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Eastern Canada Superchargers
- Thread starter Doug_G
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- Canada Supercharging
Peter_M
Member
Find Us | Tesla (zoom in to see the Coming Soon superchargers). The Coming Soon dots have always been approximate locations where they would like to put a supercharger, usually shown wherever the name of the city/town/area happens to show up on the map. For example, look at the grey dots for Nepean, Perth and Renfrew - they are right over the names.
Wow, that is a bigger list than I thought. Lots of planned SCs for Ontario. They all just say planned for this year. I will certainly try to get a feeling of how optimistic this is, and what a more reasonable expectation might be.
I may get some backlash for saying it, but with plans this aggressive, I think they really need to turn these into more of a profit center. No gouging, but more than the break even I believe they are shooting for. In my case I only use SCs on trips, so I would not mind paying more to support growth, and a profitable Tesla. As long as it is significantly less than gas, I am good.
I may get some backlash for saying it, but with plans this aggressive, I think they really need to turn these into more of a profit center. No gouging, but more than the break even I believe they are shooting for. In my case I only use SCs on trips, so I would not mind paying more to support growth, and a profitable Tesla. As long as it is significantly less than gas, I am good.
Peter_M
Member
Having watched supercharger growth for over 6 years (from zero in Canada), I'll say what others have said: the Coming Soon dots just indicate a plan to open a SC somewhere in that area at some point, whenever they have the funds, put the priority on it, find a location, negotiate details with the property owner, municipality and utility, and get a crew to do the work. The Coming Soon spots pretty much always say they'll be done by the end of the current year, they almost always take longer than they initially say, but they eventually get done. Elon said the Trans-Canada would be done by the end of 2017, then the end of 2018, then the end of 2019 and they finally got it done then.
As for making money from superchargers, I don't know enough about Tesla internal finances to really comment, but I would guess that the pace of supercharger growth is driven by overall company priorities to expand markets, serve existing customers, etc. rather than being funded by revenue from superchargers - it's not a separate profit centre. If it was, the initial growth would never have happened because supercharging was free for everyone for the first few years.
SmartElectric
Active Member
Example use:
1. Arrive and charge, get notification that you may be charged for idling on the charger, but you want to condition your car, so you move it from supercharger to destination at 90% and run the heat.
2. Staying in nearby hotel, an all-night charge is fine.
And at the Q4 earning call Elon said I ok every capital expenditure that get to my office and they still manage to have a positive cash flow od more than 1B for the quarter. So the network should continue expanding. It look like a lot were put on hold probably to make them V3 instead but that wanted to see the V3 on the selected locations first.
Very informative presentation last night by Tesla on SuperChargers, at the Tesla owners club meeting.
A few general little tidbits, that I think are ok to pass on.
The destination charging program has now ended. They did just do a number of provincial parks, Jasper for example. Anybody that still wants to have destination Tesla charging, can simply buy a wall connector from Tesla.
The coast to coast TransCanada Hwy run is complete. SCs about 200 km apart. This is the longest continual stretch of SCs that Tesla has anywhere. It was a major effort by the expanded Canadian team to complete. A couple of people the club knows well, are testing it out today. Attempting a 3 day winter run from the west coast to the east coast.
Every new site will be V3 going forward, where conditions permit. It is a much better product, and takes a different approach than any other DCFC. They are made at the Buffalo GF. Retrofitting existing sites is not practical. Structure totally different.
A few general little tidbits, that I think are ok to pass on.
The destination charging program has now ended. They did just do a number of provincial parks, Jasper for example. Anybody that still wants to have destination Tesla charging, can simply buy a wall connector from Tesla.
The coast to coast TransCanada Hwy run is complete. SCs about 200 km apart. This is the longest continual stretch of SCs that Tesla has anywhere. It was a major effort by the expanded Canadian team to complete. A couple of people the club knows well, are testing it out today. Attempting a 3 day winter run from the west coast to the east coast.
Every new site will be V3 going forward, where conditions permit. It is a much better product, and takes a different approach than any other DCFC. They are made at the Buffalo GF. Retrofitting existing sites is not practical. Structure totally different.
Continued:
A lot of general discussion on locations. They are still working hard to double the network. London and Niagara’s Falls being completed. Utility scheduled to be at London this week. South eastern Ontario is very high on their priority list this year. They seem to have a very good understanding of what is needed where, and did solicit input from the group on possible areas they should consider. They are working to have the Tesla map future sites be focused on a more practical time frame. It takes 1-2 years from start to finish of a new site.
They understand the pain in Kingston area, and have it as high priority.
The in car Tesla map has not been updated yet to reflect recent completions.
TBC:
A lot of general discussion on locations. They are still working hard to double the network. London and Niagara’s Falls being completed. Utility scheduled to be at London this week. South eastern Ontario is very high on their priority list this year. They seem to have a very good understanding of what is needed where, and did solicit input from the group on possible areas they should consider. They are working to have the Tesla map future sites be focused on a more practical time frame. It takes 1-2 years from start to finish of a new site.
They understand the pain in Kingston area, and have it as high priority.
The in car Tesla map has not been updated yet to reflect recent completions.
TBC:
Continued:
V3 SuperChargers
I would like to note, I am not an electrical engineer, this is a laymen’s understanding of what was presented.
