The Supercharger network, Tesla’s network of fast-charging stations, has seen a record year for growth in 2017 despite not reaching the company’s target.

It’s starting the new year in a big way with already 20 new stations and one of them is a new 50-Supercharger station – equal to the largest in the world.

Tesla has been doing well in China with exceptional growth over the past 2 years.

In order to support its growing fleet in the country, the company has been heavily investing in charging infrastructure, which is why it’s not surprising that its 3 biggest Supercharger stations in the world are in China.

The company already opened a 50-stall station in Shanghai last year. It became the largest in the world and another 50-stall station followed in Beijing a few months later.

Now Tesla has built a third 50-stall Supercharger station and the second in Beijing – all equal for the largest Supercharger station in the world and consequently, the largest fast-charging station in the world.

Tesla brought the new station online earlier this month and Rafał Michałowicz stopped by and shared a few images with Electrek:

This station has to be extremely powerful in order to potentially supercharge up to 50 cars at the same time. If the system is as powerful as current Superchargers, and it looks like it is, the whole station could have a peak power output of over 3 megawatts

The station is located next to the Arriva hotel on Suzhoujie street in the Haidian district. The new station is the 16th in the megacity.

Tesla ended last year with just over 8,250 Superchargers at 1,120 locations around the world. They added 350 stations over the year – 38% more than their previous record – and over 3,150 Superchargers.

The company says that they aim to have 18,000 Superchargers around the world by the end of 2018.

Electrek’s Take

As previously reported, we are really starting to see a shift to higher numbers of stalls per station in the Supercharger network.

Tesla already undoubtedly has the most extensive fast-charging network around the world in terms of the number of stations, but the automaker is also extremely more aggressive in terms of charge connectors per station than any other network out there.

And that has become truer than ever in the past few months with several 40-stall stations in North America and Europe, and now those 3 50-stall stations in China.

With the Model 3’s arrival, Tesla’s fleet is expected to grow faster than ever, which will really put the network to the test.

Of course, Tesla also took other measures, like now charging for the electricity and the new fair use policy, in order to facilitate the transition and make the network sustainable.

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