200 superchargers

[Right_Said_Fred]

So for location with poor availability (more than say 1 hour a week with all stalls in use), two options remain: add aditional stalls or add a new nearby location. The first option may be the least expensive, but the second will create as stonger marketing presence and will increase convenience of location to users. So basically if a given location needed say 12 stalls, it would be better to split that out to 2 or 3 locations with 6 or 4 stalls each. We may even see situations where it makes sense to have two stations on opposite sides of a freeway, one that is convenient for southbound traffic and the other for northbound.

I politely disagree. I would prefer to come to a SC-location and find 12 stalls of which 2-3 are free, than finding 6 stalls which are all taken and being forced to go to another SC-location nearby where there are also 6 stalls of which 2-3 are free.

 

[LST]

It would be nice to be able to monitor the availability of free SC stalls directly with the nav-system. Technically this should be feasible.

 

[jhm]

It would be nice to be able to monitor the availability of free SC stalls directly with the nav-system. Technically this should be feasible.

I'm surprised this isn't available yet. I guess at this point they're not spaced close enough together to be much help.

I imagine a time when they are spaced out every 20 to 40 miles down the road. Basically, your car monitors availability along your route and pulls over when it's optimal to do so. It docks itself, charges and gets back on the highway.

Alternatively, the car could drop you off at a location of your choice. Then it goes to the Supercharger station wherever that is, charges itself, and returns to pick you up. This sort of thing could work in urban areas where people lack at home charging. If your car can dock itself, you've got a lot of options.

Anyone care to venture when Tesla will roll out self-docking functionality?

 

[jhm]

I politely disagree. I would prefer to come to a SC-location and find 12 stalls of which 2-3 are free, than finding 6 stalls which are all taken and being forced to go to another SC-location nearby where there are also 6 stalls of which 2-3 are free.

I see your point. Certainly no one would want to take a side trip just to discover that the station is full, nor would anyone want to drive out to another location after such a discovery. So knowing before you pull over which locations have availability would help, but there is still a case to be made for appropriately sizing each location. A highly trafficked location may well best serve customers by having 12 or more stalls.

I am a statistican. So I find myself often thinking about what sort of data would be most helpful to answer the question. I'm thinking Tesla can track the Tesla vehicles that drive near a particular location. A date stamp and battery charger status could be recorded. From this sort of dataset, I could build a model for how much capacity would be ideal at each location. Basically if a lot of cars with low residual range drive by, then there's a lot of "demand" at that location. This analysis could be applied to locations that may not have any stalls yet. Candidate locations could be sorted out by demand to prioritize where to build out capacity. Knowing where additional capacity is needed can help optimize the whole network so you achieve the highest level of availability for the least cost.

 

[Chickenlittle]

I'm surprised this isn't available yet. I guess at this point they're not spaced close enough together to be much help.

I imagine a time when they are spaced out every 20 to 40 miles down the road. Basically, your car monitors availability along your route and pulls over when it's optimal to do so. It docks itself, charges and gets back on the highway.

Alternatively, the car could drop you off at a location of your choice. Then it goes to the Supercharger station wherever that is, charges itself, and returns to pick you up. This sort of thing could work in urban areas where people lack at home charging. If your car can dock itself, you've got a lot of options.

Anyone care to venture when Tesla will roll out self-docking functionality?

not sure how knowing a supercharger is full or not would be helpful hen traveling over a hundred and fifty miles away. It will not reflect whether it's busy or not when you get there

 

[callmesam]

not sure how knowing a supercharger is full or not would be helpful hen traveling over a hundred and fifty miles away. It will not reflect whether it's busy or not when you get there

Once there are Superchargers every 20 miles in more urban locations (spurs from highways and beltways) then the driver would have options where to stop. If a 12 location Supercharger is showing all filled, then the driver can delay charging for 20 miles where only 5 Superchargers are currently filled.

Just a hypothetical, but it requires a significant increase in Supercharger density to enable that feature.

