Tesla Supercharger network

[W.Petefish]

I just was thinking on this. If you take locations of Test Drives into account, there are already superchargers installed and the drive locals would correspond to the supercharger locations. As seen at Fremont, they need to use the superchargers to charge the cars after a bunch of drives. (How else could they manage +5K drives w/ 12 stops at 3 days each?)

 

[TEG]

Unless they brought some kind of portable Supercharger.
Nissan did that with a big diesel generator on a truck connected to a CHAdeMO charger.

 

[rolosrevenge]

It should be worth mentioning, that they will have a plug adapter for the J1772 DC charger and that the Tesla solution supports the communication protocol. I've also read that several independent companies that are installing 50KW quick chargers are doing so with both CHAdeMO and J1772 plugs because the different plugs and protocols add very little overall cost compared with the rest of the system. If that's the case, there could be some nice 50KW chargers out there which won't be bad at all for quick charging.

 

[vfx]

Heard Supercharger comes late summer. E source.

 

[AnOutsider]

Heard Supercharger comes late summer. E source.

Actual chargers or announcement?

 

[ChadS]

Heard Supercharger comes late summer. E source.

Supercharger singular? I had hoped they would install more than one.

 

[smoothoperator]

From what I heard, Solar City will be involved somehow with these Superchargers

 

[agileone]

More comments from June 15th blog entry at EVTV - Jack Rickard :

In our last episode we talked about what it might take to put a fast charge station every 40 miles on all 47,300 miles of U.S. interstate and came up with a figure of $59 million at $50K per station. I found this an epiphany for me personally.

Now here is Musk, smugly alluding to the Supercharge Network he doesn't want to talk about, but is dying to talk about because he is so excited he's almost jumping up and down.

One of Musks other companies is Solar City. They basically have broken the mold on solar installations by financing the installation and tacking it onto your home mortgage. Your mortgage payment goes up, your utility payment goes down, and you put nothing into it at all. Really ever. The next buyer then pays off the mortgage at the sale.

This little financial innovation has caused Solar City to grow about as fast as they can hire people and buy trucks. They will be doing an IPO I'm told later this summer if the markets are favorable. I really thought Feed In Tarriffs were the way to go to get the solar thing off the ground. Solar City kind of made up their own and are doing well anyway.

Legacy legislation continues to confound and amaze new technologies. In California, it is actually illegal to sell electricity. This is part of the monopoly afforded the utility companies. So you can't take your electricity, mark it up, and sell it to your neighbor. This all kind of made sense in 1918. But doing charge stations for profit becomes a little problematical. The charge station manufacturers have invoked a theory that you are simply charging for access to the station - not the electric grid. That's a little bit thin if not outright dubious. I can see a battle in the future that could be really ugly.

But if you make your OWN electricity and sell it from your own grid, I'm not sure how that all reads. If you made electricity from solar, and stored it in batteries, and sold that to cars, I guess I'm not seeing a problem here. Who can object to what?

California has 8600 miles of "primary" highway out of their 16,800 miles of roads. If you put one every 100 miles, and sprinkled a handful in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, you could probably come up with about 100 charge stations. They would be a little more expensive with solar and batteries. But at a half a million apiece, that would be $50 million and at $1 million apiece that would be $100 million. And that's not necessarily money down a hole like free public charging stations. Let's say it was $20 to "fillup." I'd pay it. Say the average fillup was 60kWh. In California that's about $18 worth of electricity anyway from the grid. So paying a flat fee of $20 isn't' even an inconvenience.

Good work if you can get it. You're selling sunshine for 30 cents a kilowatt-hour. If 20,000 cars fill up twice a week, we are looking at $38.5 million a year income from an initial investment of $100 million. Each station has to charge 57 cars per day at that 60 kWh. That's 3420 kWh from 4.5 hours of sunshine or a 760 kW array. That's pretty big frankly. I don't know you can do that with batteries for $1 million. But with 38.5 million per year and a more realistic 10 year cap rate, we probably can for $3.85 million per station.

This can scale anywhere you want it to. If Musk just did it in California, and with Solar City's ability to purchase large amounts of solar panels, their costs have to be down around 85 cents per kWh, would this business model catch on nationally? I wouldn't' actually mind some of that action.

This ignores COMPLETELY that gasoline stations don't make squat on gasoline at all. ALL their income comes from Twinkies and cokes. We ARE talking about people charging for an hour. What do you have for them to do? Drink coffee and soda. Go to the rest room. Eat. Get online.

Suddenly, the necessary infrastructure looks like a business opportunity instead of a charity event or a place for our government to spend more money.

The end of the blog is even better, go read it here ...

 

[smorgasbord]

One of Musks other companies is Solar City. They basically have broken the mold on solar installations by financing the installation and tacking it onto your home mortgage.

I don't believe this is true. Solar City leases you the system for 20 years. Solar City keeps the rebates and gets to depreciate the system because it's a business capital expense for them. That's why the lease payment can be less than your electric bill. They don't "tack" onto your mortgage, they don't give you a second mortgage. Solar City was one of the pioneers, but all solar companies do leases these days.

...you could probably come up with about 100 charge stations. They would be a little more expensive with solar and batteries. But at a half a million apiece,

Huh? Nissan has a $10K Chademo station. Could be added to many businesses along the highways for a less than 20% of half a million bucks I would think. The bigger issue is the demand charge from the utility, which might be $1500 or so per month.

Each station has to charge 57 cars per day at that 60 kWh.

With 24 hours in a day and minimum 30 minutes per quick charge (for only 1/2 a fillup), you'd top out at 48 charges in a day.

