Tesla Supercharger network

[Missile Toad]

Another new country:
Tesla Superchargers In UAE

Just letting this sink in... When TSLA puts in enough SuperChargers to go from UAE to Jeddah on the Red Sea, you will know that disruption is truly in full flow. I wonder how much wealth from the Arabian Peninsula is going into TSLA as a hedge against a precarious future?

 

[dgpcolorado]

The Island is gradually getting more CHAdeMO outlets as well: already there's 1 in Victoria, 1 in Duncan, 1 in Nanaimo, and I can't remember where else (I don't have the adapter).

But the really good news is, there's a supercharger coming to the north Nanaimo / near Parksville area "Tesla soon"; apparently they've been in final landowner negotiations for a few months. That will open up Tofino/Ucuelet and Mount Washington (Courtenay/Comox) easily.

Yes, I noticed a number of Greenlots DCFC stations nicely located on your island (via plugshare, as usual). And I did spot a possible Supercharger Station on Tesla's 2017 map, although those don't always show up as planned. If that Supercharger Station in the Parksville/Nanaimo area turns out to be real, that changes everything for Teslas there.

 

[jerry33]

My guess is that will never happen. The protocols and connector are too different and you would have a very large cumbersome Y shaped adapter adding extra weigh hanging off the charge port. (Or you end up with a daisy chain adapter which I think would add too much connector loss.)

This ^^^

I can see a separate CCS adapter, but not a combo.

 

[CHRGIT]

From insideevs.com regarding today's earnings call.

Pretty much underlining the fact that all the Tesla Model 3 deliveries will be kicking off in North America, Tesla said they will be putting its emphasis on expanding the Supercharger footprint in the US and Canada during 2017.

“We plan to accelerate expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.”

 

[ohmman]

“We plan to accelerate expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.”

Interesting that they used the word "locations" here. That's arguably different than saying "Supercharger stations," which could include expansions at existing sites. Locations may or may not mean, well, locations.

 

[emupilot]

“We plan to accelerate expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.”

Cool! Let's see, there were 337 at the end of 2016... they already have 9 down and... 328 to go. Ummm, Elon? I think you're a little bit off pace.

 

[Electroman]

What about service centers?

Probably more critical than Superchargers

 

[ohmman]

What about service centers?

Probably more critical than Superchargers

They addressed that by saying they'd refocus on ranger service. Interesting move - requires a lot of road time (and therefore salary expense), but much less infrastructure. It's also much more scalable and nimbly responds to demand.

 

[Electroman]

Ranger service is NOT a substitute for more service centers !!

 

[MP3Mike]

Ranger service is NOT a substitute for more service centers !!

Yes it is, at least for Tesla. From the Q4 letter: "In service, since more than 80% of our repairs are so minor that they can be done remotely, we are expanding our mobile repair service that allows Tesla to make vehicle repairs at an owner’s home or office."

So they can reduce trips to the service centers by 80%. I think that reduces the need for more/larger service centers. And with proper routing their ranger can travel fewer miles while getting all of that done than people driving their cars into the service center and then getting a loaner/Uber to be able to go about their day. So way cheaper, and more convenient for the owners. Sure they may have to hire more service personal, but that isn't an issue. They can even have them homed out of a small office/warehouse hundreds of miles from a real service center.

 

[jerry33]

Yes it is, at least for Tesla. From the Q4 letter: "In service, since more than 80% of our repairs are so minor that they can be done remotely, we are expanding our mobile repair service that allows Tesla to make vehicle repairs at an owner’s home or office."

So they can reduce trips to the service centers by 80%. I think that reduces the need for more/larger service centers. And with proper routing their ranger can travel fewer miles while getting all of that done than people driving their cars into the service center and then getting a loaner/Uber to be able to go about their day. So way cheaper, and more convenient for the owners. Sure they may have to hire more service personal, but that isn't an issue. They can even have them homed out of a small office/warehouse hundreds of miles from a real service center.

I'd guess they'd now work out of the big van, like some plumbing outfits do. They could carry quite a few parts, as it's running back to the SC for parts that's the time waster.

 

[Rocky_H]

I'd guess they'd now work out of the big van, like some plumbing outfits do. They could carry quite a few parts, as it's running back to the SC for parts that's the time waster.

