Tesla Files Permits for a Massive 124-Stall V4 Supercharger in San Francisco

Tesla wants to drop one of its biggest Superchargers ever right into the middle of San Francisco. Planning permits have been filed for a 124-stall V4 station on the city's south side, at the corner of Alemany and Bayshore, on what is currently a yellow-cab storage lot wedged up against the US-101 freeway.

The filings were spotted and shared by Supercharger tracker MarcoRP on X. Along with the 124 V4 charging posts, the permit scope lists the switchgear and 28 parking-lot lights needed to power and illuminate a site that big, plus a 400-square-foot amenity building. The site plan shows 16 Tesla power units feeding the posts around a triangular lot off US-101.

Why 124 stalls in a city is so unusual

For a highway rest stop, 124 stalls is large but not shocking. Tesla's 100-plus-stall sites almost always land out on the interstate between major metros — think the stops along I-5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where land is cheap and demand spikes on holiday weekends. The company is already building sites in the 200-stall range out in the California desert to catch that road-trip flow.

Urban stations basically never get that treatment. Land is scarce and expensive, so most city Superchargers top out somewhere between a handful of stalls and a couple dozen — and every existing San Francisco site falls in that range. Putting 124 stalls into a working neighborhood off the Alemany maze is a bet on density, not road trips.

The logic holds up. The Bay Area has one of the highest concentrations of Teslas in the country, and a lot of those owners live in apartments and condos with no home charging. That's exactly the customer a big urban station is built to serve.

One Electrek commenter put it well: "downtowns really need this. the only real charger desert in my County is in the density of downtown. where the largest herd of commuters park."

V4 hardware means headroom

The hardware choice matters as much as the stall count. V4 is the platform that unlocks Tesla's 500 kW charging cabinets, and Tesla only switched on its first full V4 station with that capacity last year. A 124-post V4 build isn't Tesla catching up to today's demand — it's planning for the next decade of it.

What's actually inside the "micro-amenity" building

Tesla labels the 400-square-foot structure a "micro-amenity" building on the plans. It's not a diner. It's a restroom-and-vending pavilion, and the floor plan spells it out:

• Two gender-neutral ADA restrooms with diaper-changing stations
• A central open vending vestibule, with Cotti-branded coffee and hot drinks alongside refrigerated and ambient snack machines
• A back-of-house room for storage, janitorial gear, and the site's IT and security rack

The exterior is white aluminum composite panels and brushed stainless steel, with a prefabricated metal canopy and glass storefront entry doors. It's a long way from the retro-futuristic Tesla Diner in Hollywood that Tesla pitched as the future of the charging stop — but for an urban site, dedicated clean restrooms alone put it ahead of most Superchargers.

What this means if you charge in public

If you're one of the many EV owners who does most of your charging away from home, a station like this changes the routine. Long sessions at a public stall are less about topping off for 10 minutes and more about parking, walking away, and coming back — which makes what you keep in the car matter more.

• Keep your charge port clean and protected. High-use urban stalls see a lot of cycles. A charge port cover or dust plug keeps grit and rain out of the connector between sessions.
• Carry your own adapters. Even at a Supercharger-heavy routine, a J1772 or CCS adapter kept in the frunk means a busy 124-stall lot is never your only option.
• Make the wait comfortable. Sunshades, seat organizers, and a phone mount turn a 20-minute session into usable time — especially useful if the vending machines have a line.
• Store your cables properly. A cable organizer or trunk bag keeps your mobile connector from turning into a tangle in the back of the car.
• Don't skip roadside gear. Urban charging still means street parking and city traffic. A tire inflator, jump pack, and warning triangle belong in every EV regardless of where you plug in.

The bottom line

Permits filed isn't the same as concrete poured, and big urban projects can move slowly. But the filing itself is the signal worth watching: Tesla is willing to spend expensive city land on charging capacity at highway scale, aimed squarely at drivers who can't plug in at home. If that's you, the next few years of city charging are going to look a lot better than the last few.