Guess I’ll weigh in with my thoughts. Keep in mind, you get what you pay for.
Tesla:
Queuing
- Space out cars properly to prevent backups before they happen.
- Prioritize cars that are ready to accept a faster charge.
- Prioritize those with a lower charge rate.
- Prioritize those on long trips that only need a small amount to get to the next station.
- Prioritize pull in / pull through spots for vehicles towing.
- This is going to get more important as non-Teslas join the network, and have to park in the wrong stalls.
Tow Procedure for dead cars.
Tell them to tow to a service center, not a supercharger. In a pinch, use a level 2 if rural, but prevents blocking the supercharger, and be in the correct location should it be a larger problem.
Charge Cable Sensors.
- Sense when a charge cable has not been returned to the holster.
- Follow the same warnings as if the door was open.
- Do allow to drive off, but note the last user.
Occupancy Sensing
Include a radar sensor in the charger to tell if a stall is occupied. Could be for:
- A Non-Op car
- Charger ICE’d
- Someone remaining after charging (add to idle system).
- Ideally add a camera and off-site monitoring for this. See if it needs to be overridden, a tow truck called, or the car pinged etc.
Visual Indicators
Turn the sign off, or something better than the current way. We currently just drape the cable over the top to signify the charger in out of order. New owners may not know this, and doubt tow truck, or rental drivers will.
Awnings.
- Snow in the stalls will suck the heat back out of the battery pack.
- Also in the summer, the opposite happens, along with the cabin trying to stay cool. Using solar on these would help pay for the costs.
Wind Blocking
Same reasons as the awnings. Hot & cold air blowing around the car and chargers to prevent temperature changes and ice buildup.
Pull through charging.
Pet peeve (I have many. Either I’m easy to pet, or like to peeve) as someone who does actually tow (picture attached at end). If a Tow truck does bring in a car, there is no easy way to get the car into location at many superchargers without block access or chargers (sometimes both).
Queue area with L2 charging. Ideally, we would have inductive, but I’ll save that conversation for another day.
- If the station is full, this can be used to keep your cabin up to temperature.
- If your battery is not up to temperature, you will be sent here to preheat, allowing more throughput.
- If your car if bricked. The trickle charge will slowly bring it up to a level when the supercharger can take over.
- If space is available, and the person really wants to charge over 80% without need or incurring a higher rate, they can do so here. This idea relies on sufficient capacity and may need additional gatekeeping.
Etiquette Rating. Tied to queuing. Given a lower status for being a poor community member.
- Consistently charging over the recommended level
- Consistently charging to a high level when congested
- Not returning the connector to the holster
- Frequent idle fees
- Not pulling out of stall after unplugging.
Tiered charge rates
- 80% double rate (normal until the maximum requested by the navigation, plus 5 minutes).
- 85% Triple (normal until the maximum requested by the navigation, plus 5 minutes).
- 90% Quadruple (normal until the maximum requested by the navigation, plus 5 minutes).
- 95% Quintuple (normal until the maximum requested by the navigation, plus 5 minutes).
- Makes up for loses in throughput (when charging by KW, since cars at the slower end of the charging curve generate less revenue per minute).
- Trains drivers who are used to “topping off” gas tanks, not to overcharge.
- Good for warranty costs, and bad experience out of warranty from abusing the battery.
Free supercharging
- Doesn’t apply within 50 miles of your home (unless the navigation requests you to).
- Only applies to 80% charging (or the maximum requested by the navigation, plus 5 minutes).
- Eliminate this as a sales tactic. Offer home charger installation credits instead.
Use of navigation to override limits will get people in the habit, so preconditioning takes place.
Go back to including travel chargers with cars.
Too many people are trying to short cut not making any charging investment, relying solely on Superchargers. Having a travel charger including encourages them to set something up at home or work. Worst case it sits in the frunk collecting dust until times like this.
CSS Adapters
- Any driver that was impacted by the Chicago incident or similar, should receive a CSS adapter.
- If the car is being sold into an area of high supercharger congestion, or further than 50 miles from a supercharger, include the CSS adapter in the purchase.
Co-ordinate Level 2 charger installations as part of the buying experience (or after)
This is one area where the Leaf process back in 2010-11 was much better. They worked with known installers nationwide to get home level 2 chargers installed. Even being in the middle of nowhere, I was able to get a quote from someone who knew what they were doing and didn’t pad the costs. Given Tesla’s network of solar and Powerwall installers, this should be possible.
Roll Charger installation into the purchase.
