Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)

[bro1999]

Oh no, its happening. Live pictures from the charger parking lot...

You guys laugh at the state of the CCS fast charging network, but I'm looking forward to the "Supercharger Armageddon" stories next week. Should be extra bad this year with all those Model 3s out there.

 

[more863-also]

You guys laugh at the state of the CCS fast charging network, but I'm looking forward to the "Supercharger Armageddon" stories next week. Should be extra bad this year with all those Model 3s out there.

Why would that change things? S and X models hog the SC because it's free, my mom goes to SCs for every charge because she's extremely weird about electricity usage. When you're paying for it, a lot of the appeal goes away.

And besides, the crowded ones will be in cities where non-Tesla charging is common anyways.

Notice how every single time there's a 'Supercharger Armageddon' it involves California? I have never, ever seen a full SC station in my life in Colorado (though Silverthorne was getting full one time).

 

[wdolson]

Why would that change things? S and X models hog the SC because it's free, my mom goes to SCs for every charge because she's extremely weird about electricity usage. When you're paying for it, a lot of the appeal goes away.

And besides, the crowded ones will be in cities where non-Tesla charging is common anyways.

Notice how every single time there's a 'Supercharger Armageddon' it involves California? I have never, ever seen a full SC station in my life in Colorado (though Silverthorne was getting full one time).

There will be a lot of people taking their Model 3s to family Thanksgiving somewhere and I expect there will be back-ups at some interstate superchargers. The worst time in California was a major holiday when highway 101 on the coast was closed due to a fire and they hadn't added redundant charging locations in the San Joaquin Valley yet. This year there might be road closures in CA due to fires, but there are a lot more supercharger locations. Supercharging in California can still be tight though. There are just a lot of Teslas there and travel between the major cities is common.

When I went down to California, the situation at California SCs was much more crowded than in the Northwest. At most NW superchargers there may be a few other cars at an SC, but I've never seen one full. I didn't have to wait in line at any SCs in California (not a holiday), but some were close to full and speeds on CA superchargers were slower. I talked to a tech replacing cables at one SC and he said that the combination of hot summers and heavy use wore out CA superchargers much faster than anywhere else in the world.

In their rush to profitability Tesla has been slow in expanding the service center network as well as a bit slow in rolling out new superchargers. There has been expansion, but the cars/SC stall has probably gone up in the last year.

I think @bro1999 is probably right and there will be some lines at some SCs at the holidays this year.

 

[more863-also]

Maybe in California. Rest of the country is looking good.

 

[RubberToe]

Somebody check my math here...

There are 40 Supercharger stalls in Baker. Assume every Tesla that stops there charges for 30 minutes. That means that there will be a Supercharger spot opening up every 45 seconds. I-15 is two lanes wide in both directions. You are supposed to allow 2 seconds between your car and the car in front of you. So every 45 seconds there will be at most (45 / 2) * 4 = 90 cars driving through Baker.

If traffic is slowed down due to the Holiday, you are probably looking at 1/10 that rate if not less passing through.

Please raise your hand if you think, even momentarily, that 1 of every 90 cars driving past Baker will be a Tesla that needs to Supercharge.

RT

P.S. Note that this is actually an I.Q. test in disguise...

 

[Big Earl]

You guys laugh at the state of the CCS fast charging network, but I'm looking forward to the "Supercharger Armageddon" stories next week. Should be extra bad this year with all those Model 3s out there.

I just planned a route from DC to Avon, NC (Outer Banks), which is a trip I plan on doing this coming Sunday in our Model 3. For comparison, I also planned the trip in a Bolt. Both plans are using the same settings on A Better Routeplanner. 40F, 110% of the speed limit, arrival in Avon with 50% state of charge to allow for running around.

The Model 3 requires one Supercharging stop for a total of 33 minutes. The Bolt requires one CCS stop for a total of 1 hour and 47 minutes.

If we're a little more fair to the Bolt and drop the arrival charge to 35%, charging time drops to 1 hour and 14 minutes.

A Model 3 driver could wait in line for 30 minutes and still get there significantly ahead of the Bolt.

 

[RubberToe]

I just planned a route from DC to Avon, NC (Outer Banks), which is a trip I plan on doing this coming Sunday in our Model 3. For comparison, I also planned the trip in a Bolt. Both plans are using the same settings on A Better Routeplanner. 40F, 110% of the speed limit, arrival in Avon with 50% state of charge to allow for running around.

The Model 3 requires one Supercharging stop for a total of 33 minutes. The Bolt requires one CCS stop for a total of 1 hour and 47 minutes.

If we're a little more fair to the Bolt and drop the arrival charge to 35%, charging time drops to 1 hour and 14 minutes.

