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Superchargers in Southern California (location speculation)
- Thread starter lg_golfs
- Start date
uhm there is only a 20 stalls(250kw) and a 24(72kw) one, so which one are you talking about?SG one was 3 deep waiting at 9 am this morning!Pasadena chargers were 20/22 and 8/16. The Alhambra one hopefully will at least be 16 or more.
interesting how the new pasadena one is never even close to being full but yet the old one is? weird.
Curious question for those of you who live in SoCal: How important are superchargers to you? Do you not have home charging or do you drive around so much that you run out of juice in the middle of the day?
It is both. Housing is expensive enough that lots of Tesla owners live in condos that don’t have charging. And then it is isn’t unusual for socal people to do longish trips, like to the ski mountains, or just the mountains in general (summer too), or San Diego to northern Los Angeles, or a lot of people like to drive to Las Vegas. So, yeah, very, very important. Which is probably why they are so very very crowded here.
Living in LA, I am actually astounded by how many charging stations there are around, many of which are DCFC stations. And, if you live in LA and have home charging, when you go on long trips wouldn't you charge at a Supercharger hundreds of miles away rather than within the city? I don't understand why the SCs in LA are this crowded.
While i agree with your statement, it is probably because:
Number of Tesla owners in LA + Lack of patience + Only wanting to charge at superchargers + not willing to look for other charging stations > # of superchargers
Misterbee
Member
It would be interesting to know how many people are transient chargers, passing through town to or from somewhere else.
More than half of the people in LA county are renters. It stands to reason that many of them cannot charge at home.
There is almost no reason to use a supercharger if home charging is available. I use them exclusively for traveling, and even then, try to plan my trips to minimize SC use, and plan for destination charging at whatever property I am staying at. My assumption is that most the the chargers that are within the urban areas, and not close to a highway (e.g.: Santa Monica) are for people who don't have home charging. That is a large number of people. Just look at how many Teslas there are driving around. Rental properties are more common than single family homes. I have a family member who owns a 42 unit apartment building, and was unsuccesful in adding EV charging due to an insufficient power supply.
Data point of 1: I am able to charge at work which is where I do 95% of my charging. I do occasionally charge at home, but A) it is only 120V, and B) It is a shared circuit that is paid for by the association and while it is ripe for me just to take the "free" charging, I choose to not abuse it.
I do Supercharge on trips of course and locally on a very rare occasion.
What's ironic is that on my 23-mile (one way) commute, I pass within about a mile of six (soon to be seven) separate superchargers.
I do Supercharge on trips of course and locally on a very rare occasion.
What's ironic is that on my 23-mile (one way) commute, I pass within about a mile of six (soon to be seven) separate superchargers.
rxlawdude
Active Member
One reason not to Supercharge is the absurd rates: approaching $.60/kWh, making it multiples of utility rates.
Early rates were in the $.20-.$35/kWh, which quickly increased (doubling!) to where it's very close to equivalent gasoline prices. A very far cry from my 2015 MS with free lifetime Supercharging.
So much for not wanting to profit from Superchargers.
Early rates were in the $.20-.$35/kWh, which quickly increased (doubling!) to where it's very close to equivalent gasoline prices. A very far cry from my 2015 MS with free lifetime Supercharging.
So much for not wanting to profit from Superchargers.
rrosenbl
Member
Just drove by SM SC all 26-stalls were occupied at 9pm Monday night.
They still aren’t profiting. That’s actually near what the electricity costs once you include demand charges. And then you’ve got capital costs and maintenance.
This is another reason why it would be silly to use a SC if you have access at home. My TOU rate is $0.13/kW after 10pm.
Back in the day, so many of use were disgruntled by locals clogging up SCs since they were free, actually leaving the cars there all day, prior to the initiating of idle fees. Natural evolution...
I see quite a few Teslas parked on the street overnight in my neighborhood around the Westside of LA - even on streets that are primarily single-family homes. I'm sure there are plenty of people around parking on the street, or in an apartment or condo shared garage, who just can't feasibly get access to home charging.
Installing home charging has also gotten sort expensive in the past few years. My install (which was admittedly sort of complicated due to the 100A total service to my townhouse) was over $2K. That pays for a lot of Supercharging... assuming a $0.25 difference per kWh between home charging and Supercharger rates, that's like 8000 kWh (or something on the order of 25K miles worth of charging) before it's cheaper to charge at home.
Still more than worth it in the end to charge at home if EVSE install is feasible - especially when you factor in the increased batter life from so many fewer DC fast charges. But I'm sure the upfront cost puts a lot of people off.
Installing home charging has also gotten sort expensive in the past few years. My install (which was admittedly sort of complicated due to the 100A total service to my townhouse) was over $2K. That pays for a lot of Supercharging... assuming a $0.25 difference per kWh between home charging and Supercharger rates, that's like 8000 kWh (or something on the order of 25K miles worth of charging) before it's cheaper to charge at home.
Still more than worth it in the end to charge at home if EVSE install is feasible - especially when you factor in the increased batter life from so many fewer DC fast charges. But I'm sure the upfront cost puts a lot of people off.
Doug Martoccia
Member
Since 2017, I've been using the 110V outlet to charge my Model 3 and it has worked beautifully fine. I have a SC a few blocks away from home that I rarely use. But, many people don't have garages and it would be very useful for there to be more access points on the street - even if they are only for overnight L1 charging. Keep it cheap. EVs are coming faster than city planners realize.
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