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gavine
Petrol Head turned EV Enthusiast
I don't think so - but realize that the cost comes in a few different forms. The least obvious one is the expense of upgrading electrical service to handle it.
A standard six outlet supercharger can eat almost half a megawatt when full, likely needing a dedicated transformer and maybe a new tap off of the high voltage lines. Business demand charges are often pretty ugly, too.
But as the one in Moscow demonstrates, if someone is willing to foot all the bills, Tesla will likely be happy to cooperate. There are several sites that have signs saying the power is paid by a local vendor, like Harrisburg (Weis Markets, I think it was?)
A standard six outlet supercharger can eat almost half a megawatt when full, likely needing a dedicated transformer and maybe a new tap off of the high voltage lines. Business demand charges are often pretty ugly, too.
But as the one in Moscow demonstrates, if someone is willing to foot all the bills, Tesla will likely be happy to cooperate. There are several sites that have signs saying the power is paid by a local vendor, like Harrisburg (Weis Markets, I think it was?)
Boatguy
Active Member
No, nothing that money won't solve. A lot of SavMarts (grocery stores) have 50kWh CHAdeMO chargers. Only about half of a supercharger, but a lot more interesting than a Level 2 charger.
mikeash
Active Member
Don't forget just how much cost we're talking. An installed wall connector might cost in the range of $1,000 to $4,000 depending on how difficult the installation is. A Supercharger would be more like $50,000.
Cost is the primary obstacle. A basic economic analysis will show that there is no compelling reason to spend the orders of magnitude more money to install 4 Supercharger stalls compared to 4 40A HPWCs. The nature of a "destination" is that the EV will be present at that location for many hours, so an HPWC works just fine, whereas a Supercharger on a highway somewhere is optimal for rapid charging because the EV owners are on their way somewhere and don't want to have to stop for hours to charge.
Boatguy
Active Member
If you broaden your definition of "destination" to include restaurants, grocery stores, gyms, malls, golf courses and places where we spend 30min - 4hrs, then the usefulness of a DC charger increases dramatically.
A local grocery store has two Level 2 chargers which are essentially worthless, even for my BMW i3; 30min of shopping will only deliver about 3.5kWh. The same 30min at the local mall which has a CHAdeMO (and CCS), or a SavMart grocery store with a CHAdeMO is that I would get 25kWh. Extend my stay to an hour at the gym with a CHAdeMO and now I'm getting 40kWh - 50kWh which is significant.
A 10-100kW CHAdeMO charger is available online for $10K. Pay-per-use DC chargers at these sorts of "destinations" would go a long way towards addressing the needs of renters and condo residents who have problems installing an HPWC or 14-50 outlet.
Perhaps Tesla should be deploying an SC-lite in the 50kW range for such destinations in conjunction with their sale of blocks of kWh's that was recently disclosed.
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mikeash
Active Member
Totally agree that many "destinations" can benefit from L3 charging. This is basically what we see at Superchargers located near restaurants and grocery stores and such. I made good use of a "destination" CHAdeMO a few weeks ago, when I needed a bunch of extra range to get home from a trip without detouring to a Supercharger, and was staying at a hotel with only 120V charging. An hour or so on that put me right where I needed to be, whereas L2 would have barely made a dent.
The cost is fairly high. CHAdeMO stations are commercial products and you can look up their prices. I'm seeing costs as low as $6,500, but that's only for a 24kW station. It looks like 50kW is more like $16,000, plus presumably expensive installation. Not bad for what you get, but a whole lot more expensive than a $500 wall connector which goes on a standard 240V circuit.
In any case, an SC-lite would be pretty cool for Tesla to provide. Even better, have both Tesla connectors and CHAdeMO (and CCS?) so everybody can benefit.
The cost is fairly high. CHAdeMO stations are commercial products and you can look up their prices. I'm seeing costs as low as $6,500, but that's only for a 24kW station. It looks like 50kW is more like $16,000, plus presumably expensive installation. Not bad for what you get, but a whole lot more expensive than a $500 wall connector which goes on a standard 240V circuit.
In any case, an SC-lite would be pretty cool for Tesla to provide. Even better, have both Tesla connectors and CHAdeMO (and CCS?) so everybody can benefit.
AndreSF
Member
I agree with @ecarfan definition of "destination" and also agree that level 2 chargers at the grocery stores are pretty useless for most EVs. As battery tech/range improves, those charges will become even more useless. If I see a Tesla parked in one of those spots, I think they are just using the spot for its prime location, as the owner will likely not be "necessity", but "opportunity" charging, if the car is even plugged in (with some exceptions of course).
Boatguy
Active Member
It's nice that a lot of businesses provide free charging, and we'll enjoy it while we have it, but it's not going to scale up if EV's are going to be 50% of the cars on the road.
The link I posted earlier was for a 10-100kW CHAdeMO charger for only $10K, quantity one. For a national deployment the cost would be much less. It's about time that one of the for profit charging networks (e.g., EVgo, Blink, etc.) put in place a real network of 50-100kW Level 3 chargers with CCS, CHAdeMO and Tesla connectors. Grocery stores, shopping malls, public parking lots, etc. could all have charging stations and it would go a long way towards solving the entire renter/condo owner issue as well as providing "in town" charging when touring. Then Tesla just needs to provide SC's on the long distance routes which was the original idea.
It might not continue. But there's no fundamental reason it couldn't, either. The costs of the equipment/installation are going to go down with time, and the cost of the electricity probably will, too, while the cars will come to require somewhat less over time as well. Even if all transportation suddenly became electric, it'd only be a ~25% increase in the grid.
So offering free charging remains a viable fairly inexpensive perks for places to offer to draw customers. It may become a less effective draw if more of their competitors offer it, too - but as soon as someone stops offering it, it should drive traffic back to the folks that are.
mikeash
Active Member
I'm a little confused about that 10-100kW CHAdeMO charger. Does $10,000 get you 10kW, or 100kW, or what? I'd assume the $10,000 is for 10kW since that would be the cheapest, and then it would go up from there, but I don't see a way to choose the power level. The products on their web site look significantly cheaper than that would imply, too....
Boatguy
Active Member
I agree the listing is ambiguous. The photo says 20kW, the copy says 10kW-100kW. I think the take away is that a rectifier and some control electronics need not be horribly expensive. I had a 8kW charger (two rectifiers and a controller) on on my boat for less than $1,000 and not much larger than a shoe box.
My house has 400a service at 245v so that's close to 98kW with no drama from the utility. So my opinion is that most commercial facilities would not be taxed to add a couple of 50kW chargers.
So back to the OP's question, is there any barrier other than cost? I think the answer is no and that the cost is not prohibitive since a CHAdeMO or SC-lite charger would have a long product life over which to amortize the investment.
Keep going... I don't think any of the Supercharger installations have been below $100,000.
I was originally thinking for a restaurant I own. I can see just one station - you're in and out in less than an hour. I can't afford to give up 6 parking spaces. The charge you can get from a wall charger in half an hour doesn't seem worth the effort. If another car is waiting, the valet can move cars after 30 minutes.
mikeash
Active Member
I understand that it's usually in the range of $150-200,000 for an installation. However, I meant the cost for just one station/stall (or one pair?).
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