Tesla kicked off its big delivery event on December 1st and gave PepsiCo its first electric Semi at the Giga Nevada factory. And while it's a pretty significant milestone, what stole the show is Elon Musk's mention that the Cybertruck can handle the same 1 Megawatt Superchargers as the Semi.
During the event, Tesla unveiled its all-new 1MW ultra-fast charging technology, which will likely be known as Megachargers or Level 4 Supercharging stations. Compared to the current 250kW speeds of level 3, potentially offering over 1,000kW is a massive upgrade. These will keep the electric Semi on the road.
Elon Musk and Sr. Manager of Semi Dan Priestley talked about the company's new "immersion cooling technology" that allows high-rate charging speeds and superior cooling, all without bulky charging cables. Here's that discussion timestamped in the video below.
Elon Musk confirmed that the impressive 1MW charging is coming to the Cybertruck, then Priestley followed that up by saying, "this is coming to our Superchargers next year." And while it certainly sounds like these new cables and charging stations will deliver incredible charging speeds, the comments are a bit confusing.
Can the Cybertruck charge at 1MW speeds, or will it simply be able to use the Supercharger V4 stations with 1MW output cables? If so, how fast will it charge? This new technology enables pushing megawatts of power through a small cable, but we don't know if that's what the Cybertruck is getting or if it'll simply use the same technology.
The graph shown on stage suggests that V4 charging stations will achieve upwards of 350kW output compared to the 250kW of current V3 stations. And while that's still a significant increase, it's not the 4X you'd get from a 1MW charger.
Either way, it sounds like Tesla will roll out its ultra-fast Supercharger V4 stations in 2023 with cables and systems to support faster charging on the Cybertruck. And, who knows, maybe other Tesla cars can take advantage of the same system thanks to the cable's internal cooling. We'll learn more sometime next year.
via Tesla