Supercharging Rock and Hard Place

[gnuarm]

It seems today Tesla announced limitations on some chargers to 80%. Some stations this will be every day, 24 hours. Some stations this will be on special days.

I get what the intent of this is, but clearly this shows how desperate Tesla is. Rather than boosting the number of stalls at busy facilities which is a sure solution, they limit the range of the cars by limiting the amount of charge you can acquire. Yet another indicator of the cash shortage.

In addition, they seem to be rather draconian by making this 24/7 rather than just imposing it at times when the stations are busy.

I think this is a significant issue, mostly because charging is perceived to be the Achilles heel of EVs. While it doesn't need to be a problem, the perception of this being a PITA is there. I spoke with someone at a gas pump the other day and he asked me a couple of times how long it takes to charge and I responded I would be there 30 or so minutes since I wasn't all the way down. After explaining that most charging happens at home he persisted and I told him a full charge would take an hour. He leaned into his car and told the wife, "See, it takes an hour" or something like that.

The only way there will be mass acceptance is for Tesla to make sure there are enough Supercharger installations so every significant town has at least one and none of the highway chargers are operating at capacity even during peak periods. Seeing EVs lined up at charging stations make people think of the gas shortages and odd/even rationing... well, the older ones anyway. lol Still, who's going to buy an EV thinking it will be hard to get a charge anywhere other than at home which most people don't even get. Home charging is the very best way to charge an EV and is actually an advantage. But ICE drivers don't see that. While I'm sitting charging my car at the Sheetz I see dozens if not hundreds of cars wasting time at the pumps when driving EVs they would already be home charging. People are so used to this they don't get it and they won't until they or a close friend has an EV.

They have listed for construction a Supercharger in Frederick, MD which would help me tremendously with my travels. It was slated for 2018, but like many installations it didn't happen. Then at the end of the year someone noticed permits were filed and someone else who is linked to the electric company indicated his "crystal ball" showed construction starting around June. Here it is nearly Memorial day and there is no sign of any further movement, no paint, no electrical permits... given the state of Tesla finances and the financial micro managing by Musk, I expect this installation won't happen this year. So it will be another long, cold winter in my frost affected model X and potential Tesla buyers in Frederick won't be seeing the warm red glow of of a Tesla Supercharger.

 

[Zoomit]

Apparently when you get to a station that has the 80% limit, you can just slide the setting back to the right and charge up to 100%. It looks like it just defaults to 80% at specific stations, but is not an actual constraint if you really need to charge all the way up.

Reference: High-usage supercharger station

 

[Eno Deb]

I don't really see this as a big deal since (1) it only affects a small part of the chargers that are already overcrowded and (2) according to Electrek the limit can be bypassed if necessary when you are routed to the charger via the trip planner, so it shouldn't have any impact on long-distance travel.

That said, there are of course (financial) limits to what Tesla can do in terms of building out the network. One way to help with this in the medium term is to use OPM (other people's money) by releasing a CCS adapter and thus leveraging the Dieselgate money that Electrify America is pumping into charger infrastructure ...

 

[gnuarm]

I don't really see this as a big deal since (1) it only affects a small part of the chargers that are already overcrowded and (2) according to Electrek the limit can be bypassed if necessary when you are routed to the charger via the trip planner, so it shouldn't have any impact on long-distance travel.

That said, there are of course (financial) limits to what Tesla can do in terms of building out the network. One way to help with this in the medium term is to use OPM (other people's money) by releasing a CCS adapter and thus leveraging the Dieselgate money that Electrify America is pumping into charger infrastructure ...

Talk about small change. How many sites has Electrify America built or planning to build in the next year or two? I don't recall the numbers but the current installations can be counted on one or maybe two hands I think. Over the next two years they still aren't expecting to even touch the number of Superchargers out there. So a $500 CCS adapter in the US is pretty pointless still other than possibly "perception" which is the issue I'm trying to point out regarding the Superchargers.

The money is exactly my point about the rock and the hard place. I see people's reactions to my charging issues. On top of Tesla being a new company selling a new product, they just don't "get" the home charging thing and they aren't seeing chargers in the wild. Then the ones seeing congestion at chargers are really put off. Tesla needs to build the Supercharger network big time, but without the money, it will be hard, very hard to sell as many cars as they want in the US. Rock, hard place. If they don't spend the money, they'll have a hard time making the money.

 

[jjrandorin]

One of the biggest mistakes Tesla made is NOT removing free supercharging a long time before they did. They needed it to get people to adopt back in the day, but it never (ever ever) should have existed on the model 3 at all.

I said a while ago that I believed that supercharging should be "slightly annoying". It should be less convenient, AND cost more, than charging at home. Tesla needs to keep trying to find a way to "encourage" people to charge at home, instead of a supercharger, unless they are traveling.

