Model 3 Supercharging Capable Discussion

[ModelNforNerd]

again, not really, you continue to miss the point.
i understand that you use your car for long-travel all the time, but you need to understand that it's not the common scenario.
said that, i also said that it will probably be unwise to use the ice car since the comparison was made on a prius ( wich is not exactly an ice car ) but you really this it is, you can go and use your ice car, if you really think it will be cheaper
but again ( and this is the 3° times ) you don't need to be cheaper EVERY DAMN TIME, you need to be cheaper on average!

with the time even the supercharger would be a lot cheaper since we hope that the eletrcity bill will be lower due to more renowable energy like off-shore turbine, battery to fix the problem of high peak moments, solar panel everywhere etc, but even in the case that FOR NOW it would cost the same as a prius DURING THE LONG TRAVEL it will be ok.

Due to the language barrier, I'm going to respectfully bow out of the conversation at this point, as I don't want to insult anyone, or expend any more energy than I have to trying to get my point across.

In the end, what works for me, in the US, will be different than what will work for you in Italy.

Good luck.

 

[MiamiNole]

i understand that you use your car for long-travel all the time, but you need to understand that it's not the common scenario.

Since when is taking frequent road trips not a common scenario? Sure there are many people that don't take frequent road trips. But I can assure you that there are plenty of people that do. My wife and I are from different cities, met in college, and live in a different city than we are both from. Just accounting for trips home for major holidays would necessitate what would be considered "frequent use" of superchargers. This is common all across America.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I actually agree with @cronosx here. It doesn't have to be cheaper than gas for long distance travel if the driving factor is the fueling cost. Since most people charge at home for the vast majority of their miles, a Supercharger fee nearly equivalent to gas would barely dent your lifetime average. For road warriors, it would make a bigger difference, but they would be incentivized to purchase the unlimited plan.

The trouble with making it too cheap is that Tesla needs to make enough to fund new locations and maintain existing locations. If the margins truly are slim enough that they have to decouple the entire network from the price of the 3, that implies that there's not revenue to direct at the network. I would think they'd want to make sure the unlimited package looks attractive enough relative to the credits. The best way to do that is to make the credits not so cheap that everyone chooses them.

I thought Tesla was making money for the SC's through the sales ( SC option) of the MS or MX. Is there a thought that funding SC's will start to come from energy sales?

 

[stopcrazypp]

Since when is taking frequent road trips not a common scenario? Sure there are many people that don't take frequent road trips. But I can assure you that there are plenty of people that do. My wife and I are from different cities, met in college, and live in a different city than we are both from. Just accounting for trips home for major holidays would necessitate what would be considered "frequent use" of superchargers. This is common all across America.

On average however, longer trips are not very common even in the USA. Only about 15% of miles traveled are on trips longer than 100 miles.

Tesla was banking on this factor on making the "free for life" supercharging viable. However, what they didn't expect perhaps was people using it for daily driving. I think that is where the pay per use comes in.

 

[Garlan Garner]

My trips, when I take them are in the 400-600 (one way) mile range, plus any driving around in the destination area, so it's possible I'd be putting 800-1200 miles on in roughly a week's time.

As the range of the cars increase - so does SC's issues.

In the last 4 years - battery capacity has almost increased 4 fold and the price of the batteries have almost been reduced by 7. This leads me to believe that if battery technology continues down this road that you will be able to get your 1200 miles per charge. As of right now....there is a university somewhere that is stating that they can double the energy density and capacity of the 21700 through a change in the chemical makeup of the cell. They also indicated that this chemical makeup is immune to degrading capacity due to cold weather.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

On average however, longer trips are not very common even in the USA. Only about 15% of miles traveled are on trips longer than 100 miles.

Tesla was banking on this factor on making the "free for life" supercharging viable. However, what they didn't expect perhaps was people using it for daily driving. I think that is where the pay per use comes in.

so they should just set it up to charge you $ if you're using a SC within 100 miles of home, provided you haven't used a SC further away in previous 12-24 hours. (to allow you to use the SC to provide enough SoC to get home from a long trip)

 

[MiamiNole]

On average however, longer trips are not very common even in the USA. Only about 15% of miles traveled are on trips longer than 100 miles.

