EVwire brief: Tesla has signed a lease with the City of Chehalis, Washington, for a Semi Megacharger station just off I-5, roughly midway between Seattle and Portland.
The "Semi Supercharger Lease Agreement" was uncovered and shared by MarcoRP, the Tesla community's go-to Supercharger tracker, on X. The document covers a roughly 32,000-square-foot lot at 720 NW Arkansas Way and allows up to eight Class 8 DC charging stalls. MarcoRP estimates that Tesla plans to start with four posts and build out to eight.
The lease uses Tesla's "Semi Supercharger" template language and does not list a power rating. That said, the Class 8 layout and I-5 location point to this being a Megacharger, Basecharger location.
The site sits in a vacant lot between Walmart and Home Depot on NW Arkansas Way, on one of the Pacific Northwest’s busiest freight corridors. It is next to, but separate from, the existing Tesla Supercharger at 700 NW Arkansas Way. The 10-year base term comes with four five-year renewal options, which could keep Tesla on the site for up to 30 years.
Here’s MarcoRP’s post on X:
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According to the lease, Tesla will pay $1,250 per month plus applicable leasehold excise tax, with a 10% rent increase every fifth anniversary and a renegotiation clause every 20 years.
The site plan (Exhibit A of the lease) details a purpose-built facility: truck-and-trailer charging stalls in a back-in configuration, an amenity building (20 x 10 feet), charging cabinets, a switchboard, transformer, utility point of connection, and charger posts with light poles. A wider driveway is proposed for truck access, and the dedicated stall pavement covers 1,133 square feet.
Tesla has 365 days of due diligence from the effective date, then up to another 365 days before the lease term and rent clock start, or possibly sooner if the station opens to the public first. This suggests that the site could take as long as two years to come online, or less if construction moves faster.
Here are images of the Semi Charger’s lease agreement.
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Context:
Tesla has been steadily building out its Semi charging network through 2026, and the pace is picking up. The first two public Megacharger sites are now open in Southern California: a six-stall, 1.2 MW facility in Vernon that opened in August, and a matching station in Bloomington that came online in July. Both serve the freight corridors connecting the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports to the Inland Empire's logistics network.
Chehalis is a geographic step north. While Vernon and Bloomington anchor Tesla’s Semi network around LA port traffic, this lease plants a flag on I-5 in the Pacific Northwest.
The new Megacharger’s timing aligns with broader West Coast infrastructure momentum for electric trucks. A Vancouver-to-Mexico zero-emissions freight corridor is taking shape along I-5, with governments from California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Baja California committing to 20 electric truck charging stations and coordinated technical standards. Tesla is listed among the private partners.
Source: MarcoRP on X
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