There is big $$$ in the charger network in huge handouts from federal government in USA. This will just accelerate the number of chargers being brought online for tesla. Also note that Tesla can still skew the utlliization so that other brands are not notified of available slots at super busy locations.
Not just in the US. The amount of chargers is growing by double digit percentages in many countries. Tesla's network is one of the larger and more mature/reliable ones but they are not the only ones by far and there are many billions being invested in this sector. Utilization of this infrastructure remains fairly low. Most of this is being done in anticipation of massive growth in demand in the next few years.
And while people obsess over fast chargers, the real deal is actually slower charging in parking lots, parking garages, shopping malls etc. Those are a lot cheaper and easier to install and they are similar in cost to what people would install at home. Basically, most of the charging happens at home or chargers like that while the driver is doing something else. A lot of venues try to draw in customers by providing them with charging opportunities and they are fairly cheap to install. There are already quite many of those. Hundreds of thousands of them. They're everywhere.
You use fast chargers at a premium when you have to on longer journeys. Plug it in for 20-30 minutes and continue driving for a few hours. Not that big of a deal.
But slower charging is better for your wallet and battery and if you are parking the car anyway, you might as well plug it in to gain a few extra kwh. It won't delay you or cost you much. For most typical EV drivers, that's all they need most of the time. The vast majority of charging is slow charging and it doesn't involve people waiting for that. On average people only drive maybe 10-20 miles on a typical day. That's only about 4-6kwh. You don't need a fast charger for that. Plug it in at home once every few days or at the mall while you are shopping, having some coffee, at work, etc. There are plenty of opportunities for charging even if you don't have a charger at home.
There is a lot of competition for those dollars, and a lot of states won't even dole them out until next year.
It wouldn't be surprising if Tesla doesn't get that much of the money. TBH, Tesla's current V3 offering doesn't quite meet NEVI standards regardless of the connector.
> Tesla installed ~33 new sites representing over 270 new chargers during May, so far.
You're conflating two different counts there.
Tesla has commissioned 33 new sites in May. Construction on most of those started in 2+ months ago.
They have started construction on 8 superchargers in the month of May so far, consisting of 96 stalls. With this being a long weekend, that basically leaves them with 2 working days, so I doubt many more entering construction.
They are trending down due to the shortage.
Construction started:
May: 8 sites, 96 stalls
April: 11 sites, 162 stalls
March: 12 sites, 192 stalls
Additionally, it's not hard to find evidence of the transformer shortage.
> Today, the average time for obtaining new transformers in the US has grown from about two months prior to 2021 to 12 months in 2022, according to a survey of public power utilities.
> Already, the shortage has forced 20 per cent of utility companies to either delay or cancel electrical grid projects. Home builders have experienced months-long delays in constructing new houses and apartments because of wait times for connecting with local electrical grids.
That's an extraordinary claim, tbh. Just poking around on Supercharger.info shows ~32 sites starting construction since the beginning of May. That might be overcounting slightly if they overlooked some that started a little earlier, but I doubt it is overcounting by 4x.
The transformer shortage is not a new problem. There's a reason that the pace of openings hasn't really changed that much.