 

[chickensevil]

By the way with them now at 209 they are pretty much averaging 1 supercharger coming online per day. With 89 days left in the year, if they can pump out 1.12 chargers per day or about 8 chargers per week we will be able to hit 300 before the end of the year

 

[Chickenlittle]

By the way with them now at 209 they are pretty much averaging 1 supercharger coming online per day. With 89 days left in the year, if they can pump out 1.12 chargers per day or about 8 chargers per week we will be able to hit 300 before the end of the year

Wow. Noticed that too. Like an avalanche gaining speed

 

[pGo]

By the way with them now at 209 they are pretty much averaging 1 supercharger coming online per day. With 89 days left in the year, if they can pump out 1.12 chargers per day or about 8 chargers per week we will be able to hit 300 before the end of the year

To be precise, Elon said one supercharger comes online in every 20 hours(fox interview I believe). Expect the tally to reach over 300 by the end of 2014.

 

[chickensevil]

To be precise, Elon said one supercharger comes online in every 20 hours(fox interview I believe). Expect the tally to reach over 300 by the end of 2014.

Thanks for that I knew it was stated I just couldn't remember who or when.

From counting the dots on the US map up through what is stated as end of 2014, I am counting around 94 locations to be added. (That's US and Canada). I count 22 on the coming soon in Europe (I am not counting the 2014/2015 marker since it is unclear how many on that one is expected by end of Dec and how many by end of Feb/Mar.) And for Asia I count 8. So if they are able to stick to that then by the end of the year we should be at 334 stations online (maybe more given the weird label on the Europe map of "winter")

 

[chickensevil]

Tesla Motors on Twitter:

In September, we opened 25 Superchargers in 11 countries, from Italy to China.

So, not quite 1 a day, but still pretty impressive

 

[juliusa]

1 live in the US so far this month (Lafayette, IN).

 

[Hkpkfan]

I like the idea of secondary convenience locations after their primary locations begin to fill up.

As others stated it's important to provide the ability for drivers to travel 150 miles and find a Super Charger to travel cost country.

I like the idea of hitting up hotels, malls, theme parks, with Super Chargers as added benefits to EV users.

It would seem like a no-brainer for like Epicot Parking lot in Disney world to have futuristic looking EV chargers for Tesla users or EV users.

It would seem like a great convenience for hotels on the main highways to offer free EV charging stations. Or even simple pay ones (Tesla could build them for free!), easy enough to add to your hotel/motel bill.


If you are doing a cross country trip, wouldn't you want to go to a hotel that offers an EV station overnight? Maybe not even an SC but a place to plug in for the night.

Wouldn't it be cool if you go to an amusement park and there was a special parking for EV's or Teslas???


I think there are untapped areas where they don't necessarily need to build something brand new to provide coverage, but places where Tesla can co-exist and complement other businesses/locations.

 

[uselesslogin]

I like the idea of secondary convenience locations after their primary locations begin to fill up.

As others stated it's important to provide the ability for drivers to travel 150 miles and find a Super Charger to travel cost country.

I like the idea of hitting up hotels, malls, theme parks, with Super Chargers as added benefits to EV users.

It would seem like a no-brainer for like Epicot Parking lot in Disney world to have futuristic looking EV chargers for Tesla users or EV users.

It would seem like a great convenience for hotels on the main highways to offer free EV charging stations. Or even simple pay ones (Tesla could build them for free!), easy enough to add to your hotel/motel bill.


If you are doing a cross country trip, wouldn't you want to go to a hotel that offers an EV station overnight? Maybe not even an SC but a place to plug in for the night.

Wouldn't it be cool if you go to an amusement park and there was a special parking for EV's or Teslas???


I think there are untapped areas where they don't necessarily need to build something brand new to provide coverage, but places where Tesla can co-exist and complement other businesses/locations.

They are starting to deploy HPWC connectors at hotels and other similar destinations. These charge at 58 miles per hour if you have the dual chargers. (29 if you only have one)

They are the little lightning bolts on the map:
Find Us | Tesla Motors

 

[jhm]

We've learned that the 200 Supercharger stations use about 1 GWh per month. That works out to be about 167 kWh per day per station. So the average station is providing about 4 or 5 charges per day. This does not seem like high utilization at this point, but to points I have made before there is a need to roll out capacity before it is fully needed in anticipation of growth.

 

[Hkpkfan]

They are starting to deploy HPWC connectors at hotels and other similar destinations. These charge at 58 miles per hour if you have the dual chargers. (29 if you only have one)

They are the little lightning bolts on the map:
Find Us | Tesla Motors

Wow. That was pretty exciting to see 8 or 9 famous big hotels on the Vegas Strip already have Tesla Charging capabilities. And seeing small lightning bolts all over the map in remote locations that are hotels with 1 or 2 Tesla chargers.