PACEMD
Active Member
Looking back I'm not sure where California got those extra 2 hours. Oh well, hindsight is 2020.........
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Supercharger - Bismarck, ND
- Thread starter lightfoot3b
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- north dakota supercharger
Looking back I'm not sure where California got those extra 2 hours. Oh well, hindsight is 2020.........
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
Guess I'll be using that a lot for the next 364 days
How is the snow in ND these days? I purchased my first Hybrid back in 2000 from a dealership in St. Paul, MN and it took them a month to get it out from under a snowbank. Sounded nasty, but the car was in perfect condition when they finally delivered it.
Unlike when I left it out in the snow the winter before last and it leaked in and got all moldy inside over the season...
Haven't really been driving ANY of my other cars since I got the Tesla
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Might not be nothing? Alexandria's post shows equipment being installed!!!
Relevance? You're talking Alexandria, Minnesota, almost 300 miles away where it appears work IS being done and other SCs exist in MN.
Bismarck appears to not have anything but snow moved since late Sept/early October.
No surprise--it IS North Dakota--a state that should have many more SC's than zero. Even Michigan has 20 Superchargers! I can and do travel the entire lower peninsula of Michigan without range anxiety but couldn't consider visiting North Dakota when I was in the 'area' this summer with my Model X. Kinda crazy that my husband is starting a consulting job with the state of ND and we can't even drive there easily. One of these years...
I emailed the KFYR reporter about her article about Tesla SC by end of 2019 and maybe she could do a follow-up as it appears no work has been done since before her article but nary a response.
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PACEMD
Active Member
The relevance is I-94. The longest stretch of interstate in the US not covered by superchargers is I-94 from Billings Montana to Clearwater Minnesota, passing through all of North Dakota. The underground wiring has been completed on most if not all of the sites on that stretch of road. Just waiting on installation of the charging stands. Alexandria is the first site coming this way to Montana.
PACEMD
Active Member
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
Odd to have the transformer and not the charging stands. Usually, it's the other way. There is no off switch on the transformer so once it goes in you have LOTS of electricity to deal with so it's left for last.
PACEMD
Active Member
Well, maybe I'm misunderstanding what the transformer looks like. Pictures?
XHabjab
TSLA Bull
There are more than a few locations where the transformer goes in early in the process. This seems to be a logistics thing rather than voltage safety or similar. Whether it takes longer or not seems to depend on the power company or vendor involved. At some sites on the Trans-Canada build, the transformer was the first thing onsite.
Many (most? all?) transformers have an internal disconnect or breaker, and will have a disconnect on the feed.
PACEMD
Active Member
This is what we have in Miles City. Cloudy day, bad picture, but it is green. Maybe the transformer goes on the platform to the left? If the transformer needs to be deeper, with transformery looking fins on the back and all. Unless this is the transformer. Could be fins on the back, out of view on this picture. Dammit, Jim, I ain't no electrician.......
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PACEMD
Active Member
Ours looks the same as this transformer. According to the article the transformer is not energized until the meter is set. Makes sense. We are also an 8 charger station so the transformer size should be similar. In future I will snoop around when on-site to learn how other superchargers are set up.
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PACEMD
Active Member
Looks like the basic supercharger setup is the transformer, switching stations, and the charging stands.
PACEMD
Active Member
Soooooo, I'm guessing whether the charging stands or the transformer are set first depends more on if the utility company or Tesla gets there first. Out here my money's on the utility company being quicker to the gun.......different perhaps in California.......
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
I have not watched most installs, but the few near me have all waited for a long time for the transformer to show up. Then w/i a week Tesla techs show up and check the voltages on all stands. This is the period when you can charge but not be charged for power. Then at some point, they get the voltages all correct and add the site to the Supercharger maps and you can charge at full speed.
Perhaps they have been burned by so many late transformer deliveries (this is where Emeryville is currently) that they have started scheduling them earlier in the process. Or perhaps you are seeing a DIFFERENT transformer, every installation needs one, but the one for the Supercharger will be w/i the vicinity of the switching cabinets. If you see a big square of concrete that has some covered pipes going up thru it, that's where the transformer for the site will be.
The installing of the meter is another thing that I have not seen before. Lots of Superchargers fence the equipment off so I don't see it at every charger, but the few I have explored didn't have a meter that I could find, but they must be somewhere. It would make sense that they could hook up the wires to the site w/o activating it until the meter is installed.
Perhaps they have been burned by so many late transformer deliveries (this is where Emeryville is currently) that they have started scheduling them earlier in the process. Or perhaps you are seeing a DIFFERENT transformer, every installation needs one, but the one for the Supercharger will be w/i the vicinity of the switching cabinets. If you see a big square of concrete that has some covered pipes going up thru it, that's where the transformer for the site will be.
The installing of the meter is another thing that I have not seen before. Lots of Superchargers fence the equipment off so I don't see it at every charger, but the few I have explored didn't have a meter that I could find, but they must be somewhere. It would make sense that they could hook up the wires to the site w/o activating it until the meter is installed.
PACEMD
Active Member
I have also never seen the meter but like you stated there is often a fenced part of the installation. Guess I'll have to strap a ladder on top of my Model 3 so I can scale the wall, or pick the lock, or...........
We've seen the meter at a few Supercharger locations. When we were "first to charge" at the Brush, CO supercharger, the meter was still all zeros except the last digit, which we attribute to the Tesla tech testing things once the meter was installed. Either that or someone charged for a few kWh right before we got there.
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