Tesla has recently purchased a 40,000-square-foot parking lot in Queens, New York City, for $18 million USD. Tesla picked up this property lot just recently, according to New York City records that showed the purchase price and details, as of Monday, August 26th.
Super-sized Supercharger?
This huge parking lot is likely intended to be developed into a fairly large Supercharger site for downtown Queens, as the deal was inked by Max de Zegher, Director of Tesla Charging. As we checked the deed and development records, it seems that Tesla does indeed plan on establishing a Supercharger site there. The exact number of stalls isn’t included in the planning documents just yet.
The lot is located at 48-26 54th Road, (that’s a lot of numbers!), and has 55 regular parking spots as it is currently designed, with an additional 3 wheelchair/accessibility spaces. This fairly large site will help reduce traffic and congestion at Tesla’s other Supercharger sites throughout the city once it's completed and operational. Space in the area comes at a premium and Tesla likely thought it’d be worth purchasing the lot instead of leasing space like they usually do.
Yellow (and Blue!) Cabs
New York City has a lot of Teslas – in fact, a lot of yellow ones! Gravity Taxi runs many yellow Model Y’s throughout the city as part of their yellow taxicab service, while Revel runs blue Model Y’s as part of their rideshare service. In addition, NYC’s Greenrides Initiative mandates that all for-hire vehicles, including taxicabs, must be EVs as of March 2024. This huge push has resulted in considerable charging congestion within New York, and there have been multiple new DC fast-charging locations in the works with other vendors.
We’re happy to see Tesla’s Supercharger sites still coming up, especially after the big cuts in the Supercharger team earlier this year. It’s a good indication that Tesla is still focused on expanding their charging footprint, especially in areas with heavy concentrations of Tesla EVs.