15% of "miles traveled" is a misleading stat if you stated it correctly. We aren't talking about supercharger use for long distance travel as a percentage of total miles driven. We are talking about frequency of long distance trips for which super chargers are used. I would say the vast majority of my friends do not live in their hometowns and make frequent trips to their hometowns. And I'd say the vast majority of those trips are over 100 miles.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Yes, there are a lot of people who have reserved Model 3's, who cannot likely afford to go too far beyond the $35,000 base price, who live in the city, and do not have a home charging solution. Many have figured they would just use the Supercharging network for free. There may be a lot of that group who now opt for another vehicle instead.

Why do we keep saying the word "free"? Isn't there an upfront $2500 to $3000 charge for SC'ing?

I believe I understand your premise....it just irks me because nothing about this is really free.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Why do we keep saying the word "free"? Isn't there an upfront $2500 to $3000 charge for SC'ing?

I believe I understand your premise....it just irks me because nothing about this is really free.

because "nothing out of pocket at each subsequent transaction" doesn't roll off the typing fingers as smoothly.

 

[jkk_]

so they should just set it up to charge you $ if you're using a SC within 100 miles of home, provided you haven't used a SC further away in previous 12-24 hours. (to allow you to use the SC to provide enough SoC to get home from a long trip)

While I might not agree with the idea of considering SCs within 100 miles radius as "home SCs", you hit nail in the head with the thing that a lot of people seem to be forgetting. You need to be able to (IMHO: at same price as others if PPU is used) charge enough to get to your next destination, be it last stop or next charger.

Edit: wording

 

[Garlan Garner]

So then why make EV adoption an uphill battle for people with certain needs and challenges?

Anyway, right now, it's all at best speculation, and at worst, a moot point.

The website code has been rolled back.

I don't believe EV adoption is an uphill battle for people with certain needs and challenges. Just like I don't believe that not Paganini isn't making their cars a challenge for those who can't obtain 120 octane gas.

I look at it like this - for every car manufacturer. We will make a car - with certain options. If neither fits your situation then find an alternative solution. That's fair.

 

[stopcrazypp]

so they should just set it up to charge you $ if you're using a SC within 100 miles of home, provided you haven't used a SC further away in previous 12-24 hours. (to allow you to use the SC to provide enough SoC to get home from a long trip)

There was a lot of similar schemes suggested, but I guess Tesla decided that there's too much complication with that. The problem of determining which place was your true "home" was raised as an issue (the false positives with the warning letters gave a similar issue). Just making it all paid is easier.

Personally I was in favor of only the congested local stations being made paid. This system doesn't exclude this strategy, so hopefully Tesla still considers this.

 

[ohmman]

15% of "miles traveled" is a misleading stat if you stated it correctly. We aren't talking about supercharger use for long distance travel as a percentage of total miles driven. We are talking about frequency of long distance trips for which super chargers are used. I would say the vast majority of my friends do not live in their hometowns and make frequent trips to their hometowns. And I'd say the vast majority of those trips are over 100 miles.

I agree that the "trips over 100 miles" isn't exactly the right stat, but I think it's close. The thing it misses is charging at the destination, assuming there's no charging available there. Otherwise, how is it off? Even trips over 100 miles might be doable round-trip without Supercharging. I do those now without visiting a single Supercharger. I sometimes do 200 mile road trips without visiting a Supercharger - I either stay somewhere with destination charging, or I rent a house that has a dryer outlet and use that.

I don't think your anecdotal evidence necessarily outweighs the statistical evidence.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Since when is taking frequent road trips not a common scenario? Sure there are many people that don't take frequent road trips. But I can assure you that there are plenty of people that do. My wife and I are from different cities, met in college, and live in a different city than we are both from. Just accounting for trips home for major holidays would necessitate what would be considered "frequent use" of superchargers. This is common all across America.

