Tesla Supercharger Kettleman City, California: Pictures and details

A Tesla Supercharger station in Kettleman City, California.Bryan Logan/Business Insider

KETTLEMAN CITY, California — Amid swaths of farmland and a smattering of gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and motels, Tesla’s largest-ever Supercharger station sits tucked away from the main street that runs underneath the 5 Freeway, on a corner lot that used to be a Burger King drive-thru.

Across the street to the east is a gas station and a Carl’s Jr., to the south an auto-repair shop, and to the west two budget hotels.

Farther south across State Route 41, there’s a recently built strip mall, curiously named Bravo Farms, whose architecture was designed to resemble old Western saloons of generations past.

The Tesla Supercharger station, unlike the Burger King before it, makes use of nearly all the available space. An expanse of covered solar parking shelters the 40 Superchargers on the lot. A private lounge invites Tesla travelers to rest in plush armchairs, plug in their mobile devices, and enjoy soothing music.

There are vending machines, restrooms, and Tesla staff inside the lounge. A separate display section shows off Tesla Energy products: the solar panels and Powerwall battery packs it sells to residential and commercial customers.

On one of the two large flat-screen displays inside the lounge is a real-time world map with the locations of every Supercharger station on the planet. There are three numbers at the bottom of the screen — kilowatt-hours delivered, miles enabled, and gallons of gasoline saved — that tick up as you watch.

This is now Tesla’s domain. Its presence in an otherwise folksy enclave — one of at least six on the route here from Los Angeles — is a clear sign that Tesla is gearing up to own the electric-car future.

And here we are back in Hawthorne. Night was falling by the time I left Kettleman City, but it was an easy drive back home to LA, with about 70 miles of range to spare.

A Model S P100D at a Supercharger station on the SpaceX campus in Hawthorne, California.Bryan Logan/Business Insider

The Kettleman City Supercharger station was everything I expected it to be: comfortable, convenient, and accommodating.

I wasn’t terribly surprised by the light traffic when I visited. There will probably be other occasions where Tesla’s larger stations are bustling with activity, especially as more of the 400,000-plus people who preordered the Model 3 get their cars.

Something else became abundantly clear after driving the Model S P100D for a week: Tesla’s effort to expand the Supercharger network is essential. There were stations on every route between my apartment and the office — and every other place I traveled in my corner of Los Angeles.

There were multiple stations on the route to Kettleman City, too. I never needed to stop, but knowing that I could is what mattered.

It’s not hard to imagine that for those future Model 3 owners — some of whom will be Tesla first-timers — the initial excitement around the company’s most affordable electric car is not only because it’s attractive and embodies the cachet of a red-hot brand, but because you can drive it and never worry about being stranded.

Sure, you can plug in a Tesla anywhere, but the value of having a dedicated high-speed charging network at your near-immediate disposal can’t be overstated.