PG&E Energizes Tesla EV Charging Station in Time for Holiday Travel

Some 72 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles over this holiday weekend to share Thanksgiving with friends and family.

And thanks to good work by PG&E, that will include Tesla drivers who now have a new charging station in Bakersfield. It's right off Highway 99 in Bakersfield, a key spot in the north-south corridor from Los Angeles to Northern California.

“This really shows our progress in delivering for our customers when they need us to. Crews worked in inclement weather and over several days to complete this project for a major customer, Tesla, and also many of our customers who can now charge their electric vehicles there,” says Matt Ventura, PG&E senior director in Service Planning & Design.

About a month ago, PG&E leaders met with Tesla executives. The message was clear. This charging station site was the most important one of the year for Tesla. It had to be available before Thanksgiving.

The PG&E team gave their assurances of an on-time delivery. And then the rain-and-wind storms struck. Many customer projects were delayed due to the weather, but PG&E found a way to keep the Tesla charging station job on the books.

And then, despite the week of rain, crews worked to safely energize the station at the intersection of Highways 99 and 204 near the Bakersfield airport.

Dwayne Sparks, an EO distribution supervisor, said the rain played havoc with the crew, but they worked around the weather as they routed conduit and pulled cable 600 feet to Tesla’s facility. They waited until the rain mostly subsided before using hot sticks to help finish the job.

“They just grinded it out,” Sparks says.

PG&E energized the station at 5:42 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 26. Tesla then began working through the night to open the station and bring it online today, a process that usually takes a week.

EVs play a critical role in the state’s clean-energy plan. And lines of EVs waiting for an available charging port play into range anxiety. That typically happens only around major holiday travel times, like Thanksgiving.

Based on the travel plans of Californians last year, and also new car sales volumes in this part of the state, Tesla was predicting a high risk of consumers experiencing long charging lines in this area.

Though this is a small charging station for Tesla, just 12 stalls with 1.5MW maximum demand, it’s all about providing charging infrastructure congestion relief that made this site so important.

"This exemplifies our simple, affordable model and how we deliver for our customers when they need us to!” says Ventura.