Guilderland

On a day when gasoline prices continued to climb nationally, Tesla owners could be forgiven for feeling a bit smug about their vehicles. After all, they were at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland to welcome the opening of the largest array of chargers in the Northeast.

Best of all, those chargers are free.

Actually, they're called Superchargers. That's because they can have a Tesla battery pack fully charged and ready to go in anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, or in terms of distance traveled, "300 miles per hour," said Allen Smith, a Tesla owner from Duanesburg.

The Crossgates installation includes 20 Superchargers, and most of the spaces were occupied Tuesday morning by what was likely the largest concentration of the all-electric cars ever in the Capital Region.

Tesla also operates a smaller Supercharger station at Colonie Center, and on Tuesday it announced that the five Cole's Collision Centers in the Capital Region would soon be the Capital Region's first Tesla-authorized body shop.

One Tesla owner said he's traveled as far as Wisconsin and South Carolina with never a worry about not being able to recharge. "I'll never buy a gas car again," said the owner, who declined to give his name because "I'm supposed to be at work."

Smith and his wife Ann showed a reporter all the storage space their vehicle offers, from a trunk where the gasoline engine normally would be (a "frunk, for front trunk, they called it), to an especially deep trunk in back, thanks to the lack of a gasoline tank.

They raved about the auto-pilot features that can read speed limits (one drawback: it slows down in school zones even during summer vacation) and can overtake and pass another vehicle. A converter allows them to charge up at public charging stations as well as at the proprietary Tesla Supercharger locations.

So far, there are no showrooms in the Capital Region for Teslas. Tesla has just five licensed stores statewide, but would like to add 15 more, five of which would be upstate, in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and the Hudson Valley, a company spokesman said.

Franchised auto dealers oppose the idea of allowing a manufacturer to sell directly to the consumer and in some states, such as Connecticut, Tesla has no stores at all.

And while the cars are becoming a more common sight — more than 200,000 are on the road — with an entry price of nearly $70,000, they're not for everyone.

So Tesla has introduced its Model 3, which starts at about $35,000. To keep costs down, it also will wind down its free Supercharger offer to new customers after the end of the year as it seeks to attract a larger audience, the spokesman said.

If the state legislature does allow more stores for Tesla, Crossgates General Manager Michael Gately said he hoped the Guilderland shopping center, at the intersection of Interstates 87 and 90, "would be high on their radar."