Dive Brief:

• In a blog post on Monday, Tesla announced plans to expand its Supercharger network into dense urban areas, starting with downtown Chicago and Boston. 
• The city-based Supercharger stations, which will be installed in locations like supermarkets and shopping centers, are intended to support customers who may not have immediate access to chargers in their homes or workplaces. 
• Tesla upgraded the design for city-based Superchargers to make installation easier and to take up less space. The charging stations are able to delver 72 kW of power to each car.

Dive Insight:

Accessibility is a key component of smart city products and developments, especially when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs). It is expected that by 2040, 54% of new car sales will be EVs. And while many stakeholders, including state utilities in areas like Massachusetts and California, are preparing for an "EV boom," that boom is bound to be stalled without the development of charging stations. Cab drivers in Washington, D.C. have even said they regret switching to electric vehicles due to the lack of access to public chargers — and the prohibitive cost of buying an at-home charging system.  

If Tesla can make city-based charging stations the norm, it would not only alter the lives of these professional drivers — and any EV owner — but would alter city infrastructure. The future of parking garage design could be flipped on its head as EVs become more mainstream, however Construction Dive has reported this is a sort of "chicken or the egg" type of situation. Drivers will likely wait to buy EVs until chargers are available, but garage owners will wait to install chargers until there's a demand for them. Therefore it is hopeful that Tesla's lead will jumpstart this adoption.

Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, has been leading the charge in many other areas as well, including solar power and aerospace transport. Musk's acclaimed work has consistently marked developing trends across the various industries in which he works, and Tesla's EV development is no different.