22 new superchargers in 24 days so far in July

[hiroshiy]

Was there any SC sites that were removed after open? Kyoto Japan is one of them. Extremely poor planning, I would say, because Tesla said the reason of removal "bad location". Hmm, it's Tesla who decided the location. And it was actually one of the better locations in Japan.

Grand Hyatt Tokyo - no real use for travel, just for condo dwellers
Palace Hotel Tokyo - same, and only one unit means expect a few hours wait every weekend
Daiba - it's on an island! Very far from the city and rarely used
Yokohama SC - almost 90 min to 2 hour drive from Tokyo one way, bad location due to traffic congestion, and it's completely away from major highways. I never use them for road trips
Kyoto - removed, but it was very close to Kyoto East highway entrance/exit and the most useful for road trips
Osaka - the only useful city charger. Still away from major highways so not for road trips
Kobe - it's on an island!

I think something is completely wrong here. It looks like somebody who doesn't drive Tesla designed the locations of SC.

 

[gordo]

Yeah I think it's pretty obvious looking at the map that Japan is not currently a priority for Tesla. Not sure what the potential market size is there, but it's pretty clear that so far Tesla has not been rolling out superchargers en masse in Japan. Perhaps once China gets reasonable coverage we'll see more happening in Japan.

 

[jct_4628]

Actually, I count 28 total in July. That's nearly one a day, and in fact is more than one per weekday (23 weekdays in July).

Three days into August and 3 superchargers have already gone live!

Seems to be a lot of impatient people in this thread, but I can tell you that planning each site must certainly require a mountain of legwork including scouting out potential sites, building business partnerships, legal reviews, crossing language barriers, dealing with unique permitting regimes, local utility coordination and inspections. The rollout is happening at an astonishing rate given all of that.

Edit: Make that 8 superchargers in first 4 days of August!

I don't know if I speak for the rest but I am not trying to make less of the awesome rate of SC installs. I think they are doing a fabulous job and I'm just waiting for the one near me to show up so I can actually take my car. I live 70 miles from the nearest hub town and we go there to do all our shopping so it will be very usefull once it is up and running.

 

[David99]

It's always awesome to see how many are built but if you look at the big picture, it's still a very small network. Even around California, where the number of SCs is probably the highest per area, it's still limited. You are pretty much locked down to certain routes. You can't really go where you want directly. There are 3 Superchargers in Los Angeles, where I drive every day, yet I have not used any of them in months because they are just not placed on my routes and I just hate to add 20 min to my driving just to find a charger. For long trips I have to follow the trail of Superchargers, I can't go the fastest or shortest way.

I know, complaining about a free charging network is kind of lame. But then look at it this way: 200 Supercharger (in the US) at each $150k is a total of $30 million. Considering Tesla has sold 50k cars in the US and each of them added $2000 to the Supercharger budget, that adds up to $100 million. So there would be money for at least three times as many. That's why I'm a little disappointed there aren't more. With the Model X and Model 3 sales will increase quite a bit, so much more money will come into the Supercharger pot. So not only should there be more money for Superchargers, there is also much more coming in. So from that perspective it's disappointing.

 

[purplewalt]

It's always awesome to see how many are built but if you look at the big picture, it's still a very small network. Even around California, where the number of SCs is probably the highest per area, it's still limited. You are pretty much locked down to certain routes. You can't really go where you want directly. There are 3 Superchargers in Los Angeles, where I drive every day, yet I have not used any of them in months because they are just not placed on my routes and I just hate to add 20 min to my driving just to find a charger. For long trips I have to follow the trail of Superchargers, I can't go the fastest or shortest way.

I know, complaining about a free charging network is kind of lame. But then look at it this way: 200 Supercharger (in the US) at each $150k is a total of $30 million. Considering Tesla has sold 50k cars in the US and each of them added $2000 to the Supercharger budget, that adds up to $100 million. So there would be money for at least three times as many. That's why I'm a little disappointed there aren't more. With the Model X and Model 3 sales will increase quite a bit, so much more money will come into the Supercharger pot. So not only should there be more money for Superchargers, there is also much more coming in. So from that perspective it's disappointing.

If building the network were just that easy, it would have already been done.
Quantity of Money being spent is NOT the sole driver or factor.
There are multiple unique issues at each site which must first be identified, and partnered and then engineered.
And reviewed and permitted.
And bid and awarded contract.
And then constructed.
And managed and adjusted for unforeseen conditions.
And then turned on, certified and tested.
And then opened for operation.

Each Supercharger installation is a prototype, not a cookie cutter, except for a couple of drop in units like in Vegas and Lone Tree inside the parking garages.
But even those still have to be engineered and installed.

Going from 8 to 480+ in two years and 1 month is amazing.
When there are 2,000 Superchargers, there will probably STILL be someplace that will not be fully and directly accessible.
Give it a rest already.
Try being thankful and grateful for what has already been completed.

The entire EV thing getting off the ground is a miracle of some very strong-willed and focused individuals who are committed to achieving excellence.

It could have really stumped its toe, and died a long time ago.

 

[roblab]

It's always awesome to see how many are built but if you look at the big picture, it's still a very small network. Even around California, where the number of SCs is probably the highest per area, it's still limited. You are pretty much locked down to certain routes. You can't really go where you want directly. There are 3 Superchargers in Los Angeles, where I drive every day, yet I have not used any of them in months because they are just not placed on my routes and I just hate to add 20 min to my driving just to find a charger. For long trips I have to follow the trail of Superchargers, I can't go the fastest or shortest way.

Back before ubiquitous supercharger sites in California, I went the shortest route. It was 230 miles at a jump, then a motel with 14-50, then another 230 miles. 55 and 60 mph.

