Tesla appears to be giving up on its idea for a drive-in restaurant in Los Angeles, but the location is set to become one of the biggest Supercharger V3 stations in the world.
In 2018, Elon Musk said that Tesla plans to open an “old school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant at one of the new Tesla Supercharger locations in Los Angeles.”
It was yet another, “Is he joking?” kind of Elon Musk idea, but he apparently wasn’t kidding.
A few months later, Tesla actually applied for building permits for “a restaurant and Supercharger station” at a location in Santa Monica.
That was three years ago, and the company did not move forward with the project.
Now Tesla is actually doing something at the location. It doesn’t look like it will be a restaurant, but it could be a pretty large Supercharger station.
The automaker has submitted plans for a Supercharger station at the same Santa Monica Boulevard location where they first planned the restaurant.
In the plans, we can see that Tesla is building the station with solar canopies and some amenities, which has been more common for the automaker lately.
There’s going to be a restroom onsite and 62 Supercharger stalls – making it one of the biggest Supercharger stations in the world.
On its Supercharger map, Tesla says that they aim to open the Supercharger station in Q3 2021:
It will be a rare Supercharger station on the west side of Los Angeles as Tesla focuses its Supercharger stations near main highways to enable long-distance travel.
However, the automaker has been trying to deploy more charging stations in dense urban areas to also help with EV ownership for people who live in apartments and condos where it is more difficult to get overnight charging at home.
Santa Monica is also a popular location in Los Angeles for people to go shopping or to go to the beach – though the location is a dozen blocks from the ocean.
Here’s Tesla’s full plan for the new Supercharger station:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.