Tesla expanding fast-charge stations to 80 by end of 2013

Electric automaker announces bold plans to allow owners to drive their cars cross-country.

We have to admit that we enjoy poking some fun at Elon Musk and Tesla Motors whenever possible. But it's starting to feel like the joke’s on us. 

Tesla is planning to rapidly expand its Supercharger network across the continental United States and Canada through 2015. Currently, the company's eight Supercharger stations,open since October, are assembled on the East and West coasts of the country, one of which led to a New York Times reporter becoming stranded between New York and Boston. 

The Supercharger stations allow Model S owners in specific areas to get about three hours' worth of charge for freein just over 20 minutes.

Tesla says the new stations will be "free forever," able to charge at 120 kW (a technology that is currently in beta testing) and you'll only be able to pull in for a charge if you own the top-end 85-kWh Model S  -- and certainly not if you're driving a Nissan Leaf or a Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Those cars use a separate Japanese fast-charge standard called ChaDeMO, which claims to have nearly 1,700 stations across the globe. 

As of now, there are two competing standards for electric car charging: the aforementioned ChaDeMO setup, embraced by Mitsubishi and Nissan, and the new SAE standard, which has been accepted by just about everyone else. Then there's Tesla. Like Apple, it doesn't care what standard everyone else is using, instead choosing to stick to its guns with its own, admittedly sleeker setup. It's also worth noting that few, if any, fast-charge SAE or ChaDeMO stations are available to the public.

Tesla claims it will have 27 stations in North America by the end of June, including from Vancouver to Portland, Austin to Dallas and in Illinois and Colorado, as well as four more stations between New York and Boston, an area where Musk admitted the company had spaced its chargers too far apart.

By December, Tesla said it would "connect most of the major metro areas in the U.S. and Canada" by installing stations in Florida, Arizona, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. By that time, including Canadian stations in Ottawa and Montreal, Tesla will have roughly 80 stations, according to its website map. By 2015, the company plans to cover nearly the entire continent, save for Mexico, with 100 or more stations that will allow drivers to go from Los Angeles to New York "without spending a cent on fuel."

Owners are encouraged to take a break, hit the rest room and grab a bite while their cars are charging, and charge stations are typically located near malls, restaurants and other conveniences. The company may allow owners to see how busy the stations are on their Tesla smartphone app.

But that begs the question: What do you do if you arrive and someone else's car is just sitting on the plug, fully charged? Tesla encourages customers to be courteous, use good etiquette and even leave a card on the windshield with contact information. But time will tell how this plays out.

More than 13,000 customers are now on the waiting list for a sleek new Model S, and Tesla expects to sell more than 21,000 of them this year. Last week, the company famously repaid its $465 million federal loan months ahead of schedule, and its stock has risen to more than $100 a share. 

autos.msn.com