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"While the future of the electric car has taken a beating recently, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk isn&amp;#039;t about to surrender to persnickety consumer demand and call it quits like his peers at both A Better Place and Fisker Automotive did earlier this month. In fact, the Silicon Valley superstar seems to be doing everything in his power to ensure that electric vehicles have a future here in North America.  Today, Musk was back in the spotlight, assuaging concerns over the range shortcomings of the Model S and future Tesla vehicles.  The Palo Alto executive announced aggressive plans to dramatically accelerate the expansion of the company&amp;#039;s Supercharging network in the United States and Canada. &amp;quot;Tesla drivers will be able to drive from Los Angeles to New York using the electric car company&amp;#039;s Supercharger network by the end of this year,&amp;quot; Musk promised during the press conference.  At Superchargers, Tesla owners can currently charge their car batteries halfway in 30 minutes, for free. Expansion plans call for increasing the current number of stations from nine (seven of which are in California) to approximately 200 by 2015. Optimally, Musk says there will be a Tesla fast-charging station every 80 to 100 miles along heavily trafficked routes within 18 months. By the end of June, however, Musk said the company will have tripled the charging station&amp;#039;s coverage area and have Supercharging stations in most major metropolitan areas by the end of the year.  The expansion also entails bulking up the number of charging stalls at existingstations -- &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t want our customers to have to wait longer than they have to fill up,&amp;quot; said Musk \u2013 as well as improving the charging capabilities at each station. The new stations will provide almost 120 kilowatts of power to theModel S, which will allow the car to drive up to 150 miles, in about 30 minutes.  Supercharging stations are not meant to replace home recharging stations. Instead, they are designed to relieve anxiety about running out of power on long journeys.  As the network expands, software in the Tesla cars automatically updates, so drivers will be routed to nearby Superchargers by the car&amp;#039;s in-dash GPS when necessary. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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