Tesla Makes Brilliant Supercharger Move but BYD Is Closer in the Mirror Than It Appears

Key Points

• Public charging infrastructure is still the primary reason consumers aren’t adopting EVs.

• Tesla’s Accordion lowers costs and can be placed in urban and retail lots that were previously difficult.

• BYD is rapidly catching up with Tesla’s number of charging points globally.

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Here’s the bad news first: public charging infrastructure is still the top reason consumers avoid purchasing electric vehicles (EVs), per J.D. Power consumer data. Here’s some of the good news: public sentiment of charging infrastructure availability is on the rise, and charging station failure rates are falling. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) just showed off its first Accordion Supercharger, and it does a couple of things that could benefit the company and consumers. Let’s take a look at Tesla’s innovative solution to lower costs and improve availability, and how it compares to the progress its global rival BYD Co. is making.

A home run strategy?

Tesla recently showed a video of its first Accordion Supercharger in action, and it seems like a brilliant move for the EV maker. Essentially, a pre-assembled charging unit that ships 16 stalls on a single semi-truck will enable installations at 20% lower cost than a conventional charging site.

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As you likely assumed from the accordion name, the entire unit folds up, and, in addition to the installation cost savings, it commissions right away with no technician required. What’s even better about this system is that it’s designed to operate on sites where you can’t utilize behind-the-curb installs, which require trenching, conduit, and permitting that isn’t always convenient. Not only does Tesla’s Accordion skip most of that effort, but it also opens up urban and retail lots that the EV maker couldn’t build as easily before.

“Our goal is to pre-assemble all Superchargers in a factory,” according to a post from Tesla’s charging account. “If we can’t install Superchargers behind a curb, we now have a pre-assembled solution for Superchargers between parking spaces”.

If at first you don’t succeed

This, of course, isn’t Tesla’s first shot at a similar system designed to speed up the process and lower costs. Rewind the clock to 2022, and Tesla boasted a full Supercharger station being built in only eight days, using a pre-fabricated system, and then in 2024, it cut that time down to four days from delivery to online, citing 15% deployment savings.

While many might have seen that as a successful step forward in engineering, innovation, and savings, it somehow only prompted CEO Elon Musk to fire the entire Supercharger team. Tesla’s Supercharger build-out hasn’t been as smooth in the years since. In fact, Tesla’s Supercharger network had been growing at more than a 35% clip a year until the team was let go, and annual growth remains roughly half of what it was in 2024.

BYD is accelerating

Tesla’s strategy here is a great one, and it’s also much needed after its Supercharger build-out slowdown because global rival BYD Co. is installing its fast chargers at a quicker rate than any competitor. Exhibit 1: BYD installed 10,000 of its 1,500 kW “flash charging” stations in only five months, from this year’s March launch to late August, covering more than 320 Chinese cities – it hopes to double that by the end of this year.

If you’re doing the math that means with two charging points per flash charging station BYD will have built about 40,000 charging points this year alone, which is about half of Tesla’s global stall count. Further, investors also have to consider that these BYD stations are about three times more powerful than Tesla’s V4 cabinets that reach a peak 500 kW.

Tesla V4 Supercharger. Image source: Tesla.

What it all means

Tesla ramping up its Supercharger deployment, hopefully with the launch of its Accordion, is a big deal because it’s long been a competitive advantage that directly removes range anxiety and makes long-distance EV traveling more practical. It also helps drive industry adoption of the North American Charging Standard (NACS), expands charging fee revenue by adding access to competing vehicles, and can help secure government subsidies for public charging infrastructure expansion. Tesla and BYD will likely battle in many markets in the coming years as the latter stated its goal to become the No. 1 automotive seller by annual volume (overtaking Toyota at roughly 11.3 million vehicles) by 2031, and charging infrastructure will be one of the big battles. Tesla has the clear edge right now, but BYD is rapidly gaining on Tesla’s charging network advantage.

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Daniel Miller has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends BYD Company. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.