The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger has a couple of things going for it that have made it a part of Tesla enthusiasts’ lore: It’s the one of the electric car giant’s first Supercharger stations, and with 98 charging bays, it’s also the biggest in the world.
The Central California charging station is such a big deal that Tesla clubs even make it an appointment destination. Yes, they’ll rally-style drive to it just to honor its lineage and size.
But as with many Tesla-related things, there is a secret, thinly obscured by an Oz-like curtain, at the Harris Ranch Supercharger. Hidden in plain sight across the way from the Harris Ranch Supercharger’s main stations, behind a Shell station, is a small diesel plant that has helped power Tesla’s footprint.
The news was first broken by investigative journalist Edward Niedermeyer. In May 2015, Niedermeyer drove from his Oregon home to Harris Ranch to see whether “Musk’s latest bit of dream weaving could stand up to reality.”
What Niedermeyer reportedly found was a little different from the company’s clean energy claims.
“I discovered that Tesla’s battery swap station was not in fact being made available to owners who regularly drove between California’s two largest cities,” Niedermeyer wrote in a May 2022 exposé for Slate. “Instead, the company was running diesel generators to power additional Superchargers (the kind that take 30 to 60 minutes to recharge a battery) to handle the holiday rush, their exhaust mingling with the unmistakable smell of bulls—t.”
The fact that a small diesel plant was helping power the additional chargers kicked off a series of events that unraveled the myth of Elon Musk for Niedermeyer: “Once you stop taking Musk at his word,” he wrote, “his heroic popular image evaporates, and a far darker reality begins to reveal itself.”
It seems that tracking Musk’s unsubstantiated claims has become a hobby for some. There’s even a handy website dedicated to things Musk has proclaimed that haven’t come true, along with the number of days that have passed since specific claims have been made.
The promises range from the benign — more than 1,700 days since Musk said Teslas should be able to read parking signs by the end of 2019 — to the silly — more than 1,700 days since Musk submitted a trademark application for a distilled agave liquor named “Teslaquila,” which hasn’t yet hit shelves — to the ridiculous — more than 1,800 days since Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s body shop was planning to repair collision damage in less than an hour.
Tesla’s claims hardly ‘transparent or credible’
Niedermeyer told SFGATE in an email Friday that while he doesn’t have current information about the specifics of the Harris Ranch Supercharger, “what I can say is that Tesla’s claims about Superchargers and fleet carbon emissions are hardly more transparent or credible than when I investigated in 2015.”
The investigative journalist, who wrote a in-depth investigation of Tesla, pointed to Tesla’s latest impact report, in which the company criticized current measurements of greenhouse gas emissions for failing to factor in “the impact of emissions that are avoided through the sale of zero-emission or clean-tech products.”
“But when you get all the way to the actual explanation for their emission reduction claims (page 204) you get only the vaguest explanation, based on a generous baseline comparison of 24 mpg,” Niedermeyer continued, noting that the national average is dragged down by trucks. Tesla’s own Cybertruck has yet to hit the market after it was announced in 2019 for a planned 2021 release, though the company’s Texas factory did complete its first Cybertruck this summer.
Tesla, which in 2021 said all superchargers would be 100% powered by renewable energy by the end of that year, was contacted by SFGATE to comment on the nature of the diesel plant’s current use at the Harris Ranch Supercharger. The company, which does not have a PR department, did not respond by press time.
If Tesla’s calculations sound strange or a little off, it’s by design, Niedermeyer said.
“One of the real tragedies of Tesla, in my personal opinion, is the extent to which well-meaning people were convinced that this company whose mission is in fact extreme wealth generation by any means necessary is somehow a force for good, to be supported like one would a real mission-driven nonprofit,” the investigative journalist wrote SFGATE.
As proof, Niedermeyer cites “Tesla’s record of rampant environmental law violations,” including repeated infractions at its Fremont factory.
But despite every promise unfulfilled and every alleged corner cut and law broken, some Tesla owners — who by now are used to the heady claims from their car company and its attention-seeking CEO — feel what has been delivered at the Harris Ranch Supercharger should be judged against Tesla’s competition. And when Tesla is matched against other car manufacturers, at least when it comes to charging convenience, the difference isn’t close.
“I looked at other EVs before buying my Tesla, trust me,” Hollister resident Joselito Mondorio told SFGATE while he was charging his Tesla Model S at Harris Ranch on Tuesday en route to LA for vacation. “I have a long commute and I just wanted something reliable, with available charging stations to get me there and back.
“This was really the only choice.”
When asked whether he monitors where the energy comes from that goes into his car, Mondorio paused to think about it for a moment. “You know, I should do it more,” he said. “But for me, I’m not putting gas in the car or exhaust [in the air]. But it’s something to look at, for sure.”