After superchargers, I skew the tour line a bit and take in superchargers. It takes multiple hours off my trip, lots of anxiety, and is actually fun. If your route has to go a little off kilter to take in a charger, imagine doing it without! Imagine creeping in the truck lane, or only getting in a couple hundred miles of driving done in a whole day.

And if you wait a few more months, who knows? You may get a new supercharger, right on your route. It has happened to me three times.

How things have changed! I am always impressed with how much work Tesla does to get property that is so close to so many things: Freeways, shopping, eating. What a job! What a job well done.

 

[David99]

I'm the biggest Tesla supporter and especially the reliability of the Supercharger network is most impressive. What Elon and Tesla have done is changing things once and for all for the better for this planet and they turned things around which will be the downfall for big oil. I'm forever grateful for that! I have tried before. I bought an EV back in 1994 hoping I would be part of making a change. And I'm a supported again now with my Model S.

Setting up a Supercharger isn't a huge project. Any new construction, new building, a new store goes through a much more complex process. What I'm saying is that making a car like the Model S and making it successful is a huge accomplishment! No one else has been able to do that, not even close. But building Superchargers isn't that hard. It's peanuts compared. Developing it, making it work, making it reliable, yes all of that was hard work. Now it's just numbers and it's obvious there is enough of a budget to go faster.

 

[Rocky_H]

Setting up a Supercharger isn't a huge project. Any new construction, new building, a new store goes through a much more complex process. But building Superchargers isn't that hard. It's peanuts compared. Developing it, making it work, making it reliable, yes all of that was hard work. Now it's just numbers and it's obvious there is enough of a budget to go faster.

You make it sound like because they have the money, they can just mail a check, and the Supercharger will be teleported in instantly.

It’s not that it’s “hard”, or that they don’t have the “budget”. I’m pretty sure most of this has to do with time. There are people that have to do each of these things—site scouting, design planning, permit application, and construction, and they are trying to do a lot of them really fast and simultaneously. You compare how a big building is much more complex, so the Supercharger is comparatively much easier. Yes, that is correct, but what is the time scale? Doing a building takes several months usually, and they may have several weeks or a month or two off between that and another big build project that will take another really long time. They can only get a few of those done per year. Have you talked with any of the crews that do these Superchargers? Here in Boise, some friends talked with the guys building this one, and they said building Superchargers is all they do constantly, going from one site to the next. They don’t just try to hand off plans to some local contractors who aren’t familiar with it. That would make for more problems and mistakes and delays. This way, with several crews that have built these many times, they can do it very well and efficiently, but it does make for a serial time progression, where they do not have 50 of these crews working around the country, building a bunch of them at once.

 

[techmaven]

To provide some perspective, this is from Tesla's latest 10-Q filing:

As of June 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014, the net book value of our Supercharger network was $139.8 million and $107.8 million and currently includes 480 locations globally. We plan to continue investing in our Supercharger network for the foreseeable future, including in North America, Europe and Asia and expect such spending to be approximately 5% of total capital spending over the next 12 months. During 2015, this investment will grow our Supercharger network by about 50%. We allocate Supercharger related expenses to cost of automotive revenues and selling, general, and administrative expenses. These costs were immaterial for all periods presented.

Tesla has spent a lot of money on the Supercharging network, at least $139.8 million not counting electricity, ongoing maintenance and labor, monitoring, etc. Note that the costs of installing a Supercharger at a site is substantially incurred before visible construction starts. On day 1 of construction, Tesla has already paid for the permitting costs, all the equipment, architectural plans, labor for finding and negotiating the site, up front payments to the contractors, and so forth. The time to install from the onset of the planning for a site is likely at least 3 months, with some locations taking far, far longer.

Also, the $2,000 Supercharger upgrade cost pays for 3 things - the hardware in the car, the Supercharger installation costs, and the electricity.

 

[wk057]

Well, let's get one thing clear: Permitting, planning, etc are definitely not the hold up. These things can happen concurrently. Thousands if not millions of such things happen for other projects every day around the country/world. If money were not at least partly a bottleneck Tesla would get these things done and move forward. There are firms are over the country/world that would love to get paid to get these things done for Tesla. Tesla could have crews working on planning/permitting/etc for hundreds of sites at a time if they had the money for that. So anyone who says money isn't a bottleneck is crazy, including Elon who I believe has said this. With enough money anything is possible.

There are a lot of problems where throwing more people or more money at it will not speed it up. This definitely isn't one of them given the geographically spread out nature of the supercharger network. Hire 50 people, assign each person a state, and their job is to get at least one supercharger planned and permitted in that state per week on average. Tell me it wouldn't happen if money weren't an issue.

There is definitely no shortage of electricians, engineers, etc who will do this work for Tesla.

Aside from money itself, I also think the supercharger cabinet supply is a bottleneck. They require 12 of the 10kW charger units each last I heard. For a site with 8 stalls/4 cabinets that's 48 cars worth of charger units. AFAIK those chargers are made in house at Tesla, and I know for a fact the supercharger cabinets are made in house, so that's likely a bottleneck as well.

 

[techmaven]

There are a lot of problems where throwing more people or more money at it will not speed it up. This definitely isn't one of them given the geographically spread out nature of the supercharger network. Hire 50 people, assign each person a state, and their job is to get at least one supercharger planned and permitted in that state per week on average. Tell me it wouldn't happen.

I believe they could go faster. And at various times, they have. In some locations, faster may not be possible given local conditions of permitting, electrical grid capacity, and willing parking lot owners. But in aggregate, yes. I think they are limited by the capex hit and sometimes they spend more, sometimes they spend less. The other problem is that pushing for far faster usually means spending a lot more to make that happen. Further, we don't know the number of projects that we don't yet see visible fruit.