Gustine was open Sunday and yesterday, but 2A wasn't working. I called Tesla.
Pea Soup Andersen's was open both times, yum!
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Pea Soup Andersen's was open both times, yum!
Yep, full superchargers is awesome - they've proven the business case for superchargers. If you can have them at high utilization, you can amortize their construction cost. When you prove the business case for something, capital flowsThey just need to do their best at forecasting demand so that construction never lags behind need.
Not true as long as Tesla is providing free/cheep supercharging. It jut costs them money when they add a supercharger. And no one can hope to compete with their pricing.
That's often the joke amongst EV enthusiasts w/o Teslas when we see them using public charging. "Always 200 miles away from home..."
That said, besides the possible reasons already mentioned, many of us are in PG&E land which has pretty expensive electricity.
What do you pay for electricity? can give you a flavor of it. Our baseline amounts are a joke, so most folks on tiered plans are paying fairly high marginal rates per kWh to charge their EV.
People even do this at the free public L2 charging about 5 miles away from home. And, the vehicles range from Smart ForTwo EDs all the way up to Tesla Model S and X. There are 8 free 30 amp J1772 EVSEs. I use them sometimes on Fridays and weekends.
There are no Superchargers near that site at all. The closest would be the Mountain View (about 20 miles NW) and Gilroy Superchargers (about 27 miles SE).
If I had a Tesla w/free unlimited Supercharging, lived near one of the SCs (I'm 24 miles each of the above Superchargers, so I wouldn't bother going there to charge), was in PG&E-land and couldn't charge for free at work, I'd consider using the SC from time to time (if Tesla didn't frown upon it). If I were to visit the Computer History Musuem (have a few times), I'd use the SCs there, esp. if there isn't a queue and there are a bunch of open stalls.
Last edited:
These people would have traveled whether they had to pay some (cheaper than gas) fee or not. The number of people with grandfathered free supercharging is irrelevant, because they're going to be quickly swamped by those who have to pay for supercharging.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I would love to pay PG&E rates. SDG&E doesn't even include lube for the prices they charge.
This is OT but I keep seeing similar statements, which are totally incorrect.
PG&E does have high rates overall but offers time of use plans for EV owners that allow you to charge affordably at night and all day on weekends except 3-7 pm. Currently the off-peak rate is about 12 cents/kWh ($0.122/kWh in summer and $0.125/kWh in winter). https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf
For most EV owners in PG&E's service area the TOU plan is the way to go and very affordable. My bill actually went down as a result of shifting some heavy uses from Tier 3 ($.45/kWh) on my old plan to off-peak on EV-A (~$.12/kWh), so in effect I am being paid to charge my Tesla with no net fueling costs. And that's on top of the $500 EV rebate I received from PG&E. I may be an unusual use case but the basic point is that PG&E's EV TOU plans allow most EV customers to charge their EV at affordable rates.
This is perhaps true, but as long as Tesla prices supercharging at less than actual cost (ie not only the cost of electricity, but also facilities cost, maintenance, installation, rental to landlord, and return on capitol [profit]), it won't be possible for non-Tesla superchargers to compete. Furthermore, operating/installing additional superchargers is just a cost to Tesla, since they are selling charging at less than cost.
That sounds exactly like our situation with Southern California Edison (SCE). Except it is 14c per kW 10 pm to 8 a.m.
I think this is an interesting discussion. And how will Volkswagen's punishment fine of 10 billion ("b" as in "boy" billion) dollars directed towards the construction of electric car infrastructure change the equation?
That's why I referred to tiered plans. EV-A and EV-B are not tiered.
Sure the off-peak rates are cheap but at the expense of the other times. The EV plans a crazy because their rates outside off-peak are fairly high and peak is crazy along with a huge band being labeled "peak" (2 pm to 9 pm Mon to Fri and 3 pm to to 7 pm Sat, Sun and holidays). For those who haven't opened the PDF and looked at pages 1 and 4, see the attached images. During the above "peak" hours, they charge over 45 cents/kWh in "summer" and and 32 cents/kWh in "winter".
If you stayed on EV-A and stopped charging your EV at home or at all, your electric bill would go down, possibly by a lot. It's possible your bill could go down even further if if you did that and went with another TOU plan that isn't as user unfriendly in terms of peak and partial peak definitions.
