Superchargers in Australia

[Chuq]

Some general observations on the new supercharger openings...

Tesla usually prefers to open complete routes at once - I'm aware of one part in the US where they have all the permits lined up but are holding off building any of them until they can get the one site that joins it to the rest of the network done! However, at least in Australia, that has been the exception this year.

• Sydney-Nowra-Narooma - only Sydney-Narooma open (349 km)
• Heatherbrae-Singleton-Tamworth - only Heatherbrae-Tamworth open (278 km)
• Melbourne-GOR-Warrnambool - only Melbourne-Warrnambool open (257 km)

The 2nd and 3rd ones in particular look like they will be easily achievable in a single leg (noting that the 3rd one will obviously be longer if going via the GOR).

On the other hand - they've gone for increased density in other areas (and yes I realise these are not all designed as highway road trip chargers - but they can be used that way)

• Canberra to Cooma (117 km), Goulburn (91 km), Gundagai (159 km)
• Gaps between SEQ locations (102 km, 88 km, 99 km) - and Gympie still on the "planned" map (81 km)

Perhaps Tesla are varying the "preferred gap" between locations in order to increase geographic coverage faster, and handle increased demand in the high density areas?

Or perhaps I'm just bored and like playing with Google Maps, and I'm reading too much in to it

 

[Shock-On-T]

We have the Model 3 cars arriving in Australia in 2019.
Tesla is going to sell tens of thousands of Model 3 cars here. I know a dozen people who are planning to buy one, most don't even have a reservation, so the number of buyer will far exceed the number or reservation holders.

Tesla has sold around 4,000 cars here since 2014, and they will easily sell 20,000 Model 3s in 2019, increasing the fleet five-fold. There are rumours that there are 40,000 reservation holders in Australia (seems high).

The market for a $60-90K car is waaaaaaaay larger than for a $140K+ car.

To have a smooth M3 launch, Tesla needs to be deploying dozens of superchargers right now.

Sydney and Melbourne will need at least 8 superchargers sites each.
The other capitals at least 3.
All main tourist/transit routes will need coverage (eg. GOR, Princes Hwy, up to Cairns, Mildura etc)

I know it sounds like a lot, but it really is the bare minimum.
These are similar sized cities to our capitals, and including planned construction sites:
- Montreal has 8
- Vancouver has 8
- San Diego has 12
- Orlando has 8

I would guess the proportion of M3 owners without home charging will be greater than MS/MX owners. More likely apartment living, renting, 23y.o. WRX upgrader, entire wardrobe lives on floor of back seat, basically me 20 years ago.

The superchargers are going to CRAZY BUSY, and I'm not feeling a sense of urgency from Tesla to build more, especially urban.

 

[Chuq]

Tesla has sold around 4,000 cars here since 2014, and they will easily sell 20,000 Model 3s in 2019, increasing the fleet five-fold. There are rumours that there are 40,000 reservation holders in Australia (seems high).

The rumour I heard was 7000 reservations in Australia, but that's an old number. Not an unreasonable number though. And I'm sure they could sell double that in the first year, for the reasons you said.

I agree that Sydney and Melbourne will need more. I can only assume that in looking for the next site in each city they talk to lots of locations and if more than one says yes, they do all the planning for a future location. I know they said they will install the Alexandria superchargers when there is demand for it.

In both cities they would do well to have chargers at the intersections of highways (e.g. in Sydney, the M7/M5 and M7/M4) to allow for both suburban and inter-city travellers.

The other thing they could do (to support people without home charging) is to encourage infrastructure in city car parks that allows people to slow charge during the day at work. (e.g. 50 destination chargers).

On the highway routes, my observations from others here are that those chargers are not that busy most of the time (1-3 in use out of 6-8)? The other thing to consider is that the Model 3 is not as power hungry and so may not need to stop as often.

And when the demand is there - they could in-fill with a couple of Kettleman City style locations with heaps of stalls, and lounges/cafe. Wangaratta or Yass are my suggestions for the first one

Finally - the wildcard - Chargefox and Fast Cities' ultra-rapid (350kW) networks. They'll have CCS2 and so Model 3s will be able to use them natively.

