Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.

Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.

The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways. 

In 2020, Tesla signed an agreement with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA)and built 64 Supercharger stalls at 8 stations along the turnpike.

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The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.

Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.

The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.

Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:

Electrek’s Take

I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.

While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.

Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?

It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.

On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.

Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.

At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.

ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.

MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.

“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”

At this year’s bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, however, ZQUIP followed up that headline by making it even easier for job sites to make every kilowatt count by enabling them to switch from diesel power, to electric, and back again, on the same machine, on the job site.

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Why you want that

Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.

If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.

The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.

Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.

ZQUIP HDEV battery swap

SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.

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