Tesla and highway service operator Pilot open first truck charging station
Pilot Travel Centers, the largest operator of truck stops in North America, has begun building its own charging stations for the Tesla Semi as announced in January. The first six “Megachargers” were put into operation at the Pilot rest stop in Ellabell, Georgia.
Image: Pilot Travel Centers
Pilot Travel Centers states that another twelve locations are currently under construction, with three nearing completion and expected to open soon. Each location will have four to eight charging stations powered by Tesla’s V4 charging technology.
"Pilot is proud to offer charging options for heavy commercial vehicles directly along key truck routes[…]," said Shannon Sturgil, Senior Vice President of Alternative Fuels at Pilot. "With these first locations, we are making the electrification of long-haul fleets an easier-to-access option. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Tesla to move forward at the pace and according to the needs of our customers."
The first six charging stations for heavy commercial vehicles are now online at Pilot Site No. 1390 in Ellabell (130 Interstate Exchange Way). According to Tesla, each charging point can deliver a power output of up to 1.2 megawatts. In January, Tesla and Pilot Travel Centers announced their plan to install Tesla truck charging stations, primarily along Interstate 5 and 10 as well as several other major traffic corridors. The first pilot sites are set to be established in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas.
Important: The deal between Pilot Travel Centers and Tesla initially provides exclusive access to the truck chargers for Tesla customers. A statement released when the plans were announced said, “This network will initially focus on providing charging infrastructure for Tesla’s Semi trucks.” In the future, however, these charging stations could be opened to third-party brands, similar to what has happened with Tesla Superchargers for passenger vehicles.
According to the partners, the locations select sites where “the demand for charging stations for heavy vehicles is particularly high.” Pilot Travel Centers operates around 900 locations in 44 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces, serving an average of 1.2 million customers daily per their own claims. Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Knoxville, the company is a 100% subsidiary of holding company Berkshire Hathaway. Incidentally, Pilot Travel Centers announced a partnership with the Volvo Group in 2022 to develop charging stations for all available trucks.
The turnkey solution for the planned truck charging network is the 1.2 MW charging solution announced by Tesla last spring for the Semi, based on its own V4 technology. The manufacturer also uses this technology to make its passenger car chargers more efficient. It is a decentralized system consisting of compact satellite chargers and a separate equipment cabinet, known as the Powerunit. At scale, this technology can reach up to 1.2 MW, allowing the Semi to “restore most of its 800 kilometers of range in half an hour.”
"Most of the internal components [between car and truck chargers] are identical; only the cable, connector, and a few other details have been adjusted for high-performance applications," explained Dan Priestley, head of Tesla’s Semi program, in a previous statement. This strategy allows "us to leverage our volume and scale to make charging cheaper, while still delivering the reliability and uptime that Supercharger network users have come to expect."
Compared to current charging solutions for electric trucks, Tesla’s system aims to reduce space requirements by over 50 percent through its decentralized design. However, the maximum power of 1.2 MW is only available when a single vehicle is charging. In principle, the system can charge up to eight vehicles through power-sharing at correspondingly lower capacities.
Meanwhile, Tesla is also installing its own public 1.2-MW megachargers in North America. The first known location was a newly opened charging park in Bloomington, California, in July, which also featured six charging stations. Tesla’s website charger map now lists five locations: three in California (Bloomington, Vernon, Tulare) and two in Georgia (Conley and Ellabell).
At the same time, deliveries of the Semi have recently begun in larger quantities, with initial large orders in the three- and four-digit range arriving — including 2,500 units for the new U.S.-based trucking alliance called ZET SCALE or 500 units for Einride. With the launch of the Semi, a long period of delayed releases came to an end. Introduced in 2017 with an initial promise of hitting roads by 2019, the Semi was not actually put on sale until 2026.