JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Maybe someday but not anytime soon. I'm pretty sure if current fleet customers thought they had utility and were currently asking Tesla for them, (and were willing to pay), they would be getting them.
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SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
That is my guess too. A 100 Amp L2 branch circuit is good for about 20 kW, or about 100 miles of driving a day if overnight charging is 10 hours. Put in two to double the daily range. If the use case fits it strikes me as an obvious choice compared to $50 - $100k for DC charging, even before considering demand charges.
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SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
They are only making the 500 mile range version at this point. That would be an awful waste of batteries, and efficiency from carrying all the extra weight.
Oh so now Tesla has to find room to put a second charger, third charge port, and all the additional wiring and contactors. Yeah, that isn't ever going to happen.
I doubt that a "slow" Tesla Megacharging solution will cost that much. I think a 12 stall Supercharger site costs ~$250k. Though I guess that would be ~$80k for a single ~360kW stall. But maybe they will make a custom ~100kW single stall solution that would be closer to $30k.
But in reality, they probably have enough orders for the 500 mile range, where the purchaser wants 4+ Megachargers on site to eat up the next couple years of production.
tl;dr: It may be that people that only need ~100 miles of range per day with AC charging will be better off buying a Semi from the "competition".
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SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Even a 72 kW solution like they have already built might be a good solution
For 480v 3phase, that would be kW = 0.83 * Amps, so about 66 kW using a 100Amp circuit
How cheap can they be ?
Or perhaps 480V 3 phase AC OBC rated for 100 Amps. Perhaps they could use their current EU boards in triplicate
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One of the big advantages that trucking has over rail is that the trucks aren't restricted to operating on rail lines. Having the option to AC charge would maintain that freedom of operation advantage. At least until the DC charging networks are as matured as today's diesel pump network.
First, it was actually just a standard 150kW V2 cabinet just split evenly between two stalls, instead of giving priority to the first car plugged in. (This has since been changed and all V2 now split evenly if two cars are plugged in.)
Second, that was the V2 Superchargers that were built using a stack of the original Model S AC chargers. I don't think they make it anymore.
Maybe once they start making the 300 mile range Semi, and they no longer have enough demand for "full" Megachargers they will make a "baby" Megacharger. But I suspect they probably won't. (Or maybe people would be able to buy a third-party MCS charger, assuming that Tesla will move the Semi to the final MCS connector design, once it has been ratified.)
petit_bateau
Active Member
I bet a lot of truckers will want to rent a Semi for a while before committing to buy (likely with a long lead time for delivery). I bet a rental option will appear in the market to rent a Semi for a week or a month on a 'try-out' basis. Not necessarily rent from Tesla, maybe from somebody addressing that need. And in that case the ability to 'just' charge - however slowly - off a 100A x 230V 1ph outlet would be very handy.
100A*230V = 23kW / 2kWh (efficiently and mileage) = 12 miles per hour * 20 = 240 miles per day with 4 hours of 60 MPH driving
Didn't Tesla say that they were working with the Semi customers to make sure they got adequate charging installed where needed along with purchasing the Semi? I don't see that there will be any need to have rental Teslas. I'm not saying that some people won't have the desire to rent one, but Tesla has all the demand they need, and I don't see how renting a Semi that you can't actual use would be of any help. (Unless the rental agency was close to your business and had Megachargers installed for you to use. But coordinating that use with multiple rental customers would likely be painful.)
And where 100A of 3 phase power is available, the battery could be fully charged in around 11 hours. Grabbing an extra 50-100 kWh might be just the ticket to get to the closest DC fast charger station en route safely.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
It's great to hear from people actually involved in trucking. Would a real-world range of 300 miles work for either of you? Do you swap trailers daily, or does one trailer pretty much stick with one tractor? Who handles routine maintenance and unexpected repairs?
Why would converting from AC to DC inside the truck be vastly cheaper than doing it in the depot? Especially since a single depot charger can supply multiple trucks.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Why does your EV have an OBC ? It comes down to flexibility and scale. DC chargers are $100k+, while an OBC starts at somewhere around $1,000. If DC chargers were make in the millions I'm sure the conclusions would be different
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Huh. My guess is the opposite. If it is not needed, DC is just too expensive to install and to use
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Nice idea -- I hope it happens.
To the extent that trucks are just cars that use 6x the energy per mile, if L2 at 16A is a useful minimum for car, then L2 at 100A would do the same for a truck.
Which reminds me again that I am jealous of the EU/UK 3Phase grid.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Don't be jealous of the UK one, only of the Continental one.
In the UK single phase to dwellings is the norm, albeit at 220/240V; and many commercial locations are also on single phase. Elsewhere in the Continent it is fairly common to get three phase to dwellings, and ordinarily to all commercial locations.
It has all got to do with the discount rate used to evaluate the original grid build out programmes back in the 1930s and 1950s - the UK/AUS/USA/CAN/NZ used high discount rates and so they chose single phase distribution. In contrast the more statist economies applied lower discount rates in their economic evaluations and so chose three phase grids.
But we all got the voltage right enough, i.e. 220/240V (at 1ph) or 415/440V (at 3ph) give or take the permissible variation which overlaps enough.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Understood, although it still means the last transformer is a 3phase ... right ?
Doggydogworld
Active Member
I think it's more about power level than scale. Here's a 10 kW DC charger for $2800.
A cheap 7.2 kW OBC isn't at all useful for a Semi. And high power OBCs aren't sold in millions of units, so the scale argument falls flat.
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