I was told by many (not a few) Model X owners X was a pig no matter during summer or winter. It consumes lots of energy, for a decent road trip, not even a 100kwh pack can satisfy the needs. One of the owners I know has a X75D. After going to Mount St. Louise on an one-day ski trip, he literally gave up driving there in the X, since he had to stop at Barrie supercharger for an additional 40 minutes just to charge it up. He regretted opting for 75KWH as it totally became a city car.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Having done a 1200 km trip in my X 100D I disagree with anyone saying the X is a pig on power.
Having done the return trip in a Model S 85D, I can say that there isn’t a helluva lot of difference in their energy consumption rates. My X got a low point of 179 wh/km and the Model S briefly touched 160 wh/km. Terrain was similar, weather was nearly the same, and if anything, the X had more winds to deal with than the S did.
I was really focused on the largest metros, but I realized this morning that I'd missed some off there, particularly Moncton, NB. I had added added Thunder Bay only for the reference to the value of the Winnipeg,MB-Sudbury,ON connection and St Johns for the value of extending to Newfoundland.
Good analysis, though you are only looking in the one direction. What about large population centres that already have a significant "installed base" of customers who may want to *go* somewhere not currently served? This would be the reason why Superchargers were built in Barrie and Huntsville and Parry Sound, for people *leaving* Toronto (to cottage country). In this case: Edmonton has roughly the same population as Calgary, and I'm sure they resent having to go through Calgary to go anywhere.The Yellowhead highway west of Edmonton goes through some pretty stunning scenery, e.g. Jasper. It's very difficult to objectively prioritize routes unless you first decide what's important.
Well, we know that Tesla has its plans listed, but was just figuring some possible priorities.
I just happen to find making connections between areas of larger populations more exciting than the leaf nodes. (Yes, _exciting_). I feel that when larger connections are made, it means more people can reach more places with more people, which means more trips enabled. Then when metros are connected to their more specialist leaf nodes (like vacation home areas and national parks), those leaf nodes are also connected to more people.
And, most importantly of all, the major connections look better on a map.
Internally, I think that Tesla works on figuring out a chain of Superchargers, but things can end up moving at different speeds, and sites fall through. So you end up with problems like in Fort Stockton, TX which is a glaring hole in I-10.
Until you wrap all the way around the world (or at least from coast to coast to coast) there will always be a frontier somewhere. The same problem exists in western Europe, eastern (and northern, and southern) China, etc. I doubt a Tesla will ever be the way to get to Inuvik.
If you're Tesla, you just have to look at traffic volumes. Where they get low, you have to de-prioritize.
I did say Mountain Time Zone. Also, it's more subtle, but I think you'd be surprised by the elevation gains traveling east to west in the high plains. Just because it's flat doesn't mean it isn't slanted.
Yes. And just hilly up and downs is way less of a range hog than actually gaining thousands of feet of elevation.
Also, 80mph speed limits are a much bigger problem in terms of range than 80kph speed limits.
Good analysis, though you are only looking in the one direction. What about large population centres that already have a significant "installed base" of customers who may want to *go* somewhere not currently served? This would be the reason why Superchargers were built in Barrie and Huntsville and Parry Sound, for people *leaving* Toronto (to cottage country). In this case: Edmonton has roughly the same population as Calgary, and I'm sure they resent having to go through Calgary to go anywhere.
In any event, Tesla has already posted what they plan, and that's the Trans-Canada highway all the way from the existing "trailhead", so to speak, at Calgary, to Halifax (Enfield), via highway 17 (Sudbury to Ottawa). All "target opening in 2018". It's fairly certain that any other routes will happen later. As for what gets filled in first: if the future is anything like the past, local issues unique to each site will mean that things pretty much get filled in semi-randomly. I once crossed through the U.S. early in the buildout of the Supercharger network, and had the closest call going from Las Vegas to Beaver, UT (about 400 km and uphill) - St George, UT was installed months later. Likewise, I was just one week early getting between Billings, MT and Rapid City, SD, having to stop at a hotel with a charger to charge overnight. (Which was actually not at all inconvenient). I expect we'll see a lot of those sorts of temporary gaps as the Canadian Trans-Canada segment is built out.
The Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) is still part of the Trans-Canada Highway so it would be beneficial if Tesla added between Jasper and Saskatoon to their current plan.
Last edited:
I have learned exactly about that at my expense while travelling up the Yellowhead to Saskatoon in a fully loaded oversided box GMC 3500 truck back in the day. I was wondering why I was mostly driving pedal to the floor (and draining the tank at an alarming rate) until I saw altitude on the GPS was around 1000m higher driving into Saskatchewan than when departing from Winnipeg.
It looked desperately flat, but that was a tilted flat for sure!
Also, in the prairies (and I assume Montana may be the same) you will be driving up and into the wind
Yup, same issue from Texas all the way up to Alberta. I think Tesla was initially caught off guard by this, but they've recently started in-filling more superchargers in the High Plains despite the lack of population in the area.
Whisky
Member
It’s a 300km round trip from Toronto with some elevation change. In the winter time it be a tight squeeze to do in a MC75D without a charge. I’ve done a similar drive in the summer without charging. 40 minutes for charging seems high. The key would be to charge it on the way up when the battery is warmest. If he was charging on the way down, that supercharger is nearby and the battery would be cold. Charging speeds are slow in this instance. With a warm battery a <20 minute stop should do it.
In the summer time I’ve gotten great range on the X75D.
I drove around the East SmartCentre property in Regina yesterday. No sign of any progress.
I think people would expect that to be a non-stop round trip as I did with my S90D and while i can live with S90D for its range, I still hope it can sustain a longer time of non-stop highway speed.
1.21 Jiggawatts
Member
I was pretty pumped to see a permit for a Regina supercharger. Hopefully we will see permits for swift current and medicine hat soon as well.
All we currently have in Sask is the suncountry level 2 network of various amperage.
Would be great to see a Davidson supercharger as well, but it's not on the master plan
All we currently have in Sask is the suncountry level 2 network of various amperage.
Would be great to see a Davidson supercharger as well, but it's not on the master plan
I’d like to know if there actually is a permit for Regina or if it’s wishful thinking.
XHabjab
TSLA Bull
In the grand scheme of things, everything is wishful thinking until the ribbon is cut and the juice is flowing.
Read up on the Fort Stockton debacle, at Supercharger - Fort Stockton, Texas
There is another one that I can't find now where the construction crew was onsite with all Tesla equipment in crates. Parking lot paved to standard, trenching happened, then inexplicably, crates removed, trench filled in, parking lot stalls repaved the original way.
Fingers crossed for Regina, ever wishful are my thoughts.
Read up on the Fort Stockton debacle, at Supercharger - Fort Stockton, Texas
There is another one that I can't find now where the construction crew was onsite with all Tesla equipment in crates. Parking lot paved to standard, trenching happened, then inexplicably, crates removed, trench filled in, parking lot stalls repaved the original way.
Fingers crossed for Regina, ever wishful are my thoughts.
Last edited:
The blue dots for Regina and the other new Canadian sites are likely just from the information we already know: a Smart Centre spokesperson said they were planning on putting superchargers in at several specific sites. The City of Regina does not make it easy to find building permits, but the "Permit" blue dot more generally means that a site has been selected and is moving forward but is not under construction yet.
That would be Issaquah, WA.
That would be Issaquah, WA.