It was impressive to get some insight to these, and see how far Tesla is ahead of the competition. They should significantly improve the user experience. The biggest benefit is to those with newer vehicles. Though others will still benefit from the elimination of A/B sharing with 2 users on one stall. All should appreciate the lighter charging cables that are liquid cooled (or heated in the winter).
One cabinet does 4 stalls, so they go in multiples of 4, with 8 being popular. Limiting factor can be the size of the transformer they can get from the utility in that location at a reasonable cost. Ideally they would like 1-2 MW, but sometimes can only get 500KW.
V3 load balances on the DC side, rather than the AC feed, which makes it more efficient, and allows all stalls to share. All cabinets work together and support each other with capacity. As vehicles arrive at different times, with different SOC, and battery temps, they will be a different points on the charging rate curve. The only time you would theoretically see throttling, is if all vehicles connected at once, with temperature conditioned batteries, at a low SOC. In practice this does not happen often, particularly if they have been able to get an ideal sized transformer.
Tesla continues to offer this network as a Tesla benefit, not a profit center.
Demand charges hit them hard on lightly used locations that see occasional bumps.
V3 SuperChargers
I would like to note, I am not an electrical engineer, this is a laymen’s understanding of what was presented.
It was impressive to get some insight to these, and see how far Tesla is ahead of the competition. They should significantly improve the user experience. The biggest benefit is to those with newer vehicles. Though others will still benefit from the elimination of A/B sharing with 2 users on one stall. All should appreciate the lighter charging cables that are liquid cooled (or heated in the winter).
One cabinet does 4 stalls, so they go in multiples of 4, with 8 being popular. Limiting factor can be the size of the transformer they can get from the utility in that location at a reasonable cost. Ideally they would like 1-2 MW, but sometimes can only get 500KW.
V3 load balances on the DC side, rather than the AC feed, which makes it more efficient, and allows all stalls to share. All cabinets work together and support each other with capacity. As vehicles arrive at different times, with different SOC, and battery temps, they will be a different points on the charging rate curve. The only time you would theoretically see throttling, is if all vehicles connected at once, with temperature conditioned batteries, at a low SOC. In practice this does not happen often, particularly if they have been able to get an ideal sized transformer.
Tesla continues to offer this network as a Tesla benefit, not a profit center.
Demand charges hit them hard on lightly used locations that see occasional bumps.
Also had an Interesting discussion on taking over gas stations. Companies that run them are starting to plan for the future. they can make great potential locations for superchargers. In the US Tesla has been working with gas station chains to add tesla superchargers, as this brings more traffic to their on site convenience stores. Tesla owners can stay longer, and spend more. In some cases the company has actually put in all superchargers and no gas pumps at all. The big concern about taking over a gas station is environmental liability, because of the hazardous product stored underground previously on site.
DMC-Orangeville
Audi eTron & John Deere 5100E
I felt that this was a very open and candid presentation.
He did talk about priorities for SuC placement, and it appears that Ontario and BC will get some love this year. As @Kmartyn stated, Eastern (Hello Ottawa Valley) and Western Ontario (Hello Kincardine) are on the top of the list.
He also talked about the huge issues for placement of these chargers. He had a great explanation as to the issues in rural areas: the lack of available power to sites. He even explained why Batchawana Bay, Ontario went from permit, to being scrubbed. (There is no 3 phase power to the site) Of note, supercharge.info still lists it as "permitted", even though Tesla removed it from their future sites. Hint: It's not going to happen. He did , however, offer up that Tesla will put in some 80 amp destination chargers at that spot.
Last, he thought that it might be a good idea to have a direct email, to allow owners, in Canada, to send supercharger "issues" directly to the Canadian team....not have to sit on hold for an eternity on the 1-800 supercharger hotline. We may be able to help them with this via the Tesla Owners Club - perhaps putting it on the garbage cans we hope to place at most sites(?).
Just like that, did anyone in the crowd hear someone scream “Orangeville!!” when the rep mentioned Western Ontario?
DMC-Orangeville
Audi eTron & John Deere 5100E
....I may or may not have jumped up and down, saying "oh, oh, oh, Orangeville", but I'm pleading the 5th on that........
Around 17 new sites opened in Ontario last year. If Ontario is feeling unloved, imagine how Quebec feels---only four new locations in the last 26 months. None in 2019.
Don't forget that the information was shared in a talk being given to Ontario owners. Without knowing the exact quote and the context it was said in, I wouldn't read too much into it. A bit of playing to the crowd should be expected.
Agreed. When talking about a big need to catch up in BC, he commented that our group probably did not care a lot about that. He did say they were trying to make the Tesla.com map a more accurate representation of what was coming this year, but noted that the grey location pins were placed by Google in a general area, and not specific to an exact location.
Maybe you could get a local Quebec TESLA club to invite them in. They seemed really interested in input on locations.
They have a short term target, to double the number of Canadian locations, but the process takes 1-2 years of things mostly beyond their control, once the have a target site.
That is a valid point. However, by the same token, it's odd that they mentioned BC, which is of little interest to Ontario drivers, but omitted neighboring Quebec where you see a lot of Ontario plates at the congested Superchargers.
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