Supercharging to reduce ownership cost of a Model S.

[BoerumHill]

Much ado about nothing.

Tman (Tesla Living) blogged about this three months ago, and I agree wholeheartedly with his thoughts.

Can you use Superchargers for your daily needs? | Tesla Living

Everyone who uses Supercharging has paid for that privilege. It's there if and when you need it. Most people who can afford a $100K don't have the idle time required to game the system by using it 365 for their commute. Home charging is far more efficient because daily or regular SC would require working inefficiently for several 45 minute stretches per week. Ain't nobody got time for that.

As an urban high rise dweller, I won't have a home charger option. But we do have a couple L2 chargers in our building garage and BEVs in NYC are still a rarity. There are handful of free L2 options at Wagreens, Whole foods during weekend errands. L3 AeroViroment chargers (1 in the aforementioned residence garage) are $0.49 kWH. Big ouch.

BUT...I don't have a commute. I walk 12 minutes or ride a CitiBike bike share for 5. The Model S will primarily be the weekend escape pod.

I don't plan to use my vehicle everyday. But no matter which direction I head in, my path will cross a SC within 40 minutes. For my (mostly) weekend use, SCing will be the most pragmatic solution. I don't see anything unethical about using something that was factored into the price of the vehicle.

Ask me again in six months when the rubber meets the road, but that's my theory for now.

 

[bxr140]

Ask me again in six months...

After six months of ownership (and likely much less), you'll find that frequent supercharging is too inconvenient. :tongue:

 

[BoerumHill]

After six months of ownership (and likely much less), you'll find that frequent supercharging is too inconvenient. :tongue:

I've used ICE vehicles very little in the 16 years since I moved to NYC from Michigan. But I have a feeling that pattern might change.

No doubt SC is not the answer for most. But pre-ownership, I'm struggling trying to figure out how I'll make it work. We have at least a half dozen BEV in our garage competing for two L2 chargers, so it might be hard to get a charge on a regular basis.

Of course, if I convince our garage owner to install a Tesla HPWC....

 

[Khatsalano]

@BoerumHill, actually with your described driving patterns, you could benefit from having a simple NEMA 5-20 outlet in your regular parking spot. There may be some problems if your HOA/Property Managers insist that you pay per unit of electricity. On the other hand, everything is negotiable. You could simply say you're willing to pay an extra $20-50 a month to the HOA/Property Owner.

A NEMA 5-20 will do 5-6 miles an hour, and since you only plan on using it on the weekend, voila.

- K

 

[stopcrazypp]

As an urban high rise dweller, I won't have a home charger option.

Then this thread does not apply to you. It is already recognized here that if you don't have a home charger option, it's fair game to use a supercharger. Tesla has *explicitly* said this was a valid use case for superchargers. No one is saying it is unethical to use a supercharger in this case.

We are talking about an entirely different issue. People with trivial access to home charging, but choose not to use it in order to save money.

- - - Updated - - -

You are basically re-iterating my point.

- You can exercise at home with limited home based equipment or basically no formal equipment (a pair of sneakers and shorts) OR go to the gym and get the best experience on the best equipment.
- You can charge at home with a basic Charger or even the UMC OR you can go to a SC and get the easiest/fastest experience.

As a side note, I would venture to say that most people financially able to afford a Model S have available room in their home for a piece of exercise equipment. Nobody said anything about matching the equipment at the gym. If you are going to use that argument then you have to also match the charging ability of a Tesla SC at your home (to keep the analogy accurate). I'll stick with Archer's analogy as the most relevant I've seen.....so far.

Sorry, I still don't buy that analogy. There are many routines you can do at a gym that you can't with a home gym. And running on a treadmill indoors and running outside on concrete has significant differences (in a treadmill, weather, outside temperature, humidity is no longer a factor, it is easier on your joints than running on concrete, you have complete control and can multitask safely, etc.).

While the only difference between a SC and home charger is speed (there is no difference in the quality of charging; in fact the SC might actually be slightly worse for your battery). And given he is using it for home charging, that speed difference is not applicable in his situation. If he uses the supercharger in a situation where speed is critical (like a long trip) no one is saying that is unethical.

