The company invited New Jersey state legislators, Tesla executives, owners and other supporters to help celebrate the milestone, which represents the 86th Supercharger location in North America.
“We’re building a network that will ultimately mean drivers will never be more than 100 miles from a Supercharger,” the company said in a statement. “By the end of next year, we’ll have 98 percent of the U.S. population covered.”
The broad network enables drivers to pass up and down the West Coast and East Coast, or take a curved route across the entire country, without requiring drivers to find alternative charging sources.
The proprietary chargers provide a free 120 kW connection, enabling the Model S with an 85 kWh battery to add 170 miles of range in a half hour. Current is reduced as the battery fills, however, requiring 75 minutes to top off a completely drained battery of the same capacity.
The 100th station is located a stone’s throw from the New Jersey capitol of Trenton, perhaps not coincidentally. The Garden State has become one of the primary battlegrounds in Tesla’s fight against dealer franchise laws.
Governor Chris Christie’s administration recently pushed forward with a backroom deal to prevent the company from renewing its retail licenses, prompting political rivals in the state legislature to draft a bill that would explicitly approve the startup’s direct-sales model.
“We are zealots for electric cars, and we welcome and thank you for being here,” New Jersey Assemblyman Timothy Eustace told the crowd at the event.
If the location and VIP list was not enough of a hint, Tesla’s vice president of regulatory affairs, James Chen, was the only company executive quoted in the announcement.
“What we are really doing here today is getting to our core mission of catalyzing the electric vehicle industry,” Chen said.
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