Anything they can do to encourage that is good in my opinion. they could never build out superchargers enough to let everyone in the neighborhood charge, so adding more and more stations to existing superchargers is definitely not the answer in my book...but I am not effected by this in the slightest because I charge at home, even though there is a supercharger 2 miles from my house that I could charge at fairly easily.

I only charged there when I first picked up my car, which came faster than I thought it would, so I had not been able to arrange install of the HPWC. Once I had the HPWC installed, I have not charged at that supercharger again.

 

[Eno Deb]

Talk about small change. How many sites has Electrify America built or planning to build in the next year or two? I don't recall the numbers but the current installations can be counted on one or maybe two hands I think.

Very big hands. By the end of this year they'll have about 480 locations with about 2000 chargers. Currently about 200 locations are operational.

 

[redgt]

I thought a CCS adapter isn't even possible for some reason?

 

[Eno Deb]

I thought a CCS adapter isn't even possible for some reason?

It's confirmed that Tesla will offer a CCS adapter for Model S/X in Europe (mentioned on their web page). It is not confirmed that it is possible to use a similar adapter for the US version of CCS with the Model 3, but given that the European Model 3 supports CCS natively it seems likely that it is.

 

[jerry33]

I thought a CCS adapter isn't even possible for some reason?

There has been some confirmation from Tesla in other threads that there will be one. Some indicate this year. My understanding is that there is not a lot of difference between CCS and Tesla's DC charging because Tesla is on the CCS committee. There are differences between European CCS and North American CCS to prevent the Europeans from just shipping adapters and charging stations without changes.

 

[jerry33]

Talk about small change. How many sites has Electrify America built or planning to build in the next year or two? I don't recall the numbers but the current installations can be counted on one or maybe two hands I think. Over the next two years they still aren't expecting to even touch the number of Superchargers out there. So a $500 CCS adapter in the US is pretty pointless still other than possibly "perception" which is the issue I'm trying to point out regarding the Superchargers.

Well, it would have been helpful earlier this week when the Salina SC was not reachable due to flooding and there was a nearby CCS location that was reachable. Also I don't believe it will be $500 because a CCS adapter is far simpler than the CHAdeMO adapter. The main issue is the lack of CCS stations so that there are fewer places to use them (Exception: Canada has a well built out CCS network in many areas.)

 

[Eno Deb]

The main issue is the lack of CCS stations so that there are fewer places to use them (Exception: Canada has a well built out CCS network in many areas.)

This is changing rapidly. Here's the "cycle 1" map of EA chargers which will be operational by the end of the year. It's essentially the equivalent of the supercharger network from a few years ago, and they are currently deploying new chargers faster than Tesla.

 

[gnuarm]

Very big hands. By the end of this year they'll have about 480 locations with about 2000 chargers. Currently about 200 locations are operational.

Their web site says 140 as of April 9. Where did you read 200? Still the point is that's a far cry from the 846 Tesla stations which still isn't enough.

"By the end of the year" is a speculation, not a fact. What I found was “install or have under development"... A far cry from built.

 

[electrictorque]

It seems today Tesla announced limitations on some chargers to 80%. Some stations this will be every day, 24 hours. Some stations this will be on special days.

I get what the intent of this is, but clearly this shows how desperate Tesla is. Rather than boosting the number of stalls at busy facilities which is a sure solution, they limit the range of the cars by limiting the amount of charge you can acquire. Yet another indicator of the cash shortage.

In addition, they seem to be rather draconian by making this 24/7 rather than just imposing it at times when the stations are busy.

I think this is a significant issue, mostly because charging is perceived to be the Achilles heel of EVs. While it doesn't need to be a problem, the perception of this being a PITA is there. I spoke with someone at a gas pump the other day and he asked me a couple of times how long it takes to charge and I responded I would be there 30 or so minutes since I wasn't all the way down. After explaining that most charging happens at home he persisted and I told him a full charge would take an hour. He leaned into his car and told the wife, "See, it takes an hour" or something like that.

The only way there will be mass acceptance is for Tesla to make sure there are enough Supercharger installations so every significant town has at least one and none of the highway chargers are operating at capacity even during peak periods. Seeing EVs lined up at charging stations make people think of the gas shortages and odd/even rationing... well, the older ones anyway. lol Still, who's going to buy an EV thinking it will be hard to get a charge anywhere other than at home which most people don't even get. Home charging is the very best way to charge an EV and is actually an advantage. But ICE drivers don't see that. While I'm sitting charging my car at the Sheetz I see dozens if not hundreds of cars wasting time at the pumps when driving EVs they would already be home charging. People are so used to this they don't get it and they won't until they or a close friend has an EV.

