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Supercharger - Osoyoos, BC
- Thread starter BlueSteel
- Start date
From what I know, Castlegar is next, not Osoyoos
Is this because Castlegar was announced as a 2020 Canadian Tire location? Castelgar would be pretty isolated on the supercharger map unless they also build something connecting it to the rest of the network, like Osoyoos or Grand Forks. It's 336 km from Princeton...
I think applying gap logic to the ordering probably won't make sense. For example, they very recently upgraded the existing Kamloops station when the same crew could have maybe been working on a new one. Many factors. Especially if you consider COVID - Osoyoos is mostly useful for border traffic, which probably isn't opening for months. Non-border traffic is likely day trips within BC. From up North, Kelowna serves that role. Princeton being built serves the West side. East... nothing yet, but apparently Castlegar soon?
Castlegar would help connect to Fort McLeod, so to Alberta in general via Hwy 3. That's still an impossible stretch even in ideal conditions (about 485km), but it helps fill the gap in a route (not to mention just serving that area in general - easier access to Christina Lake from the East, Fernie from the West). Even though it's 336km from Princeton, that's workable with the longer range models in more ideal conditions at least. We're many years in, but still baby steps.
Castlegar is also closer to the Spokane Supercharger, a cross-border route that's very difficult in "real conditions" on the current Supercharger network. Going through Castlegar isn't the usual or even close to fastest way to do this, but it should make it possible even in winter without needing the CHAdeMO adapter. Those with CHAdeMO adapters would do better following Google Maps, in terms of time.
As long as Osoyoos is here around Spring 2021, I think that'd make most people happy. Most of the traffic needing Osoyoos is done for the year, especially due to no cross-border tourism traffic.
I've also been holding off on a CHAdeMO adapter. Tesla released a CCS adapter but it's Type 2 ... for some obscure reason most of the world uses CCS Type 2 but Canada & USA use CCS Type 1 ... the SAE really let us down by using two different connector types for their so-called CCS Combo 'standard'.
There's actually a fairly noble reason for the difference IMO. Basically you would need to change how entire countries do electrical in order to unify Type1/Type2 globally.
"CCS Combo" ports combine an AC standard charge port with two DC charging pins so that one port on the car can serve both purposes (the DC part is just not used for AC charging). The Type 1 (North America and some others) and Type 2 (EU and some others) represent the AC charging standards. A primary difference, to my knowledge, is that Type 1 only supports single-phase delivery while Type 2 supports 3-phase power.
Type 1 makes sense in North America. Households are essentially single phase. Businesses often provide 208 single-phase setups (in place of "240V") instead 3-phase as well, even though 3-phase is available. In other countries 3-phase can be more common, sometimes even in residential. The different standards usually follow this availability.
I guess you could argue that they let us down because Type 2 still allows single phase? But further, with Type 2, the cable is usually kept in the car (not permanently attached to the station - you plug your own Type 2 cable into both the station and your car). I'm not sure if this is a requirement, but if it is, it would greatly increase the cable cost for no benefit (2 conductors would never be used) in countries that generally deliver single-phase.
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Anyhow. I hate that CHAdeMO is basically necessary, but it will always beat the Supercharger network until whatever decade Tesla caves on the common standard. BC Hydro is really going nuts deploying those CHAdeMO/CCS stations, I don't have to nix plans just because there isn't a convenient Supercharger now.
I checked online:
CCS Type 1 supports DC + AC single-phase only
CCS Type 2 supports DC + AC single-phase and 3-phase
DC (fast) charging doesn't use AC
Tesla's CCS Type 2 adapter doesn't use the AC pins
Per capita, there are more Teslas in the West Kootenay; Osoyoos is the one needed SC to reach the lower mainland 2 hrs quicker than the dreadful slog through the central okanongan. Currently, I have to do this up to 3x per month Sept through May from the West K, so given that Osoyoos was promised as "coming soon in 2019" long before Castlegar, GF, Princeton, Fernie, I say get to work in Osoyoos!
It's not obscure.
CARB led to J1772, and adoption in North America and Japan. (Type 1)
Later in Europe, Mennekes proposed the Type2 connector.
Different connector, same protocol, although with the addition of 3-phase support.
It was officially adopted in Europe.
Then outside of the major markets in North America, Japan, Europe and of course China it was a matter of those markets deciding which way to go. Ultimately, most have ended up following European standards.
Given they'd already diverged on the AC plug, and with the DCFC coming several years later, it's not surprising that they retained the existing AC plug.
It wasn't promised. All of Tesla's "coming soon" statements explicitly include the caveat that timing and location may change. I would agree that it's totally stupid and scummy of Tesla to structure their map/communications in such a misleading way, but Tesla has never promised a supercharger to be installed anywhere at any time and thinking about them in this way is only going to lead to unnecessary angst. It's certainly Tesla's fault that so many people do take the "coming soon" date at face value, but those people should break themselves of the habit of not reading and accounting for the fine print. Especially when in this case the fine print isn't even fine print, it's just not-bolded-print.