In fact, it is actually less convenient for him at a supercharger because he has to kill 20 minutes of time, while for the home charger he only has to spend seconds to plug in.

My basic point is for his application (roughly 15kWh per day or about 40-50 miles a day), it is trivial for him to charge at home vs at a supercharger. While for a home gym vs a gym membership, there is no trivial equivalent alternative (unless you are so lucky that you have the space for a whole private gym room at home).

 

[gnxs]

Much ado about nothing.

Tman (Tesla Living) blogged about this three months ago, and I agree wholeheartedly with his thoughts.

Can you use Superchargers for your daily needs? | Tesla Living

Everyone who uses Supercharging has paid for that privilege. It's there if and when you need it. Most people who can afford a $100K don't have the idle time required to game the system by using it 365 for their commute. Home charging is far more efficient because daily or regular SC would require working inefficiently for several 45 minute stretches per week. Ain't nobody got time for that.

As an urban high rise dweller, I won't have a home charger option. But we do have a couple L2 chargers in our building garage and BEVs in NYC are still a rarity. There are handful of free L2 options at Wagreens, Whole foods during weekend errands. L3 AeroViroment chargers (1 in the aforementioned residence garage) are $0.49 kWH. Big ouch.

BUT...I don't have a commute. I walk 12 minutes or ride a CitiBike bike share for 5. The Model S will primarily be the weekend escape pod.

I don't plan to use my vehicle everyday. But no matter which direction I head in, my path will cross a SC within 40 minutes. For my (mostly) weekend use, SCing will be the most pragmatic solution. I don't see anything unethical about using something that was factored into the price of the vehicle.

Ask me again in six months when the rubber meets the road, but that's my theory for now.

Thanks for the link. I seem to remember a different user also posting a similar article that I read recently. He pretty much covers the entire gamut in his blog.

 

[David99]

We have at least a half dozen BEV in our garage competing for two L2 chargers, so it might be hard to get a charge on a regular basis.

Have a look here. Those 2 chargers could feed 4 cars optimizing the resources perfectly.
J1772 Hydra - charge two vehicles with one charger

 

[dsm363]

You are basically re-iterating my point.

- You can exercise at home with limited home based equipment or basically no formal equipment (a pair of sneakers and shorts) OR go to the gym and get the best experience on the best equipment.
- You can charge at home with a basic Charger or even the UMC OR you can go to a SC and get the easiest/fastest experience.

As a side note, I would venture to say that most people financially able to afford a Model S have available room in their home for a piece of exercise equipment. Nobody said anything about matching the equipment at the gym. If you are going to use that argument then you have to also match the charging ability of a Tesla SC at your home (to keep the analogy accurate). I'll stick with Archer's analogy as the most relevant I've seen.....so far.

If you have a garage and a NEMA 14-50 it's far easier to charge at home and even 'quicker'. Takes me 5 seconds to plug in and it charges while I sleep. I don't have to wait around 30 minutes and worry about blocking to space from others that may need it.

 

[Ugliest1]

Not going to wade into the (diminishing) fray. This is to add some new information.

Yesterday I watched the CNBC video of Elon and JB being interviewed at some electricity utility convention (I tuned in late so not sure the details - this link #7626 goes to the Short Term TSLA thread but its corresponding link goes to the CNBC live feed which has moved on...).

At one point in the video Elon and JB both made comments to the effect that 90-95% of Model S charging is NOT at superchargers.

 

[gnxs]

If you have a garage and a NEMA 14-50 it's far easier to charge at home and even 'quicker'. Takes me 5 seconds to plug in and it charges while I sleep. I don't have to wait around 30 minutes and worry about blocking to space from others that may need it.

I'm well aware of what's involved in charging a Tesla in my garage since I have a hard-wired Clipper Creek unit at home that splits time with my P85 and my wife's Focus EV. If somebody wants to spend their time using local SC'ers because they feel that works best for them, I'm all for it.

I primarily charge at home, but for those occasional instances when using the local SC is a better option for me, I'll do so.

 

[Archer]

Let me give you another example.

