Keeping Up With Demand: Adventures In Supercharging

When the Mormons settled Utah in the 1800s, they picked the Wasatch Front in Northern Utah because snowfall in the mountains stored water that was used by farmers over the summer to irrigate their crops. However, the climate in southern Utah, with major city Saint George, was milder, so Utahans have been going there in winter ever since. You often see cars and trucks loaded with mountain bikes on I-15 going south for the warmer weather and interesting terrain. The fabulous Snow Canyon State Park in Saint George and the even more amazing Zion National Park only 40 miles away are additional draws.

Just now on January 1st, 2026, my wife and I made the 270-mile Northern Utah to Saint George run again in our 2019 Tesla Model 3. When we made the run for the first time the Thanksgiving holiday weekend of 2019, the only Superchargers were in two locations en route on I-15. We started from our home in Lindon, 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. The first charger with 8 stalls was in Nephi 43 miles south. We hit it just right to take the last of the 8 stalls. 110 miles further south in Beaver was the only other Supercharger, which had 8 full stalls. Another Tesla was just pulling out when we arrived, so we took the newly vacant stall. The next arriving Tesla had to wait. We could then make the final 108 miles to Saint George without stopping. That meant that in 2019 there were a total of 16 Supercharger stalls for Tesla drivers doing the 300-mile run from Salt Lake City to Saint George. Cedar City, 56 miles north of Saint George, also had a Supercharger with 4 slow V1 stalls — but it was 10 miles off I-15.

The last time we made the trip in February of 2025, the Nephi charger had been upgraded to 16 stalls with 8 new V3 drive-by stalls. The new stalls and the old stalls were separated by Cody’s Gastro Garage, a restaurant that caters to Tesla drivers. It has a special humorous menu, just for Tesla drivers. The funniest item on the menu is Cyber Cluck Chicken. Also, the Beaver charger had been upgraded to 32 stalls with 24 new V3 chargers. In addition, a new Supercharger with 16 V3 stalls had been built just south of Cedar City on I-15.

Just now, on January 1^st, 2026, as we stopped as usual to charge at Nephi, we noticed there was a new charger 50 miles south in Scipio. So, we stopped charging and drove on to Scipio We were greeted there by 16 new V4 stalls, of which 12 were occupied as you see in the photo below.

There was also a busy 4-stall Electrify America CCS charger nearby servicing non-Tesla EVs.

Only a few yards away was a quick stop including a Wendy’s restaurant. I slipped in for a Wendy’s Frosty. The place was swarming with customers from all the cars that were there charging.

Normally the Superchargers report the number of open stalls, so you know what to expect and can plan accordingly. However, the Beaver Supercharger, to the south, was reporting only a lightning bolt, so we didn’t know what to expect. Also, the Supercharger was showing north of Beaver on the east side of I-15 and we were well aware that the 32-stall Beaver Supercharger was south of Beaver on the west side of I-15. We switched our destination to the familiar Supercharger south of Beaver and hoped that the lightning bolt didn’t mean the Supercharger was full. When we arrived, we were pleased to see plenty of open stalls. It was then that we discovered that there was a Supercharger with 8 new V4 stalls at the North Beaver exit.

To summarize, Tesla has gone from 16 Supercharger stalls at two locations between Salt Lake and Saint George in 2019 to 92 stalls at 8 different locations, including 8 in Orem and 12 in Provo, by the end of 2025. Also, for the first time, Tesla was building Superchargers at new locations, not just upgrading previous locations. In the case of Beaver, there are now chargers at the North Beaver exit as well as the South Beaver exit. Are we on our way to having a Supercharger at nearly every exit on the freeway like we now have with gas stations?

Most of the vehicles we saw charging at Tesla Superchargers on January 1, 2026, were Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. However, we did see a few non-Tesla vehicles charging, including a Rivian truck and my first sighting of a Chevy Silverado electric truck, as you see in the photo below.

We have been driving electric now for 10 years, with over 6 years and 168,000 miles on our Tesla Model 3. We’ve made many cross-country runs and visited both the east and west coasts during this time. Over these 10 years, we have never run out of charge. We only had a close call once when we faced a 50-mph headwind just east of Denver, Colorado, a couple of years ago. Since then, we always check the wind speed, which is displayed with the rest of the weather conditions on the top of the Tesla screen in our Model 3.

With this in mind, we found it quite amusing to see a Tesla Model 3 being delivered to the Beaver Supercharger on top of a tow truck flatbed as you see in the photo below. I’m sure the driver didn’t find it amusing. The driver said that he hadn’t accounted for the extra current draw when driving up a grade on the freeway. The tow truck was backing the car right up to a Supercharger stall, which is needed because the car won’t move when it is out of charge. Once, I was testing my Model 3 down to zero to see what the actual range would be and I found that my car was locked in place and wouldn’t move once it was out of charge. Since the Supercharger cables are very short, the car had to be placed almost right up against the Supercharger.

I explained to the driver how I always use the display of the estimated charge on arrival at the next Supercharger to tell me when to stop charging at a Supercharger. If there’s something unexpected like a headwind, I slow down to increase my range. I didn’t get a chance to ask the driver if he was aware of this technique.

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