HORSHAM Rural City Council has received a planning permit for a new retail building and car park with up to six supercharger stations for Tesla electric vehicles.
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The application was lodged in December 23 and Horsham council senior staff again discussed the application on Wednesday morning.
The American automaker announced its intention to build a supercharger site in Horsham by the end of the year on Tuesday.
Horsham council statutory planner Adam Moar said the planning permit application had nominated 124 Wilson Street as the location for new retail building, car park and superchargers.
Tesla has already established a standard destination charger at the Horsham International Hotel, which can fully charge a Tesla Model S sports car in 9.5 hours.
A supercharger achieves the same result in less than an hour, allowing the battery-powered vehicles to travel another 390 kilometres.
“The permit is for a single new building with two tenants, one with 500 square metres and one with 650 sqm, and four Tesla superchargers with an option to expand to six,” Mr Moar said.
“It’s pretty much at the corner of Park Drive and Wilson Street.
“The application stated the supercharger kiosks could double as normal car parks.”
The planning permit was filed by Gateway Property Developers Pty Ltd, which also owns the site of Horsham’s Target.
The proposed building’s roof would be slightly higher than the nearby existing retail centre.
VicRoads has provided comment to Horsham council about the potential impact on traffic and Wimmera CMA has been consulted about site drainage.
The application includes plans for a vehicle entry from the Wimmera Highway and an exit onto Park Drive,
The nominated site adjoins the Wimmera Highway towards the western side of Horsham and is close to Woolworths supermarket and Horsham Plaza.
Mr Moar said the planning permit included an intention to upgrade the electricity transformer, which would be needed to provide 480-volt connections to charge the batteries included in a Tesla vehicle.
The closest operational supercharger site is in Ballarat.
Financial analysts have estimated that it costs USD $250,000 to build a supercharger site’s petrol bowser-sized kiosks.
Tesla plans to build another supercharger site at Keith in South Australia, allowing its electric car customers to drive between Melbourne and Adelaide without having to wait more than an hour to recharge.
Tesla superchargers locations are also pre-programmed into each Tesla vehicle’s large-screen GPS.
Tesla’s all-electric sports car models cost between $111,000 and $210,000,
The company also plans to offer a more affordable USD $35,000 model in Australia this year.