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Superchargers in Australia
- Thread starter JOH
- Start date
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- Australia Supercharging
One thing I’ve noticed is how out of date these seem to get.
Pulled off the highway into Goulburn showing a 5 minute wait. Tap the icon a k or so from the charger and it refreshes to 2 then 3 available.
By the time we pulled in there were 5 or 6 bays free.
Without “on the ground” PlugShare complaints it seems hard to know the real state at any time.
Pulled off the highway into Goulburn showing a 5 minute wait. Tap the icon a k or so from the charger and it refreshes to 2 then 3 available.
By the time we pulled in there were 5 or 6 bays free.
Without “on the ground” PlugShare complaints it seems hard to know the real state at any time.
Yeah but as I said the car was still showing 3 despite my eyes seeing 5/6 free.
So there’s a delay or fudge factor baked in anyway.
Well, your quote was: “Tap the icon a k or so from the charger and it refreshes to 2 then 3 available. By the time we pulled in there were 5 or 6 bays free“… which implies the car was showing 3 plugs available one kilometre from the site, and by the time you got there a couple of minutes later, 5 plugs were available. Did you refresh SC availability in the map once you were there?
A minute is easily enough time for 2 cars to unplug and leave. Or vice versa - arrive and plug in.
Once in Coolangatta I wanted to use the Chargefox charger near the surf club, I checked availability in the App in my car when I left my hotel not more than 2 minutes away. The charger was available. Great stuff! Let’s go! By the time I got there, someone in an EQC was plugging in.
It happens.
Max Spaghetti
Member
Yeah, I made some comment about this a couple of days ago.
An experiment I would like to conduct is to actually sit at a site and keep refreshing while watching the cars come and go to see how accurate it really is. I haven't conducted that experiment yet, so my anecdotal experience is no better than the recent poster.
We charged there last week, car showed 1 vacancy as we drove in but on actu arrival there were 3 free. We sat In the pie shop for 15 minutes watching the chargers, it was about 10:00am, and there was a continuous flow of cars backing in and driving out. No one would have had to wait more than two minutes or so at tha time.
It was a very interesting view.
It was a very interesting view.
V3s have 3 or 4 stalls connected to each cabinet, but the cabinets can also share between each other.
So you might hit some site limits, but random nature of car arrival means some cars will be naturally slowing as others plugin.
Each cabinet can provide 387kw of power but can share this power between all the cabinets on the site. In Australia they seem to be installing one cabinet for every 3 stalls. Therefore before being limited, if every stall were being used, the average change rate would need to exceed 129kw. This is technically possible but practically almost impossible, as the charge curves fall below this value quickly, even at low state of charge and preconditioned. It doesn't matter which shall you plug into as any stall can pull excess power from an underused cabinet.
It would take 7 LR/P M3 or MY charging at max power to exceed the capacity of a 12 stall site and 10 SR/RWD cars.
I've attached a picture of a cabinet plate at the recently installed 4 cabinet, 12 stall HomeCo Hawthorn East site.
This is all correct, except that the 387kVA per cabinet is only on a 480V supply. In Australia with a 400V - 415V supply it's 322kVA - 334kVA per cabinet.
RichardV
Member
The 387kW figure is for 480V 3 phase as used in the US.
Here in Australia the 3 phase voltage is more typically 415V, though nowadays the nominal voltage is stated as 400V. So depending on the local supply in Australia you are probably looking at 320-335kW per cabinet.
Max Spaghetti
Member
RichardV
Member
Not my specs, but Tesla's. But I forget the reference, but it was second hand. Can't find on official(ish) reference for those stats but it is similar graphic to other Tesla published stats.
Headed up to the mid north coast today for an impromptu couple of days away and it was chargeageddon north of Sydney.
But anyone with a shorter range EV would not have had a happy trip today.
- Heatherbrae SC- 4 cars waiting at 1:30pm, one stall out of action, so kept going.
- Heatherbrae BP Pulse - thought why not chance our arm… App said both ports “unavailable” but it’s not a big detour to have a look, someone might leave just before we get there. But the entire unit seemed powered off, with a warning sticker on it that it is power limited due to local supply issues. Previous PlugShare check-in said it’s been reported to BP.
- Karuah Chargefox - all 3 units working but all in use and 3 cars waiting.
- NRMA Nabiac - Didn’t stop as PlugShare reported not working. NRMA claimed the “system was down” affecting multiple chargers.
- Taree Evie - Didn’t stop as PlugShare reported both units stopped working today.
But anyone with a shorter range EV would not have had a happy trip today.
Different experience to my trip. Arrived back from a trip from Sydney-Dubbo-Orange-Albury-Sydney had had a perfect charging experience. No queueing at all and used the new Holbrook and Yass sites twice with no issues. A Kia ev9 turned up at Yass but couldn't get it to charge on the Tesla chargers. A MG4 was there as well and it worked fine.
I've only done a few long trips in my Model Y, but each time I've gone to a fast charger there have been free bays available. So I'm wondering what do you do, what's the etiquette if there are no free bays? It's not like a petrol station where you can get in a queue going to a particular pump. And if someone is pulling out as you arrive, do you just go in? Seems like there may be someone waiting nearby. And often this is within a busy car park. Just wondering what the correct way to do this is. Thanks!
