EVwire brief: Pilot and Tesla have opened their first Megacharger site at a Pilot travel center in Ellabell, Georgia, with six heavy-duty charging stalls now live for Tesla Semi operators.
The site at Pilot #1390, near Savannah, kicks off a dedicated Semi charging network at select Pilot locations along major US freight corridors. Twelve more locations are under construction, and three of them are close to opening:
Flying J #1071 in Tulare, California, opening October 9
Flying J #553 in Fort Stockton, Texas
Pilot #341 in North Las Vegas, Nevada
Each Pilot Megacharger site will have four to eight stalls running on Tesla's V4 cabinet technology. This means that each stall can deliver up to 1.2 MW, enough for a Tesla Semi to recover 60% of its charge in about 30 minutes.
The official Tesla Charging account on X also posted the new Ellabell site:
Are you a heavy-duty EV geek? We just launched eTruckwire, a whole news publication dedicated to electric trucks and heavy-duty charging.
Shannon Sturgil, Pilot's senior vice president of alternative fuels, said the sites pair heavy-duty charging with the amenities truckers already rely on:
"Pilot is proud to bring heavy-duty charging directly to key trucking routes and pair it with the services and amenities drivers rely on. With these initial locations, we're making fleet electrification a more accessible option for long-haul transportation and are excited to continue working with Tesla to move at the pace and preference of our customers."
Pilot also announced the opening on LinkedIn:
Jason Gies, a business development and operations leader on Tesla's Semi charging team, described the two Georgia openings as part of a bigger push east:
"Two days. Two new Megacharger sites. Welcome to Georgia! Tesla Semi charging infrastructure is expanding beyond California, connecting major freight corridors and bringing Megacharging to the cities, distribution hubs, and highways where America's freight moves every day. From Atlanta to Savannah and beyond, we're building the charging network to support electric trucking at scale."
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Context:
Pilot and Tesla announced their partnership in January, with plans to build Megachargers at select Pilot locations along I-5, I-10 and other freight corridors in California, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada and Texas.
Ellabell opened a day after Tesla's first East Coast Megacharger in Conley, Georgia, an eight-stall site just outside Atlanta. Before that, Tesla's public Megacharger network was centered in Southern California, with six-stall sites in Bloomington and Vernon, along with pre-assembled Megachargers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
More sites are on the way. At its Semi rollout event in September, Tesla said it expects more than 30 Megacharger stations to come online in the US by the end of the year, representing more than 200 MW-capable posts.
Source: Pilot press release, Pilot and Jason Gies on LinkedIn
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