Tesla's New 'Accordion' Superchargers Promise Instant Commissioning

The company claims the pre-assembled Supercharger units are 20% cheaper to install than traditional chargers.

Photo by: Tesla

By: Iulian Dnistran

Sep 16, at 6:06am ET

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Tesla has a new type of pre-assembled Supercharger unit.
Dubbed the “Accordion” Supercharger unit, it packs eight stalls and a V4 power cabinet.
It was designed to be cheaply and easily integrated between parking spaces.

Tesla is constantly finding new ways to install EV charging stations faster and cheaper, and its latest prefabricated solution shows that the company isn’t resting on its laurels.

The new "Accordion" Supercharger units come pre-assembled from the factory to make installation faster and cheaper compared to traditional deployments, and the first Supercharger station that used this new type of prefabricated solution is already online in Germany.

The all-in-one solution bundles eight individual stalls, a power cabinet, and all the necessary cablework to make commissioning as easy as possible. Each truck shipment can fit two such systems, totaling 16 stalls. At the site, everything can be unloaded quickly and placed onto the ground with a forklift.

Each pair of stalls is mounted on a concrete base from the factory, and all of the hardware uses the latest iteration of Tesla’s electronics. The combination of V4 dispensers and V4 power cabinet means EV drivers can enjoy up to 500 kilowatts of power, while the power cabinet itself is rated at up to 1.2 megawatts.

The company said that this solution was designed for sites where parking spaces have already been traced out, with installation costs going down by 20% compared to traditional installs and “instant commissioning.”

Tesla did not provide the exact location of its first Accordion Supercharger site, but after doing a little digging, I found it at the FC Bayern Store in Irschenberg, Germany. According to user photos posted on Google Maps, the station, which is next to two fast-food restaurants, went online last month.

Tesla Accordion Supercharger unit

Photo by: Tesla

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As more and more power-hungry EVs hit the roads in Europe and the United States, it’s good to see that Tesla is ramping up installations of its V4 Superchargers and power cabinets, which provide vastly superior charging speeds.

The latest Accordion Supercharger units are the latest in an increasingly long line of prefabricated EV chargers. In fact, they’re almost identical to the Folding Unit Superchargers that debuted earlier this year in the U.S. Both feature the same hardware, but the Folding Superchargers come with a hinged metal base, whereas the Accordion Superchargers are grouped in pairs.