BP Will Spend $100 Million Buying Tesla Superchargers

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Staff (Getty Images)

BP has ordered $100 million worth of Tesla Superchargers, Reuters reports. This reportedly comes as part of BP’s electric charging division’s plan to invest $1 billion in chargers across the U.S. by the end of the decade. It also gives Tesla a new way to make money.

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“Selling our fast-charging hardware is a new step for us, and one we’re looking to expand,” Tesla’s head of charging infrastructure Rebecca Tinucci said in a statement.

The first chargers should go online as early as 2024 and will be installed in locations owned by BP such as Travel Centers of America and Amoco. There are also plans to partner with other companies such as Hertz to place chargers there, too. Expect to see them first in Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. While they’ll be made by Tesla, BP’s chargers will be branded as Pulse chargers and will support both NACS and CCS charging ports.

“(This) is a major step forward in our ambitions for high speed, open access charging infrastructure in the U.S.,” BP Pulse global CEO Richard Bartlett said in a statement.

Considering the dire state of charging infrastructure in the U.S. at the current moment, this is probably a good thing. Superchargers tend to be more reliable than other charging networks, which is a big deal when you’re running short on range and keep finding broken or untenably slow chargers. In fact, our own Andy Kalmowitz recently ran into that exact problem when he tried to take a Kia EV6 GT up to Bear Mountain for a little spirited driving.

We’ve certainly had our issues with Tesla and the bigoted monster who runs it, but if there’s one thing Tesla’s done right, it’s the Supercharger network. If other companies ordering their chargers from Tesla is what it takes to improve our nation’s infrastructure, we say go for it.