showroom. flagship Martin Place store does not have public access chargers.
Tesla’s Supercharger network outside of Sydney stretches as far north as Knockrow near Byron Bay in northern NSW, and as far south as Ballarat in Victoria, enabling long-distance travel between Adelaide and Brisbane through a Supercharger corridor that runs past Albury, Goulburn, Sydney and Port Macquarie. Outside of the fast chargers, destination chargers are dotted around the east, west and south coasts of Australia and within the interiors of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
Tesla also promotes free unlimited home charging for a car’s first year of ownership through its partnership with AGL, which has an Electric Car Plan that includes a carbon offset for the electricity and a fixed $1 daily unlimited charging fee after the first year.
Both Tesla and The Star declined to comment when asked by Business Insider. [Business Insider]