 

[aegidius]

The M3 takeup will be limited by distribution - the rumoured 10000-80000 Oz M3 purchases will not all land at once! (yes, I've heard rumours at both extremes - some from actual Tesla sales staff). But if they will need the CCS2 chargers, then Tesla will have to get cracking, and us MS/X owners get to keep the existing SC to ourselves

 

[Shock-On-T]

The rumour I heard was 7000 reservations in Australia, but that's an old number. Not an unreasonable number though. And I'm sure they could sell double that in the first year, for the reasons you said.

I agree that Sydney and Melbourne will need more. I can only assume that in looking for the next site in each city they talk to lots of locations and if more than one says yes, they do all the planning for a future location. I know they said they will install the Alexandria superchargers when there is demand for it.

In both cities they would do well to have chargers at the intersections of highways (e.g. in Sydney, the M7/M5 and M7/M4) to allow for both suburban and inter-city travellers.

The other thing they could do (to support people without home charging) is to encourage infrastructure in city car parks that allows people to slow charge during the day at work. (e.g. 50 destination chargers).

On the highway routes, my observations from others here are that those chargers are not that busy most of the time (1-3 in use out of 6-8)? The other thing to consider is that the Model 3 is not as power hungry and so may not need to stop as often.

And when the demand is there - they could in-fill with a couple of Kettleman City style locations with heaps of stalls, and lounges/cafe. Wangaratta or Yass are my suggestions for the first one

Finally - the wildcard - Chargefox and Fast Cities' ultra-rapid (350kW) networks. They'll have CCS2 and so Model 3s will be able to use them natively.

Yes, highway sites are basically never full unless there's some local Tesla event.
I've charged dozens of times between Sydney and Brisbane, never seen more than one or two other cars.
Sydney is already at capacity. Yesterday I was coming back from Narooma in the evening and Broadway was showing all stalls in use. Probably doing xmas shopping, but there've been many times both sites are full. St Leonards is a shocker, basically full every evening, every Saturday.

 

[Shock-On-T]

The M3 takeup will be limited by distribution - the rumoured 10000-80000 Oz M3 purchases will not all land at once! (yes, I've heard rumours at both extremes - some from actual Tesla sales staff). But if they will need the CCS2 chargers, then Tesla will have to get cracking, and us MS/X owners get to keep the existing SC to ourselves

They might land quicker than expected.
Tesla is surging up to 7,000/week M3 production now, and by the time they get RHD lines running they could probably do 2000/wk of RHD cars.
Main RHD markets in order would be UK/Japan/Australia/NZ. Probably split 50/20/20/10. (Japan has few SCs than us, probably about the same demand as us).
So out of 2000/week we would get 400/week, which is 20,000 in a year.
Plenty of assumptions in these calcs, but all pretty reasonable.

 

[meloccom]

They might land quicker than expected.
Tesla is surging up to 7,000/week M3 production now, and by the time they get RHD lines running they could probably do 2000/wk of RHD cars.
Main RHD markets in order would be UK/Japan/Australia/NZ. Probably split 50/20/20/10. (Japan has few SCs than us, probably about the same demand as us).
So out of 2000/week we would get 400/week, which is 20,000 in a year.
Plenty of assumptions in these calcs, but all pretty reasonable.

You’re forgetting Hong Kong which was a big RHD market until they changed the tax laws. Cheaper M3 may re-ignite sales there.

 

[cynix]

Japan has few SCs than us, probably about the same demand as us

Demand in Japan might be currently limited by the size of Model S/X (way too big for their roads). The smaller Model 3 might be more successful.

 

[Shock-On-T]

@meloccom , @cynix , good points both.
I always forget HK is RHD, and the MS/MX is big for Japan. I've seen an MS in Kyoto though
I lived in Kyoto for 2 years, would love to have a M3 there.

 

[aegidius]

Not seeing any evidence of SC upgrades to CCS2 in Aust yet. And no apparent talk on the UK forum about it either. Seems strange if the RHD M3 are coming soon (mid 2019)

 

[Mark E]

Not seeing any evidence of SC upgrades to CCS2 in Aust yet. And no apparent talk on the UK forum about it either. Seems strange if the RHD M3 are coming soon (mid 2019)

I’m actually wondering if they will need to outside of North America because CCS2 uses a Mennekes top plug. Maybe the car will just see that it’s a supercharger and use that for DC - like it detects Ac single phase, 3 phase or superchargers automatically already.