Suppose Tesla came out with a new supercharger station design such that each pedestal was capable of 120 kW without competing with the sibling in the pair. Now further suppose Tesla said "we're rolling out new ones with this tech and will gradually upgrade the older ones." Well, enterprising Johnny lives near an "old tech" supercharger and doesn't want to wait. There are 100 of these Johnnies and they decide as a group to blow up every "old tech" supercharger. This would "force" Tesla to immediately upgrade all supercharger sites to the new tech. That's great for us all, right?

Rationalization is powerful...and dangerous.

Wow, what an incredibly illogical response since no one is advocating something extreme. Analogy (especially extreme ones) is powerful...and dangerous...and ridiculous.

 

[electracity]

So, Elon spoke on this issue: No!
Superchargers are for travel. They send notices (or somthin') to local overusers.

 

[scaesare]

I suggest the OP, and his supporters, take a look at the comments from Elon relayed from the shareholders meeting:

Shareholder Mtg 1

Shareholder Mtg 2

Shareholder Mtg 3

 

[MorrisonHiker]

As I figured, it is intended for long distance travel but some local supercharging is allowed. Perhaps they will implement a limit on the number of local charges allowed within a certain timeframe. They could have a limit such as "X supercharge(s) per week/month at the closest supercharger within Y miles of your residence" as it would allow owners to drive their cars but encourage them to find alternate local charging options. Another idea might be to implement a ratio so that you get so many local supercharges for each long distance supercharge.

 

[P85_DA]

I want to get people's opinion to this idea.

Here is why I am considering this. Recently they have placed a supercharging station on my way to work from where I live. I was thinking I can save a lot of money by not doing the following and use the supercharging ALL the time.

1) Save money on extra charge cable (i.e. I can leave the mobile charger permanently in my car without getting an extra one) (~$650 mobile charger bundle)
2) Save money on doing electrical upgrade for the HPWC/14-50 (~$1K-$3K)
3) Save money on HPWC ($750)
4) Save money on electricity ($0.22 per KWH for lowest tier usage here in SoCal. More if I use more)
5) Probably no need to pay for Dual Charger install because I will probably do 100% supercharging! (~$2K)

As you can see you can save quite a bit of money. Sure I spend a bit of time at the supercharging station in the morning every other day, ~15-30minutes, to charge enough to get me enough charge for 2 days trip. I am fully aware of the ethics of doing this, but I figured if supercharging is already factored into the price of the Model S, why not use it? You already paid for it. Moreover, from other threads, it does not seem to damage or degrade the battery any more than other charging method, provided I don't take the SOC greater than 80% and not use it quickly.[/QUOTE

To the OP...just curious after announcement today what plans are ??

 

[Nevek]

And the circle is now complete.

 

[TexasEV]

In case the OP and his echo chamber don't take the trouble to click the above links:
"For the Superchargers, as we said in the initial press release, the Superchargers are free, it's basically free long distance for life, forever. Um, so free long distance forever is what the Superchargers are providing. Now, there are a few people who are, like, quite agressively using it for local Supercharging, um, and we'll sort of send them just a reminder note that it's cool to do this occasionally, but it's not, it's meant to be a long-distance thing. But it is Free Long Distance Forever"

 

[Tupelo]

IMO, this has always been the clearly stated use case for the Superchargers, and one need only read the various text on the Tesla website pertaining to the SC to see it. There have always been, and there always will be, people who will take unfair advantage of a good thing, and will go to great lengths to rationalize it as nearly their birthright. In any event, it appears we now have some definitive clarification from Elon Musk on the subject.

 

[djp]

The message is starting to get out through media channels as well. Personally I think Tesla should be charging a nominal fee for Supercharging to prevent abuse, but owner education is a good first step.

Tesla sounds ready to pull the plug on promised battery-swap technology | The Verge

For the Superchargers, as we said in the initial press release, the Superchargers are free. It's basically free long distance for life, forever. So free long distance forever is what the Superchargers are providing. Now, there are a few people who are quite aggressively using it for local Supercharging, and we will sort of send them just a reminder note that it's cool to do this occasionally, but it's meant to be a long-distance thing. But it is free long distance forever, and it's basically built into the cost of the car. And based on what we're seeing in terms of the economics, it looks quite supportable.

 

[gnxs]

Yep, Elon addressed the issue pretty directly in the meeting today. Wonder if I'll get a reminder since I've used my local SC a few times in the last few weeks.