Tesla Superchargers Installed Near Bellefonte

Joanne Tosti-Vasey knows how important it is to have access to a Tesla Supercharger. She was the first Tesla owner in Centre County and has made numerous long-distance trips in her Model S.

Eight new Tesla Superchargers, a proprietary type of electric vehicle charge station, were installed at the Weis grocery store in Spring Township, just off Interstate 99. They’re capable of giving cars about 170 miles of range in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 90 minutes. The chargers are set to open by the end of 2017.

It’s not the couple of minutes of fill-up that petrol pumpers are used to, but Tesla’s philosophy of feeding your car while you feed yourself means drivers can grab a meal while charging up.

Tosti-Vasey, who serves on Bellefonte Borough Council, has helped Bellefonte become one of three cities in Pennsylvania, alongside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, involved in the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Coalition. She said the group’s goal is to have electric vehicles making up 50 percent of vehicles on the road by 2050.

Sometime next year, Bellefonte will be doing major work on two municipal parking lots that will include the installation of electric charging stations. Those projects will go out for bidding sometime before the end of 2017, with construction expected to start as soon as possible after the spring thaw in 2018.

So far, Bellefonte Borough hasn’t found a source of funding to help with the cost of installing the chargers. There is funding from the federal government for emissions reduction programs from the settlement with Volkswagen over cheating emissions standards. A reported $2.7 billion of the $14.7 billion settlement will be released over five rounds through the Environmental Mitigation Trust.
At her own home, Tosti-Vasey makes use of solar panels for all electric needs, and said so far this year she her electricity bill has been $14 per month, the cost of the fee to hook up to the grid.

Even before solar panels, she said it was cheaper to charge the Tesla off the grid rather than pay for gas in her Honda Accord. She and her husband had been paying about $150 in gas per month, but the cost of the charge was $50 per month for the Tesla before solar. They were able to track the cost of the Tesla charging separately since their garage is on a different meter than the house.

She said for her and her husband, it was a matter of doing their small part to reduce their carbon footprint and to combat global warming.

“With climate change, we each have to make our own effort,” she said. “So, my husband and I decided several years ago that we were going to do what we could on a personal basis. It’s a very, very tiny bit, but if everybody does their very, very tiny bit, we can help the climate.”

It was also a matter of personal comfort for her. She said she is sensitive to the fumes from petrochemicals. When she would fill up at the pump, she would get back inside her vehicle until the tank was full.

Tosti-Vasey has a Level 2 charger in her garage. There are three levels of chargers, with Level 1 being a simple household three-pronged plug and Level 3 the proprietary chargers from companies such as Tesla.

As for the Tesla Superchargers, they will give people traveling through the county a place to stop for a quick charge before continuing on with their journey. Tesla in-car navigation systems base their routes off of the locations of such charging stations.

Driving an electric-only car does take a little bit of logistical planning. It’s no problem for shorter trips where owners can return home and just plug in at their garages. It’s another problem entirely if the driver is stuck somewhere where there is only access to a three-pronged plug, which can only give a charge of about 4 miles each hour.

Because of that, Tesla has heavily invested in opening more Superchargers. The company’s website shows the location of all the currently open Superchargers and destination chargers (located at hotels, shopping centers and restaurants) and those in the planning stages. The open chargers are marked with red pins, and the planned locations are marked with gray. There are far more gray pins than red, so Tesla drivers in the coming years will have a much easier time with long-distance trips, and it will give confidence to consumers who may be on the fence about going all-electric.

“When we bought our car four years ago, there were only 27 Superchargers in the country,” Tosti-Vasey said. “There are now probably 4,000 worldwide.”

The only other high-powered station in Centre County appears to be at Sheetz, 1781 N. Atherton St., according to the company PlugShare, which publishes a popular app for drivers to find charge stations. The Tesla chargers at Weis aren’t yet listed.

There are a number of other Level 2 public charging stations that have the popular J1772 hookup. Many of these are at hotels and car dealerships.

Some people even list their homes as places people can get a charge.

A representative from Weis store said the company does not yet know when the Superchargers will officially open to the public. Tesla’s website said the target is by the end of 2017. Right now, the charging stations are installed, but roped off.