Evacuating Hurricane Irma in a Tesla

[Larry Chanin]

Hey, GabeS. I'm a Model 3 reservation holder living just north of you in Port St Lucie. This will be my first Tesla and I was wondering if any other local Tesla owners get together. Would be fun to hang out. (And by local I mean specifically along the Treasure Coast.) Thanks.

Welcome to the forums and congratulations on your reservation.

I am the president of Florida Tesla Enthusiasts. We are a statewide Tesla club. Please click on the link in my signature to learn about us. If you are interested in joining, click the Join Us link.

Larry

 

[Larry Chanin]

Will this still work a few years after Tesla has been churning out Model 3s much faster than it's been expanding the SC network? At some point in the future, I can envision long lines at the Superchargers during an evacuation.
The future evacuation problem I fear might be lessened by more commercial charging stations, but in my area, they price gouge so flagrantly that the electric "fuel" they sell is 2.5 times as expensive as gasoline. Replacing our system of gasoline distribution with that model is self-defeating. Moreover, it may never become widespread because so much recharging will be done at EV owners' homes, that there may well never be the need for any public charging system large enough to handle an emergency like a hurricane evacuation.
Something has to give in the next 10-20 years. I suspect it will, but getting there will probably be painful. I also suspect that things won't come into equilibrium until battery and charging technology has advanced enough to put 300 miles of range into a car in 10 minutes.
For now, though, it's good to hear stories like tropical1's!

True, if Tesla is successful in increasing production by more than an order of magnitude within a year or so, then we may have reason to be somewhat concerned about the possibility of sporadic Supercharger congestion, particularly during evacuations. However, so far Tesla is doing an excellent job of aggressively expanding both the Supercharger and Destination Charging networks.

As was pointed out by twonious, the electric grid is ubiquitous. In addition, the cost and effort to build charging stations, which can be left unattended, is considerably less than building gasoline stations which require expensive structures, environmental regulations and onsite supervision to dispense gasoline. Therefore, in the years to come the expansion of electric charging infrastructure will grow at a rate significantly greater than the initial roll-out of gasoline stations that occurred a little more than 100 years ago when Ford introduced an "affordable" car without the existence of a gasoline delivery infrastructure.

EV adoption is increasing at an exponential rate and we are rapidly approaching the tipping point whereby the driving public will be purchasing more new EVs than new gasoline vehicles. As that inevitable reality becomes obvious, business leaders with vision will emerge to capitalize on that huge market by investing in supporting infrastructure.

We can already see the advances in charging technology with Chargepoint's 400 kW fast charger, Audi's 800 volt fast charger and Elon's hints at a version 3.0 Supercharger. With the advent of long-range EVs, with larger batteries, very fast charging becomes more feasible. As EVs make their inroads, I can foresee a new game-changer whereby wireless dynamic electric vehicle charging is possible on special lanes of major highways. Picture the future when you can charge while traveling. A future where on-board batteries are sized not for 300 mile trips, but to get merely from home to those major highways. Such a change would not only greatly increase the efficiency of EVs, but it would drastically reduce the cost. This would lead to an ever accelerating rate of EV adoption.

Larry

 

[Ulmo]

SuperChargers have basically been a promise by Tesla that has continually been fulfilled, with relatively few bumps. They still have more to go (in a handful of aspects).

One thing I agree with and also noted is that not having good bathrooms nearby is troublesome. I learned to work around it, but it is something that I think Tesla is beginning to learn. We've seen some indications of newer SuperChargers playing with the idea of locating near more driver-oriented amenities. I have one theory, that the mall SuperChargers will be complemented by driver-oriented amenitied SuperChargers within similar route use cases (for instance, near to the mall SuperChargers), but I haven't studied it to see if Tesla is trying to do something like that. For now, they've probably got their budget full of still trying to select route-making locations, while having an eye to secondary and tertiary redundant SuperChargers beginning to look at a wider range of fulfillment aspects. I hope that one thing Tesla looks into while building out their SuperCharger locations is the possibility for amenities. This is a harder thing to tack on.

I must say that a lot of backup opportunities existed for amenities at SuperChargers I used when I had a Model S. For instance:

• Gustine: Love's (truck stop), 5 minute walk, decent. The walk was via a lot of dark areas through three other properties. I used Gustine SC a lot.
  
• Harris Ranch: Shell, 3 minute walk, OK.
• Gilroy: 76 station or Denny's, 5 minute walk, OK. I used Gilroy SC fairly frequently.
• Tejon Ranch: two 76 stations across the street from each other, 10 minute walk. Kind of scuzzy rest stop shopping area, but we got treated the same as ICE users as far as that goes; the shops around there at least tried to look halfway decent, so there's that.

Due to me using the above four SC's as well as Seaside (which has dedicated 24 hour amenities) quite a bit, I personally had a fairly decent experience with amenities on long distance drives. But it was sometimes problematic, as follows:

There were places that were difficult:

• Fremont: no nighttime bathroom.
• Manteca: no nighttime bathroom.
• Mountain View: no nighttime bathroom.
• Dublin: no nighttime bathroom; in the day, had a nice lounge in store. Can walk 10 (!) minutes to 24 hour Safeway; not a good choice if you're in a hurry to get to the amenity (I recommend going directly there first for the amenity, then going to the SuperCharger after, something that worked in my experience one time).
• Fresno: no nighttime bathroom, but stores there are open into the evening. Nearby 24 hour gas stations (ARCO, Shell) just closed for demolition due to new Gov. Brown "Bullet Train"; no replacements. Very difficult to handle, since nearest amenities are miles away and in very bad neighborhoods, but if you drive 20 minutes due East on Herndon, you can get to a better part of town.
• Groveland: had to walk to town to find something; I think 5-10 minute walk.

Very few places had dedicated amenities that I frequented:

• Seaside: 24 hour Tesla lounge. Well received by everyone who had occasion to make use of the amenity.

I forget all the other SuperChargers, due to lack of use and fading memory.

 

[GabeS]

as long as you can find SpCs or other chargers with power there is little reason not to drive your tesla to evacuate the storm. in fact when the gassers are lined up for fuel you'll be humming along.

Thanks, good point.