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This is what it takes to build a Tesla Supercharger

One construction company has taken a seven-day process and shrunk it down to about seven minutes in a new video that shows a Tesla Supercharger being built. And the video comes with some cool bluegrass music. Only in the USA. Electric Conduit Construction took a time-lapse video of its building out a station next to a Holiday Inn Express in Goodland, KA, which is about 200 miles east of Denver, CO on Interstate 70. All the not-so-gory details are there, including the digging up of four-foot-deep trenches, pouring footings, backfilling with gravel and sand, and installing supercharger cabinets and fencing so that no one gets zapped. Tesla Motors says it has 105 Supercharger stations strung across North America, which is impressive given that its station count was in the single digits as recently as last May. The company has said that there will be enough of such super-fast charging stations to be reachable by 98 percent of the US population via a Tesla Model S (we should all be so lucky to afford one) by next year. The California-automaker estimates that a half-hour plug-in at a Supercharger station can add as many as 170 miles worth of range to a Tesla Model S. See how one gets built in the video below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Tesla wins in Massachusetts, tries for more in New Jersey

Another brick falls as Tesla fights to practice its direct-to-consumer business model. A Massachusetts high court has thrown out a lawsuit seeking to block the electric car company from selling vehicles the Tesla way in the state. The Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, along with two dealers, claimed that Tesla was in violation of a law that protects affiliated dealerships from oppressive practices from automakers. According to the law, it is illegal for an automaker to operate "a motor vehicle dealership within the relevant market area of a motor vehicle dealer of the same line make." The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the plaintiffs didn't have a standing in this case because they weren't affiliated with Tesla, and because Tesla also doesn't have any franchise dealerships in the state. Judge Margot Botsford writes that the law, "was intended and understood only to prohibit manufacturer-owned dealerships when, unlike Tesla, the manufacturer already had an affiliated dealer or dealers in Massachusetts." Armed with the Massachusetts win, Tesla is taking another whack at New Jersey. Armed with that win, Tesla is taking another whack at New Jersey, which barred Tesla from selling cars directly to customers in the state. Tesla's appeal argues that the state franchise statute doesn't apply to it, as the automaker lacks any franchisor-franchisee relationship. Tesla also argues that the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission doesn't have the authority to enforce the statute, and that certain rules (requirements of minimum square footage, multiple display models and on-site servicing) violate the state Constitution. In New Jersey, though, the appeal may become moot, as there are currently at least two pending bills that could grant exemption to Tesla, allowing it to sell cars directly to consumers. Jim Appleton, president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, says, "Something may be on the governor's desk and signed before they even decide to grant oral arguments at all." Tesla recently won the right to practice its sales model in the state of Nevada as part of a deal to build its Gigafactory in Reno. Tesla is still barred from selling its cars in Texas, Arizona and Maryland.

Mercedes may be working on a new electric car dubbed 'Ecoluxe'

Automobile has a lengthy piece this month on how the four German mass-market luxury manufacturers each plan to go after Tesla with their own electric vehicles. It was written by Georg Kacher, the magazine's European bureau chief, and the English version came a month after he wrote the German-language original for Autobild. Tesla isn't exactly a threat to the Germans, but, according to the report, the Model S is planting the right kinds of seeds in niches that are important to the luxury players. The thinking is that - in addition to needed electric vehicles anyway for stricter US regulations - it's better to start designing the machinery now. The article posited Porsche's attack would rest on the coming Panamera platform, but a big hurdle would be battery placement. Unable to find one large space for a lithium-ion pack, engineers would instead put batteries everywhere they could, for a supposed tally of some "108 battery pouches" throughout the body. A few days after the Automobile piece, however, Porsche publicly said it had no intention of challenging the Model S, because the enthusiastic driving the brand is known for doesn't jive with useful range. In Kacher's retelling, Mercedes' plans are even more ambitious, supposedly taking aim at the Model S and the coming Model X. It would do this with an investment in excess of $2 billion in a program called "Ecoluxe" – Mercedes has no brand division akin to BMW's i and Audi's e-tron. The new brand would create a four-strong family of bespoke electric vehicles: a smaller platform with a wheelbase around 106 inches and a larger one with a wheelbase around 118 inches. In addition, the range would have "provisions for rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, and rear-wheel steering." The numbers are impressive: seating for seven in the larger vehicles, both longer than 16 feet, front and rear storage areas, ratings of up to 610 horsepower and production capacity of 80,000 units per year. When would we see such creatures? Perhaps as soon as 2019. We do know that if Tesla can knock the Model X over the outfield fence, automakers are going to have to do something. We don't know what the chances are that Ecoluxe is Mercedes' first move - but such a plan could help explain the weird Mercedes concept spied in October.