Highway driving is down significantly in the past 5 years. That's according to an article in Road and Track 6 months ago.

I don't know if that's because of the airfare wars or the loss of jobs across America.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Highway driving is down significantly in the past 5 years. That's according to an article in Road and Track 6 months ago.

I don't know if that's because of the airfare wars or the loss of jobs across America.

Funny, when the news was previewing the upcoming holiday weekend here last night, they said AAA was predicting "pre-2008 recession levels" of traffic on the roads....and then they tempered that with a big "maybe" because of the tropical storms on the east coast.

 

[stopcrazypp]

15% of "miles traveled" is a misleading stat if you stated it correctly. We aren't talking about supercharger use for long distance travel as a percentage of total miles driven. We are talking about frequency of long distance trips for which super chargers are used. I would say the vast majority of my friends do not live in their hometowns and make frequent trips to their hometowns. And I'd say the vast majority of those trips are over 100 miles.

Actually, miles travelled is a stat that skews in favor of the long distance side (longer trips are given more weight). If you count trips by frequency, long trips are even less common.

I decided to dig up the source again (I was going by memory). In terms of miles, according to the 2009 US National Household Travel Survey, 357,366.43 million out of 2,245,111.45 million miles (15.9%) are on trips over 100 miles.

In terms frequency, 1,658.09 million out of 233,849.36 million trips (0.7%) are on trips over 100 miles.
NHTS Data Extraction Tool

I use the miles figure because that is what is relevant for Tesla in terms of determining how many lifetime supercharger miles they can expect per car. The break point Tesla uses is probably higher than 100 miles, but just using that 16% figure, if they assume an average life of 150k miles, they can expect 150k * 16% = 24k lifetime supercharger miles on average. However, once people started using superchargers for trips other than long distance, that throws that assumption out the window.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Funny, when the news was previewing the upcoming holiday weekend here last night, they said AAA was predicting "pre-2008 recession levels" of traffic on the roads....and then they tempered that with a big "maybe" because of the tropical storms on the east coast.

AAA always predicts a billion cars on the road - even when there are only 10 cars out there. They are like weathermen.... they never have to be correct.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

AAA always predicts a billion cars on the road - even when there are only 10 cars out there. They are like weathermen.... they never have to be correct.

I will use the "Mass Pike test". Friday around 11am, I'll check traffic at the tollbooths on the Mass Pike....that's usually a good indicator. If it's slammed at 11am on a Friday, people are bugging out early for the weekend (or took Friday off to make it a 4 day weekend).


Edit: It's not Thursday yet?

 

[Neohippy]

Funny, when the news was previewing the upcoming holiday weekend here last night, they said AAA was predicting "pre-2008 recession levels" of traffic on the roads....and then they tempered that with a big "maybe" because of the tropical storms on the east coast.

I'm in Florida and it's typical rain here. The media want pizza to think you are going to float away. Lol

 

[cronosx]

While I might not agree with the idea of considering SCs within 100 miles radius as "home SCs", you hit nail in the head with the thing that a lot of people seem to be forgetting. You need to be able to (IMHO: at same price as others if PPU is used) charge enough to get to your next destination, be it last stop or next charger.

a 100 miles trips doesn't need supercharging, a 150 miles trip ( i suppose you talk about 150 on the go, and 150 on the return ) may need 50-80miles of supercharging, and if it cost the samr as a prius it's like doing a 50-80miles on a prius.. but you get 250 miles on eletric bill from you home, so a lot cheaper
for long trip i mean a trip where you need at least 2 supercharging stop from 20 to 80% ( so, a significative amount of the trip is done by eletricity from supercharger ), and in this case, if it is frequent, then you would pay for the unlimited usage and you are good to go

it's base math, you see a "little part" of the trip done with the economy of an ice ( and a prius at that! ) and you forget the big part of the trip done by nigh-billed eletricity

i would understand that by someone who never talked about an electric car, and if your point is "an ignorant people could think that.." it's ok for me, but you are talking for yourself, and you are all but not an ignorant, so what's the point?