In North America the proprietary plug is more of an issue.

 

[miimura]

I’m actually wondering if they will need to outside of North America because CCS2 uses a Mennekes top plug. Maybe the car will just see that it’s a supercharger and use that for DC - like it detects Ac single phase, 3 phase or superchargers automatically already.

In North America the proprietary plug is more of an issue.

There is no indication that Tesla will make any changes to cars in North America. However, it is pretty clear that the Model 3 with native CCS2 will not accept DC power on the upper pins like the S & X do. Changing Supercharger connectors and cables is much cheaper than providing AC/DC switching on all the Model 3 cars.

 

[WA-T3sla]

Not seeing any evidence of SC upgrades to CCS2 in Aust yet. And no apparent talk on the UK forum about it either. Seems strange if the RHD M3 are coming soon (mid 2019)

It’s probably only about a weeks work to add to all the Australian superchargers and makes sense to do it as close to M3 arrival as practical to avoid unnecessary maintenance.

 

[Shock-On-T]

I’m actually wondering if they will need to outside of North America because CCS2 uses a Mennekes top plug. Maybe the car will just see that it’s a supercharger and use that for DC - like it detects Ac single phase, 3 phase or superchargers automatically already.

In North America the proprietary plug is more of an issue.

I was recently schooled about this on this forum. Apparently it can't work that way, because CCS2 uses the 2 pins at the bottom for DC, and the standard doesn't allow using the top cluster for DC.

 

[Mark E]

I was recently schooled about this on this forum. Apparently it can't work that way, because CCS2 uses the 2 pins at the bottom for DC, and the standard doesn't allow using the top cluster for DC.

I understand that completely, however, the standard also says no adapters. The standard Mennekes doesn't have DC capability at all as far as I know, but the superchargers use that connector....

I'd agree that in the long run it might be cheaper to add new cables to 10,000 superchargers than add capability to 200,000 cars - but I'm not sure how much extra wiring and contactors would actually be required. There is already specific signalling from the supercharger for it to differentiate from a normal 3ø Mennekes charger, so why couldn't this be done?

 

[Vostok]

Not seeing any evidence of SC upgrades to CCS2 in Aust yet. And no apparent talk on the UK forum about it either. Seems strange if the RHD M3 are coming soon (mid 2019)

At least the NRMA charging network in NSW will be very helpful for Model 3 owners! I don’t think it will take long for Tesla to upgrade the SC network here - how many stalls are there in the country? Around 100?

 

[Vostok]

I'd agree that in the long run it might be cheaper to add new cables to 10,000 superchargers than add capability to 200,000 cars - but I'm not sure how much extra wiring and contactors would actually be required. There is already specific signalling from the supercharger for it to differentiate from a normal 3ø Mennekes charger, so why couldn't this be done?

Well, it could be done. But just because something could be done doesn’t mean it should be done. There are good reasons to not do this.

 

[miimura]

Well, it could be done. But just because something could be done doesn’t mean it should be done. There are good reasons to not do this.

I'm pretty sure all of those reasons have to do with the existing population of S & X vehicles. The Model 3 population will quickly become many times larger than the current S & X vehicles.

 

[Chuq]

Tamworth and Warrnambool dots just went grey on the Tesla map.

However the Warrnambool one also says “Hong Kong” when you click on it so I’m not saying it’s any more than a bug

All incomplete SCs now say 2019 too.

 

[Shock-On-T]

I'm pretty sure all of those reasons have to do with the existing population of S & X vehicles. The Model 3 population will quickly become many times larger than the current S & X vehicles.

It can’t be done because it would break the CCS2 standard.
Much easier to add cables to existing superchargers and start making CCS2 cars.

Adding cables to superchargers is far easier and cheaper than modifying cars, too.
Even if it were the same number (which it isn’t) you can modify superchargers in batches (8 at a visit), don’t have to schedule a service appointment, can do at any hour, etc etc.