For those who live in cheap electricity regions (e.g. say below 12.5 cents/kWh on average), how would you like to be reamed for 45 cents/kWh in from May 1 to Oct 31 from 2 to 9 pm Mon to Fri and 3 to 7 pm on on weekends and holidays? And, for the rest of the year, during those time bands, paying 32 cents/kWh.
And from 7 am to 2 pm and 9 pm to 11 pm Mon thru Fri, you're paying almost 20 cents/kWh in "winter" and almost 25 cents/kWh in "summer". You're getting screwed during most of your waking hours for the benefit of paying your (low) rates to charging at night.
I'm already on a TOU plan, E-6. PG&E's rate comparison tool says my bill is cheapest on E-6 Smart at $645/year (but it has flip-flopped before) and it estimates $665/year for me now. Changing it to EV-A would make it $705/year which is 2 notches up. But, I almost never charge my EV at home.
Attachments
Last edited:
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
Did anyone notice that Tesla has now removed the number of open stalls from the Supercharger map
Did anyone notice that Tesla has now removed the number of open stalls from the Supercharger map
Yes at least a week now unf...so frustrating. Supercharger Live Status
To my knowledge, that isn't going towards superchargers, but towards open-standards charging facilities. No one except Tesla builds cars that can use superchargers and no one other than Tesla owns/operates supercharger locations.
And what makes you think that Tesla plans to do this?
Tesla's US rate is $0.20/kWh. Industrial power purchasers buy it for a couple cents per kWh in the US (much lower than residential rates). The rest of the money is to pay for their grid connection and amortize the hardware. If a busy supercharger averages vending 80kW over the course of a year, then it's sold 700 thousand kWh, earning an annual revenue of $140k. It's easy to see that a busy supercharger won't take long to pay back its capital costs, even with high grid connection fees.
The key is "busy". Not only does a poorly-utilized supercharger take longer to pay off its capital costs, but the cost for the grid connection is based on how much peak power it draws - regardless of how much of its time is spent drawing at that peak. So a poorly-utilized supercharger will still face a daunting bill for its grid connection, but not have much revenue to pay for it - let alone capital cost amortization.
Tesla plans to fix this problem with the V3 superchargers, which will have a battery buffer. Poorly utilized superchargers will only need a slow power draw to charge the battery, which will then be used in bursts to charge the infrequent vehicles. Indeed, as Musk pointed out, low to moderate usage stations in sunny locations may not need a grid connection at all, and simply be able to rely on solar awnings for their power. Of course, that means an even higher capital cost to amortize
But to reiterate: the key to supercharger profitability is business. If a charger is busy, it can pay for its grid connection, amortize its capital costs and turn a profit - easily. If it's not busy.... it can't. Same sort of thing applies to gas stations, by the way, which also have high capital costs (a typical station costs a couple million dollars to build). Gas stations are an interesting analogy because it brings up another point: much if not most of their profit comes from indoor sales. Stores colocated with superchargers should be even more profitable, since EV drivers are on average more affluent, but more to the point, are a captive audience. But again, that key issue rears its head: the site needs to be busy to have enough customers to be profitable.
Last edited:
This confirms that you -- like most other EV owners in PG&E's service area -- would benefit from switching to EV-A if you charged your EV at home full time. It also confirms that it would be very affordable if you did.
Driving a Model 3 12,000 miles/year and charging off-peak, which is the logical thing to do, would cost you a grand total of about $36 per month, or about $430/year. This assumes 288 Wh/mi as estimated here: [Spoiler Alert + Mild Speculation] Tesla has created a monster! and using the higher off-peak price of $0.125/kWh.
If you are on a time of use plan it is pretty easy to reduce costs by shifting some energy uses to off-peak or partial peak (run the dishwasher or washer/dryer at night, for example), but even assuming you pay the extra $40-60/year PG&E estimated from switching to a TOU plan that would result in a total "fueling" cost of only $490/year in your worst case scenario ($430+$60). Most likely less since as mentioned it is pretty easy to reduce inflated peak charges by shifting some uses to off-peak or partial peak.
So it is usually cheap to charge an EV, even in the SF Bay Area which has very high overall electricity costs compared to most parts of the U.S. And that doesn't even count the $500 rebate from PG&E for purchasing/leasing an EV, which essentially would give you the first year of charging for "free" (and for many, the possibility of charging from solar) ....
