Elon Musk Confirms Tesla Superchargers Will Have Powerpacks To Serve California Power Outage

The rolling blackouts caused by a rash of wildfires now sweeping through Northern California for the past two days have again exposed the Achilles Heel of all electric vehicles (EVs) -- no electricity, no nothing.

Based in Palo Alto, Tesla Inc. reacted immediately to the threat posed by these deliberate power outages implemented by PG&E (California's largest utility) to prevent massive wildfire destruction. It tweeted an urgent call to action, telling Tesla owners to charge up -- now.

Tesla owners tweeted photos of the notice on the touch screens of their EVs, advising them to fully charge their batteries while they still could. PG&E warned the outages it's implementing might last a full week in some areas of the state.

The notice says: “A utility company in your area announced they may turn off power in some areas of Northern California beginning October 9 as part of public safety power shutoffs, which may affect power to charging options. We recommend charging your Tesla to 100% today to ensure that your drive remains uninterrupted.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also got into the act. He tweeted the company will adding solar arrays and batteries to its Supercharger charging stations "as fast as possible."

"All Tesla Supercharger stations in regions affected by California power outages will have Tesla Powerpacks within next few weeks. Just waiting on permits," tweeted Musk on Thursday.

"Also adding Tesla Solar to our Supercharger stations as fast as possible. Goal is 24/7 clean power with no blackouts."

It's a great move but it's a post-event fix. Some get the feeling Musk and Tesla should have gotten around to this before these new blazes set parts of the state alight once again. California was badly hurt by the lethal Camp Fire of November 2018 and the 2017 wildfires -- both of which knocked-out power in may areas of the Sunshine State.

As of early Thursday evening, two million Northern California residents face a weekend without electricity after PG&E deliberately shut down power to avoid triggering more fires.

On the other hand, PG&E said it had restored power to 126,000 customers in Northern California by 6:00 a.m. Thursday. The Bay Area remains blacked out, however.

The company says some of its customers should be prepared to be without power for a week. Most of the power outages are in NorCal.

Wildfires continue to rage while new ones have broken out in both northern and southern California.