They have listed for construction a Supercharger in Frederick, MD which would help me tremendously with my travels. It was slated for 2018, but like many installations it didn't happen. Then at the end of the year someone noticed permits were filed and someone else who is linked to the electric company indicated his "crystal ball" showed construction starting around June. Here it is nearly Memorial day and there is no sign of any further movement, no paint, no electrical permits... given the state of Tesla finances and the financial micro managing by Musk, I expect this installation won't happen this year. So it will be another long, cold winter in my frost affected model X and potential Tesla buyers in Frederick won't be seeing the warm red glow of of a Tesla Supercharger.

It makes perfect sense to me for Tesla to limit superchargerging to 80%. After 80 charging is very slow. It's a waste of resources... I usually only supercharger to 60%

 

[Eno Deb]

Their web site says 140 as of April 9. Where did you read 200? Still the point is that's a far cry from the 846 Tesla stations which still isn't enough.

"By the end of the year" is a speculation, not a fact. What I found was “install or have under development"... A far cry from built.

If you need something in writing: here's an article that mentions that as of May 6th, 267 locations had completed construction and 158 were operational. Quite a bit more than your "handful". Delays are of course always possible, but they are actually ahead of schedule. In any case there is no question that access to the network would be a substantial benefit for Tesla drivers and have the potential to take significant load off Tesla's network.

Inside Electrify America’s plan to simplify electric car charging

 

[redgt]

CCS adapter would hopefully charge at supercharger speed and not be limited to to 50 kW like the chademo adapter

electrify america says $1 to connect and 30-35 cents per minute

 

[Eno Deb]

CCS adapter would hopefully charge at supercharger speed and not be limited to to 50 kW like the chademo adapter

Tesla's European web site says that the adapter for Model S/X will allow full supercharger speed.

electrify america says $1 to connect and 30-35 cents per minute

The prices will be tiered by speed. The final pricing is supposed to be announced next week.

 

[gnuarm]

Their web site says 140 as of April 9. Where did you read 200? Still the point is that's a far cry from the 846 Tesla stations which still isn't enough.

"By the end of the year" is a speculation, not a fact. What I found was “install or have under development"... A far cry from built.

I checked Plugshare and they say 185 Electrify America CCS chargers and 184 Chademo chargers (same locations) presently.

 

[gnuarm]

It makes perfect sense to me for Tesla to limit superchargerging to 80%. After 80 charging is very slow. It's a waste of resources... I usually only supercharger to 60%

Obviously you don't need it. Nearly every usage of my car is a trip when I will need to charge. Tesla doesn't want to waste other's time and I don't want to waste my time by having to come back before returning home. It's already enough of a PITA to never be sure of how much of the battery I will use combined with the much more limited range and the sparse availability of Superchargers... well, I don't like driving out of my way just because I own an EV. But then I guess Mark Twain was right. A Tesla comes under the heading of "all the modern inconveniences".

Puck Tesla. If I need 90% or even 95%, it is in no one's interest for me to return a second time to charge.

 

[roblab]

One of the biggest mistakes Tesla made is NOT removing free supercharging a long time before they did. They needed it to get people to adopt back in the day, but it never (ever ever) should have existed on the model 3 at all.

I said a while ago that I believed that supercharging should be "slightly annoying". It should be less convenient, AND cost more, than charging at home. Tesla needs to keep trying to find a way to "encourage" people to charge at home, instead of a supercharger, unless they are traveling.

AMEN, BROTHER!!!!

All you folk that charge at a supercharger because it's cheaper than charging at home, call your electrician and get an outlet installed. Charge at home. Some folk even have gotten an outlet installed at their apartment or condo. Don't be so cheap. You can afford a Tesla. You can afford an outlet.

 

[gnuarm]

If you need something in writing: here's an article that mentions that as of May 6th, 267 locations had completed construction and 158 were operational. Quite a bit more than your "handful". Delays are of course always possible, but they are actually ahead of schedule. In any case there is no question that access to the network would be a substantial benefit for Tesla drivers and have the potential to take significant load off Tesla's network.

Inside Electrify America’s plan to simplify electric car charging

I don't agree that access would be advantageous to Tesla drivers other than in the few areas where chargers are congested. On trips, it doesn't really matter where the CCS chargers are if the car doesn't know and report them. Are you going to toss out your in car navigator info and use Plugshare to find chargers? Most of them will be only a few miles from Tesla chargers or even just blocks away.

This is one of the disadvantages to having separate networks, a lot of duplication of effort.

I see in the article that this phase is essentially done and the next phase starts in July to be complete by the end of 2021. While $370 million was spent on chargers in phase 1, only $100 million will be spent on highway chargers in phase 2, so not so many more. $250 will be spent on chargers in metropolitan areas with a large portion spent only in California. While California seems to be a hot bed of EV interest, they can't create the EV market alone. EVs need to play well in Peoria too and that means charging.