I don't see why they would need to carry a lot of unknown parts around in a big van for the most part. They schedule ranger visits a little while in advance for a certain problem to be fixed. They know what parts it takes to fix that problem. So the set up service calls A, B, and C, and they collect the parts needed for those repairs and head out. The service center is over 300 miles away from me, and they handle it just fine that way. Get on their schedule for their next trip in a few weeks, and they hit up several visits in a day or two with just a pickup truck, rather than needing a big van full of parts.

 

[Saghost]

I'd guess they'd now work out of the big van, like some plumbing outfits do. They could carry quite a few parts, as it's running back to the SC for parts that's the time waster.

I'd assume they'd be using inventory S/X cars mostly - the ones that they don't have to give out as loaners since they aren't taking all those cars into the service center. It'd be bad for brand image if they showed up in a big smoky diesel step van.

 

[AudubonB]

Just an innocuous post here: a shout out for the first Supercharger in New Zealand. Hamilton's SpC opened today; am hoping for the sake of my family that the two islands will see another two dozen or so in the fairly near future.
Congratulations to all the current and future Kiwi Tesla owners!

 

[Patrick0101]

Do you call it Kōkua charging or Lagom charging or just not being a plug hog?
Cars With Cords: Supercharger Hidden Grace Period

 

[Bet TSLA]

Cool! Let's see, there were 337 at the end of 2016... they already have 9 down and... 328 to go. Ummm, Elon? I think you're a little bit off pace.

I think you are forgetting the 25 in Canada and 1 in Mexico (at least I'm guessing that isn't in the USA count). So according to supercharge.info today there are 372 superchargers in North America, and so far 11 new ones this year. That's 361 to be doubled in 2017. That's one per day, with an allowance for one missed day per quarter.

I sure hope they have a clear plan to achieve this, as it seems a real stretch to me. The hard part so far has been permitting and getting the utilities to do their bit; accelerating those things won't be simple. Perhaps they mean to change direction and deploy a whole bunch to two slot "temporary" superchargers? Even so they don't seem to have solved the slow charging problem, and there's the hint that a new generation of superchargers is coming soon. This is a real puzzle.

And yes, they're way off the pace.

 

[wdolson]

What about service centers?

Probably more critical than Superchargers

They are quietly expanding the existing service centers now. I was scheduled for a visit to replace buzzing headlights in March and they were able to move it back to this week because they now have more people working at the Portland service center. Parking around there has gotten nuts, but they are pumping a lot more cars through the SCs now

They addressed that by saying they'd refocus on ranger service. Interesting move - requires a lot of road time (and therefore salary expense), but much less infrastructure. It's also much more scalable and nimbly responds to demand.

This would be fantastic. I live on the opposite corner of the Portland metro area from the service center. It's 40 miles, which is closer than a lot of people, but it takes more than an hour round trip because of traffic. I had to schedule 4 hours out of my week to take the car in (2 round trips).

I'd guess they'd now work out of the big van, like some plumbing outfits do. They could carry quite a few parts, as it's running back to the SC for parts that's the time waster.

Most of the time they would have some idea what the problem is before going out on a service call so they would have the parts needed for that day's calls stocked in the morning before they head out. They would also carry a stock of commonly replaced things like wiper blades, air filters, etc. all the time. Sometimes they might need to make multiple stops for the same problem, but say they come to your town once a week, they could stop by on this week's visit to do an analysis of the problem, then come back next week and do the fix. It would likely require two trips to the service center if they need to diagnose a problem, then order parts and have you come back to have them installed. That's what happened with the headlight issue with me. Fortunately for me I had to be somewhere a few blocks away the day of the first visit, so it wasn't quite the hassle it normally would have been.

In any case, I would expect all or almost all ranger calls to be by appointment and they would know what they are doing days in advance.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Just an innocuous post here: a shout out for the first Supercharger in New Zealand. Hamilton's SpC opened today; am hoping for the sake of my family that the two islands will see another two dozen or so in the fairly near future.
Congratulations to all the current and future Kiwi Tesla owners!

Hopefully Tesla tuned AP for sheep detection.

 

[Gerasimental]

Simply don't see a doubling of locations happening unless there is a major partnership. Might this be what's going on here? Would be pretty awesome if it got announced during the M3 deliveries event.

 

[Rocky_H]

Simply don't see a doubling of locations happening unless there is a major partnership. Might this be what's going on here? Would be pretty awesome if it got announced during the M3 deliveries event.

"Double" is just an exciting sounding word he likes to throw out relating to increasing a lot of things at Tesla. It rarely pans out to actually double in the time period he says.