Well your response deals with the subjective "promise". How about the "2019"?
I contend it is disingenuous of Tesla to make these statements, and it's unbecoming of a company implying and purporting a higher standard and values.
How about "working hard for 2019" or "real soon now"? Or the more appropriate "lighting a fire under the Boomer's in Osoyoos holding-up the promise of a better world"?
Oh, yes. I totally agree that in many cases it's completely disingenuous. But mostly it's not really intentionally so. The underlying issue is that Tesla's system and the way they've misleadingly chosen to communicate their plans presents the map information as though it is being regularly curated and maintained mostly "up-to-date". In reality, this is not at all the case. Tesla doesn't have anyone who is curating their map of proposed locations and changing the target dates based on actual "on the ground" conditions and development progress. So, when a newly planned supercharger site is first listed on their map, they ask, "Should this supercharger be completed and operational within the next year?" Almost invariably the answer is, Yes. So it gets added with a date target. If progress towards completion doesn't meet expectations or if the project is put on indefinite hold, no one goes back to update the listing. Then when the new year comes, any sites not completed and ready have their target year rolled over to the next one. If you look at the historical track record, Tesla seems to complete something between half and 2/3 of the number of superchargers proposed to be finished in a given year based on their map. But, of course, that number of completions includes a bunch of sites that never appeared as a "coming soon" location and which just popped into existence fully operational. So, on the strict basis of locations indicated on their map, they actually do worse than the 1/2 to 2/3.
As I said in my first comment, this system of communication is stupid and misleading. IMO, they'd be much better off to not include any dates at all if they aren't going to try and ensure that a site's listed target date reflects the reality of its development process.
I was just trying to clarify @MarcoRP 's reasoning for why Castlegar was expected first. Because Castlegar was already announced as a Canadian Tire location, I agree it's likely to be built soon. But if history is any guide, Tesla does not leave sites isolated for long...
I'm don't think this was a direct tradeoff. As I understand it, Kamloops was prewired for those additional 2 stalls, so minimal work was required. Additionally, it seems that the major bottleneck is site selection and permitting, rather than construction crew availability (the latter of which is done by contractors rather than Tesla itself).
Ok, to an Electrical Engineer it's not obscure, but IMO the crazy thing they (SAE) did is retaining compatibility with the AC plug which isn't even used on a DCFC except for ground and signal pins.
If they didn't do that cars would have to have two charge ports. (Like the Nissan Lead has J1772 and CHAdeMO.) They wanted to avoid having separate ports for AC and DC charging.
Regarding Supercharger site "promises". I could've sworn there are ones around here that have rolled over 3 years in a row, no? Like the "Sicamous" one that's probably going to be Salmon Arm.
They are indeed being ridiculous regarding communication on that subject, but I'm still just surprised at all that they eventually build anything here. Such a small market.
I'm not good at wording things so they don't sound overly blunt, but...
They don't need it to make sense to anyone that's not an EE (or just not familiar with the specific context of it all). For example, the signalling pins. They might seem trivial to some, but they're absolutely necessary for a huge list of reasons, safety included. The experts work this all out for us, and it doesn't need to make sense to us. Primarily, there isn't much point building a separate DC signalling port if the AC port will work just fine without having to add more parts ($$$) and more complexity ($$$). CHAdeMO went that way, and look how it's ending up - nearing obsolescence (though I'm sure there's other reasons for this). Any consumer-facing standard that's overly complex and expensive to implement will eventually fall out of favour of the manufacturers. CCS Combo simplifies things (admittedly, this is a huge hand-wave).
They are indeed being ridiculous regarding communication on that subject, but I'm still just surprised at all that they eventually build anything here. Such a small market.
I'm not good at wording things so they don't sound overly blunt, but...
They don't need it to make sense to anyone that's not an EE (or just not familiar with the specific context of it all). For example, the signalling pins. They might seem trivial to some, but they're absolutely necessary for a huge list of reasons, safety included. The experts work this all out for us, and it doesn't need to make sense to us. Primarily, there isn't much point building a separate DC signalling port if the AC port will work just fine without having to add more parts ($$$) and more complexity ($$$). CHAdeMO went that way, and look how it's ending up - nearing obsolescence (though I'm sure there's other reasons for this). Any consumer-facing standard that's overly complex and expensive to implement will eventually fall out of favour of the manufacturers. CCS Combo simplifies things (admittedly, this is a huge hand-wave).
There are many SCs that were announced 3+ years ago that still haven't been built. But the good news is that they generally eventually do get built or moved to nearby locations, and occasionally sites open that were never on the "comming soon" or "Target date 202x"
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