 

[mklcolvin]

That sounds like: I5 in the West, I95 in the East, I80 in the North, and I10 in the South (hopefully). If you take away I10, then it looks like an H from the interstate map in this forum...

 

[mitch672]

The bigger issue is the demand charge from the utility, which might be $1500 or so per month..

One possibility is Tesla using solar city to provide the installation work, with a large solar array and battery storage at each supercharger location, the main idea being during the peak charge, to provide a large part of the energy from the onsite storage batteries, reducing or eliminating the demand charges. Off course it depends on how many cars per day, how much sun is availble etc. this would be an innovative solution to the demand charges, which so far has stopped wide spread deployment of DC fast chargers in California. This would be quite impressive if they can pull it off. It also is a game changer in that the energy to charge electric vehicles is from the sun, and is renewable, another thing Elon mentions several times.

 

[smorgasbord]

One possibility is Tesla using...a large solar array and battery storage at each supercharger location,...

Yeah, I thought about this as well. They'd need, what, 20,000 kWh of battery at each location, minimum? These locations could become the final use point for worn-out car batteries - the ultimate recycle. And, they could use solar to charge the big 85 kWh batteries they will rent you for your long trips.

The only way swapping makes sense for me given that they've sold the car with a battery is:
1) You make a reservation at each of the your swap points in advance).
2) At the first swap point, they take your personal battery, label it, and swap in a rental 85 kWh battery that's fully charged.
3) While you're on the rest of your trip your personal battery is charged by solar.
4) At all subsequent stops, they just swap in other 85 kWh rental batteries.
5) On your way home, you end stopping at your first swap location, where they give you your personal battery back, fully charged.

If you want to save some money, you get a Supercharge instead of a battery swap. That takes 30-60 minutes, depending on how much charge you need/want.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I'm really not seeing the logic of linking solar panels to batteries to SuperChargers. Electrical charge is not like milk: electric power is the same regardless of its source. If solar panels are economic, build them and sell the power into the grid. If batteries are economic to avoid high demand chargers, install them and charge them up with least-cost power.

Most locations where we'll want SuperChargers are not going to also have space to install a large solar array, nor the insolation to make such an array cost-effective.

 

[dsm363]

Maybe the solar panels are like the panel on the Karma's roof. There for eco cred more than anything.

 

[mitch672]

Robert, the batteries/solar only have 1 purpose: demand charge mitigation

Demand charges in California have almost completely stopped deployment of DC fast chargers.

Where solar is practical, it can be used to charge the battery bank, which is then switched on in parallel (perhaps even on the output side, since it's already DC) with the grid during fast charging, to keep the demand below 20KW. Where solar is not practical, the battery bank will charge slowly from grid power, so that it will be able to supply power during the next fast charge.

It isn't hard to figure this out, since Tesla is installing, maintaining and paying for their own supercharger infrastructure, the operational costs are very important. It will also show the rest of the industry how to do DC fast charging properly, and without $5K/month demand charges.

 

[Lloyd]

So the superchargers are putting out about 90 Kw. If they were pulling only from the grid they would need about 380 amps at 240v. If they take 1/2 of that load from batteries, then a 200 amp service would likely suffice and not have demand charges. The mandates that there is a 'recharge period' for the supercharger batteries to come back up to an adequate charge to be able to charge a car again. Possibly there will be multiple, or large enough, banks to pull from so back to back charges can be accomplished.

 

[markb1]

It isn't hard to figure this out, since Tesla is installing, maintaining and paying for their own supercharger infrastructure, the operational costs are very important. It will also show the rest of the industry how to do DC fast charging properly, and without $5K/month demand charges.

Admittedly, I don't really know anything about demand changes, but $5k per supercharger per month doesn't seem like that much, if the superchargers get a lot of use.

 

[mitch672]

Admittedly, I don't really know anything about demand changes, but $5k per supercharger per month doesn't seem like that much, if the superchargers get a lot of use.

That's the thing about demand charges, once you hit it, for any 15 minute period during the month, you have to pay them. Just a single charge, exceeding the threshold (usually 20KW) during the month will cause demand charges for the month.

If you're going to be hit with the demand charge, you might as well keep using that amount of power. I can't find the exact rates and calculations, let's just leave it that the demand charges are in addition to the KWH charged, and are much higher, and based on the maximum energy used during the highest 15 minute period that month. It also means larger feeders, transformers, etc need to be used to supply the site.

I think Tesla will want to design the supercharger network to avoid demand charges, whenever possible.

 

[TEG]

So the superchargers are putting out about 90 Kw. If they were pulling only from the grid they would need about 380 amps at 240v...

Typically DC QC uses 440/480V 3-phase input.
CHAdeMO 50kW is like 440V@125A. Tesla 90kW might be 440V@200A.
*but* 440V/480V is not available in as many places as 240V, so if they could have a battery buffer box "trickle charge" 240V@80A (~20kW) they could quick charge a 85kWh Model S like once every 4 hours or so. For the time being, I expect most of the Superchargers will spend more time idle than actually charging, so it might make sense.

On the other hand, if a "rally" of bunches of cars all showed up at once there could be some disappointment if it couldn't keep charging back to back.
I really have no idea what they have in mind. Waiting for the big announcement whatever it may be.

 

[richkae]

I found this document with some quick googling:
http://www.theevproject.com/downloads/documents/2.%20DC%20Fast%20Charge-Demand%20Charge%20Reduction%20V1.0%20Revised%20(2).pdf

I haven't read it thoroughly yet, just glanced through it - but it provides a bunch of interesting information about demand charges.