Last edited:
And what makes you think that Tesla plans to do this?
Tesla's US rate is $0.20/kWh. Industrial power purchasers buy it for a couple cents per kWh in the US (much lower than residential rates). The rest of the money is to pay for their grid connection and amortize the hardware. If a busy supercharger averages vending 80kW over the course of a year, then it's sold 700 thousand kWh, earning an annual revenue of $140k. It's easy to see that a busy supercharger won't take long to pay back its capital costs, even with high grid connection fees.
The key is "busy". Not only does a poorly-utilized supercharger take longer to pay off its capital costs, but the cost for the grid connection is based on how much peak power it draws - regardless of how much of its time is spent drawing at that peak. So a poorly-utilized supercharger will still face a daunting bill for its grid connection, but not have much revenue to pay for it - let alone capital cost amortization.
Tesla plans to fix this problem with the V3 superchargers, which will have a battery buffer. Poorly utilized superchargers will only need a slow power draw to charge the battery, which will then be used in bursts to charge the infrequent vehicles. Indeed, as Musk pointed out, low to moderate usage stations in sunny locations may not need a grid connection at all, and simply be able to rely on solar awnings for their power. Of course, that means an even higher capital cost to amortize
But to reiterate: the key to supercharger profitability is business. If a charger is busy, it can pay for its grid connection, amortize its capital costs and turn a profit - easily. If it's not busy.... it can't. Same sort of thing applies to gas stations, by the way, which also have high capital costs (a typical station costs a couple million dollars to build). Gas stations are an interesting analogy because it brings up another point: much if not most of their profit comes from indoor sales. Stores colocated with superchargers should be even more profitable, since EV drivers are on average more affluent, but more to the point, are a captive audience. But again, that key issue rears its head: the site needs to be busy to have enough customers to be profitable.
Unless I'm wrong, your 700,000 kWh per supercharger assumes that each supercharger stall is in use 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That's totally unrealistic. Most superchargers are (and always will be) basically vacant between 10 PM and 6 AM. And, in order to provide an acceptable level of service (ie an acceptable wait) at peak points during the day (probably during the evening) there will need to be a fair amount of supercharger stalls sitting vacant for much of the day. No way revenue per stall even approaches $140K/year. Also, it is going to get tougher and tougher for Tesla to find places where it can install superchargers rent-free. This is especially true at urban locations.
Please re-read what I wrote:
A supercharger maxes out at 145kW. Hence that supercharger would be averaging 55% usage. Allocate that at whatever times of day you want. Now, that would certainly be a busy supercharger. But that's exactly how it was described - a busy supercharger. Said "busy supercharger" would pay off its capital costs in under two years. That's pretty much your lower bounds on payback periods. Less busy, more common usage patterns would change that to "several years" . But low usage (say, 5%) superchargers would never pay off (without a battery buffer) because they couldn't pay for their monthly grid connection fees. Buffered superchargers will always have a timeperiod in which they pay for themselves (unless longevity is a problem), but that timeperiod of course depends on how heavily trafficked they are.
Strongly disagree. My god, if I was a store owner I'd be begging Tesla to install a supercharger on my lot. A captive audience for 15-90 minutes? Said captive audience being people who can afford to spend large sums of money on expensive cars? All at no cost to me, just a couple parking spaces? Who on Earth would say no to that? "Yes, please, keep trapping some upper- and upper-middle-class people next to my store for significant lengths of time, thanks!"
Last edited:
mmd
Active Member
I didn't read your lengthy post full of mistakes. But this is ridiculous. Commercial rates are lower, but not that low. A 15 sec google search would have shown you that. In California (this thread, bay area), commercial rate is ~15 cents/kwh, industrial is 12.20 c/kwh. Places where it is from pure coal, the rate is lower, but not that low.
EIA - Electricity Data
dennis
Model S Plaid
What makes the EV-A rate so good is that it is not tiered. With the daily baseline only about 14 kWh and the highest rates kicking in at 200% of that (28kWh/day), getting onto a non-tiered plan is a no-brainer.
Did anyone notice that Tesla has now removed the number of open stalls from the Supercharger map
I noticed it this weekend. I guess that's what I get for starting this thread
Similar threads
- Question
