Tesla Opens 500th Supercharger In China, Xpeng Expands Its Counterpart Service To 20 Cities

Tesla Inc TSLA and Xpeng Inc XPEV both announced strides in expanding their charging infrastructure in China.

What Happened: The Elon Musk-led Tesla said on Twitter that it had installed its five-hundredth Supercharger in the country in Shanghai, noting that it had just one such unit in April 2014 and 100 in July 2016.

Between December 2012 and November 2020, the Palo Alto-based automaker has added 200 Superchargers in China.

Meanwhile, Guangzhou-based Xpeng said is expanding its own supercharging service to another 20 cities across China.

Range anxiety? Not for Xpeng customers. We further expended our free #supercharging service to another 20 cities across China. #ElectricVehicles pic.twitter.com/EuqXN82s5N

— Xpeng Motors (@XpengMotors) November 29, 2020

Late last year, Xpeng had said that car owners would also be able to use Nio Inc’s NIO supercharger network. 

Why It Matters: Tesla is investing $6.4 million to produce up to 10,000 new Supercharges in China per year that will be installed in the domestic market, Reuters reported.

This month, Tesla said it had installed 20,000 superchargers globally.  The automaker claims that the Supercharger network is the “world’s fastest charging network.”

Tesla had introduced a new architecture for EV charging called V3 in March last year and said it had plans to speed up the deployment of Superchargers.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 2% higher at $585.76 on Friday and fell 0.17% in the after-hours session. On the same day, Xpeng shares closed nearly unchanged at $64.28.