A Model 3 driver could wait in line for 30 minutes and still get there significantly ahead of the Bolt.

Yeah, but just think about all the extra time @bro1999 will have to laugh at all the Teslas waiting in line during that 1h14m he is charging. He could hang out the the Supercharger making a long video of 40 Teslas Supercharging, with 3 others in line for 2 minutes each....

Line Waiter: Hey Bro, whatcha doin bud?

Bro: <laughing hysterically> Dude, I'm filming you Tesla fanboys waiting in line for 2 minutes before you can charge!

Line Waiter: How long you been out here doing that exactly?

Bro: <scratches head> I dunno, maybe 1 hour and 13 minutes. <enthused> I have a whole lot of videos of this to share on TMC!

Line Waiter: Don't you have anything better to do? Why are you out here anyway?

Bro: Nah, my Bolt is charging up and I have a lot of time to kill, thought I would film you knuckleheads waiting in line for a couple minutes each!

Line Waiter: <pulls away, into Supercharger> Right On Bro, you da man !

RT

 

[RubberToe]

Any melt down leads yet @bro1999? I heard about Kettleman City being down for about 4 hours due to a power outage that hit the entire area. Other than some crowding reported I haven't seen any serious whining in the California Supercharger forum, which I would think would follow any serious line waiting. Maybe tonight and Sunday will be big travel days too. Keeping my fingers crossed!

RT

 

[scaesare]

You guys laugh at the state of the CCS fast charging network, but I'm looking forward to the "Supercharger Armageddon" stories next week. Should be extra bad this year with all those Model 3s out there.

Ah, another gleeful @bro1999 post when there's any chance of something negative in Tesla-land.

I honestly wish we could be lamenting problems from " all those Model 3s Bolt's out there", but alas... that problem has yet to materialize.

 

[bro1999]

Any melt down leads yet @bro1999? I heard about Kettleman City being down for about 4 hours due to a power outage that hit the entire area. Other than some crowding reported I haven't seen any serious whining in the California Supercharger forum, which I would think would follow any serious line waiting. Maybe tonight and Sunday will be big travel days too. Keeping my fingers crossed!

RT

Tesla Supercharger network gets a rough test with Thanksgiving travels

 

[more863-also]

Tesla Supercharger network gets a rough test with Thanksgiving travels

Whoa, one whole station in LA made people wait a bit too long? Shut it down, folks.

 

[seattlite2004]

Bolt vs Kona....can't wait for the Niro comparisons. Looks like the Koreans have some really nice low priced EVs with lots of Fed Rebate in their future.

 

[bro1999]

Whoa, one whole station in LA made people wait a bit too long? Shut it down, folks.

It's usually the return travel that's the worst. People are staggered traveling days leading up to Thanksgiving. The return trips are usually much more concentrated. opcorn:

 

[bro1999]

Oh my
Dganit on Twitter

 

[wdolson]

So what will the lines be like at CCS chargers over Thanksgiving in a year or two if the new long range EVs from other makers roll out in significant numbers? The supercharger network has a few bottlenecks, but I bet the ones in Maryland are probably OK this weekend.

The problem is not really a Tesla one, it's a looming problem for any long range EV coming to market. The difference is Tesla can directly effect changes and other car makers can only put pressure on 3rd party providers to put in more chargers.

 

[scaesare]

It's usually the return travel that's the worst. People are staggered traveling days leading up to Thanksgiving. The return trips are usually much more concentrated. opcorn:

@bro1999 .. Why the joy over the growing pains associated with EV adoption?

 

[Saghost]

The problem is not really a Tesla one, it's a looming problem for any long range EV coming to market. The difference is Tesla can directly effect changes and other car makers can only put pressure on 3rd party providers to put in more chargers.

And there's no reason to believe that they'll even try to apply what little pressure they can. They've been quite happy to play the blame game and point out that they don't offer gasoline filling stations either so far.

 

[seattlite2004]

All these lines just proves that folks will seek out and wait for the cheapest fuel..electricity or gasoline. Look at the lines at Costco....just to save a few cents/gal. If supercharging were the same price was electricity at home...wonder how long those lines will be. Yeah...I get that there are some folks that got FREE Supercharging...thus free fuel...so maybe lines at Supercharges will still be long...cuz...hey...its FREE and I'd rather wait than pay.

 

[Big Dog]

If supercharging were the same price was electricity at home...

Supercharging is about the same price as electricity at a California home. (at least it is for those M3's that don't have free supercharging for life.)

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Since we're discussing Superchargers issues, I thought I'd share that I had absolutely no waiting on our annual 1300 mile trip to visit my family in the Midwest (which you can't make in a Bolt).

Sorry for those that had a wait at roughly 1% of the stations in existence.