Building on the above; Being able to roll the costs of a level 2 charger install into the purchase price of the car for financing, makes it much easier for the new EV owner to decide to install one.
Level 2 Network
- Has not been expanded at the same rate as sales have grown or the supercharger network.
- Needs more active management. Been experiencing several that are non-op at hotels. The charger should communicate via the cars network connection it’s status (or lack or if geo located nearby).
- With the switch to NACS, the opportunity to take on a Sharepoint type business is possible. Offering turn-key installations and revenue sharing.
Opening of the Supercharger Network
- Only open up stations where the cables are long enough that the car can park in the correct stall. If the charge port is on the passenger rear, or drivers front, they are going to be blocking 2 stations.
- For the stations where this is not possible, only allow the end stall and/or tow spot
- For the love of god, please don’t let Bolts, or any other 50KW car on the network.
- In times of high congestion, prioritize BEVs over PHEVs (problem I’m having at some level 2’s).
Use of dynamic charge scheduling.
Basically, adjust the amperage of the charge to coincide with the departure time, not the start of charge. This allows the battery to start charging while already warm, and stay warm the entire time. The lower loses from the lower amperage will partially offset the longer period of battery heating. Would prevent cold soaking and keep the car at a ready state.
General Temperature Control
Bypass the battery when charging is complete and pull directly from the EVSE instead. Allow any normal (sentry mode, BMS, updates, etc) or extra heating loads to be feed directly from the charger to the load source, bypassing the battery. This would:
- Prevents the battery from being at a lower charge than expected in the morning. Since it stopped when it hit the threshold, then pulled out energy for these items.
- Reduce the number of cycles placed on the battery, since it will eventually restart charging.
- Reduce losses from storing, then pulling energy from the battery
- Allow for higher then expected loads, like an unexpectedly cold day.
- Would be nice to see some cell balancing done at this point also, instead of needing to go to 100% occasionally.
Semi charging.
Start standardizing the Ideally add an adapter to NACS.
Problem Reporting
Need a better method of reporting charger issues, with immediate response (ideally). Be it completely down, just damaged, or ICE’d. Need to be able to let them know so it can be resolved quickly, and marked down.
Charge port.
Still not the best design in freezing rain. Snow has a tendency to refreeze on it. See all odd covers available online, I’m not the only person to have had this happen.
General rants
Let people know what the towing stall is for. It’s not a “I’m just too lazy to back in” stall…
Wish we had kept going with battery swapping.
- Depleted packs could be charged off peak.
- Could show up almost dead.
- No need to precondition.
- No worries over battery degradation.
- Even shorter stops.
- Ship has sailed on this though. Too many battery types, designs, and capacities unless someone mandates them like China.
Governmental:
Section 8:
Add the requirement for a NEMA 14-50 outlet for charger use past a certain date.
New construction:
Like the UK requirement. Require a NEMA 14-50 for charging use per parking location for all new construction and major remodels.
Manufacturer credits:
For a manufacturer to get the BEV credits, they have to have a ratio of chargers available for that connector type.
- If a home charger with installation is included, this requirement is waived.
- If supported by a nationwide battery swapping network with high reliability, also waived.
- This is a 50/50 mix of level 2 and DC fast charging.
- The number is multiplied by charger up time percentage.
Rest areas:
Change the law to allow chargers to be installed at rest areas.
Incentivize chargers to be placed at these locations.
Airports & Port terminals:
Cell Phone Lots, add level 2 chargers.
Long term lots, dedicate EV spots around locations with outlets for level 1 charging. Add more outlets too. A dedicated EVSE being provided would work, but not necessary.
Workplace
Any employer with a location that has over 50 employees must install a working level 2 charger (32 amps or higher) in proportion to the combined PHEV & BEV new car sales percentage times the number of employees. Example, 10% of new car sales, and 100 employees, is 10 chargers. This number would not include chargers used for company owned or leased vehicles.
Cummins
As pittance for emissions cheating, have them do the same as VW had to. They can just buy to expand a network, but will not be eligible for the IRA for that portion.
Public venues:
Any large public venue (stadium, shopping mall, amusement park, etc.) must have an equal number of level 2 or greater chargers available to the number of required handicapped stalls. This can be for new construction, or past a certain date. A credit towards this can be given if working DC fast chargers are on site. Can be integrated into parking lot lighting (with wiring upgrades).
New Streets
Light pole level 2 charging integrated into a specified percentage of poles for new or rewired systems.
Hope you got you money's worth...
