Supercharger queuing system

[bradtem]

Kind of reminds me of a jukebox system I used last fall. You could spend 3 credits for a song, but if you spent 6 credits, you would move up in priority. I didn't necessarily care if my song played next, so I opted for the 3. Well, it turns out that anyone that spent 6 credits would immediately cut in line, and basically everyone was just using 6 credits. I probably put my request in at 9pm or so, hung out until midnight and then finally left. At about 1am some friends that were still there let me know that my song finally played!

Yeah, you would have to have dynamic pricing so that some people are finding the price too expensive and others not. That gets magnified if the people who get bumped get paid from the extra paid by those who jump the line. Free charge at least but too many Tesla owners have free supercharge -- I still do from the days of referrals though they expire soon.

When you have a scarce resource and too many competing for it -- well there are whole university economics courses about the different ways to deal with that. But nobody gains from waiting in a physical line, though at least Teslas don't idle their engines. (I guess strictly letting people detour while in virtual line uses up a little more energy and slows down the charging a bit, but I doubt it's a lot.)

The Thanksgiving situation was very unusual. While there will be crushes in future, ideally there will be systems to predict them and deflect them. Other than surprise outages you should be able to see them happening in advance by looking at all the route plans of the cars that have bothered to nav that far, and then accounting for the ones who didn't nave and the day of the year (Thanksgiving is your worst day.) Then you can start getting people to top up sooner so they can bypass the overloaded charger, or even stop at level 2s for an hour to be able to bypass it if 30 miles would make the difference. Then also only let people charge enough to make a less loaded charger, but you have to model and plan all of that. As the network grows you will get better ability to handle overloads and cut back on the lines -- then make them virtual.

The one annoying thing about supercharging is a lot of people want to do it between 3pm and 9pm, which is the grid peak, where electricity can cost a ton, at least on hot summer days. Not much you can do to change that pattern, though again you can push people to top up earlier than normal if it moves their later charge to a better time.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Yeah, you would have to have dynamic pricing so that some people are finding the price too expensive and others not. That gets magnified if the people who get bumped get paid from the extra paid by those who jump the line. Free charge at least but too many Tesla owners have free supercharge -- I still do from the days of referrals though they expire soon.

When you have a scarce resource and too many competing for it -- well there are whole university economics courses about the different ways to deal with that. But nobody gains from waiting in a physical line, though at least Teslas don't idle their engines. (I guess strictly letting people detour while in virtual line uses up a little more energy and slows down the charging a bit, but I doubt it's a lot.)

The Thanksgiving situation was very unusual. While there will be crushes in future, ideally there will be systems to predict them and deflect them. Other than surprise outages you should be able to see them happening in advance by looking at all the route plans of the cars that have bothered to nav that far, and then accounting for the ones who didn't nave and the day of the year (Thanksgiving is your worst day.) Then you can start getting people to top up sooner so they can bypass the overloaded charger, or even stop at level 2s for an hour to be able to bypass it if 30 miles would make the difference. Then also only let people charge enough to make a less loaded charger, but you have to model and plan all of that. As the network grows you will get better ability to handle overloads and cut back on the lines -- then make them virtual.

The one annoying thing about supercharging is a lot of people want to do it between 3pm and 9pm, which is the grid peak, where electricity can cost a ton, at least on hot summer days. Not much you can do to change that pattern, though again you can push people to top up earlier than normal if it moves their later charge to a better time.

There’s no such thing as too much free unlimited supercharging.

 

[RTPEV]

There’s no such thing as too much free unlimited supercharging.

Correct...because it's not sustainable to add free unlimited supercharging everywhere, so it will never exist long term.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Correct...because it's not sustainable to add free unlimited supercharging everywhere, so it will never exist long term.

IDK. If it was offered as a paid option (again) I’d consider it for as much as $5,000.

Unlike FSD that would actually make a good stream of reliable income for Tesla and opens up money to expand the network. Most people wouldn’t come close to using that much supercharging.

 

[RTPEV]

IDK. If it was offered as a paid option (again) I’d consider it for as much as $5,000.

Unlike FSD that would actually make a good stream of reliable income for Tesla and opens up money to expand the network. Most people wouldn’t come close to using that much supercharging.

How is that free?

 

[Big Earl]

IDK. If it was offered as a paid option (again) I’d consider it for as much as $5,000.

Unlike FSD that would actually make a good stream of reliable income for Tesla and opens up money to expand the network. Most people wouldn’t come close to using that much supercharging.

$5,000 is less than 50,000 miles worth of charging at today’s prices. Tesla has more cash than they know what to do with, so this sort of pre-paid arrangement would be of no benefit to the company.

If they did offer it, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. I already have over 100,000 miles of Supercharging, so that would be one heck of a good deal.

 

[ElectricIAC]

$5,000 is less than 50,000 miles worth of charging at today’s prices. Tesla has more cash than they know what to do with, so this sort of pre-paid arrangement would be of no benefit to the company.

If they did offer it, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. I already have over 100,000 miles of Supercharging, so that would be one heck of a good deal.

How long does your average Tesla owner keep their vehicle? I think it’s totally fair to say that these cars are much more like computers in their replacement cycles for a great deal many of the customer base as it stands.

I can agree perhaps that if it transferred/was transferable from car to car (Tied to account) it might not make sense for Tesla to offer.

 

[RayK]

I had my previous car for almost 20 years (2000 BMW 323i). I'm hoping to keep my Model 3 at least that long .

edit: I hope that Tesla does not take up Apple's habit of releasing software updates which obsoletes previous hardware. I've got several iPod Touch and an iPad which are no longer supported. That I did not spend much money on them (bought used or won as a prize), doesn't detract from the fact that they're now pretty useless.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I hope that Tesla does not take up Apple's habit of releasing software updates which obsoletes previous hardware.

Too late. Perhaps not unsupported entirely but Tesla orphaned AP1 and has been known to software cripple BT85 cars and some BTX4/5 renvisions.

 

[RayK]

Am vaguely aware of AP1 obsolescence but not about those battery codes (had to look it up).

 

[bradtem]

$5,000 is less than 50,000 miles worth of charging at today’s prices. Tesla has more cash than they know what to do with, so this sort of pre-paid arrangement would be of no benefit to the company.

If they did offer it, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat. I already have over 100,000 miles of Supercharging, so that would be one heck of a good deal.

Well, the fact that you would jump at the chance means it might not be so great a thing for Tesla to offer. But for most people it would not be great and they would not take it. Though many people do take flat rate deals that are not a good deal for them, and many companies make money off that error in judgement. The people who overpay subsidize those who get a bargain.

But one problem is that flat rate deals increase usage among those who take them. That means fuller stations, people sitting at stations charging to 90% all the time, even though it's slow, people not putting charging in their home and using it because that costs money and they already paid for SC. It's also not good for the battery to SC all the time, at least for now.

And it also means more driving, which is socially not a good thing to promote, both because of congestion and because electricity, while much greener than gasoline, is still partly dirty. Even if there are solar panels on all the superchargers and you only charge on sunny days. In fact, having panels there (or on your house) does not change in any way the ratio between the miles you drive and the emissions output. (It makes the grid greener, but it's still the case that if you drive 4 miles, you cause the emission of 1 kwh's worth of emissions, but now at a rate that's slight better.)

I mean, imagine in Ford offered free unlimited gasoline with a car for $30,000. It would be a good deal for some. But from an environmental standpoint they would be pushed to stop it.