One partial answer to that is that an SpC site recently "discovered" arising in Illinois is at a Meijer grocery store; there have been enough nuggets appearing over the past year that, along with this, suggest that Meijer may provide many, many SpC sites. That would reduce a lot of the backoffice work Tesla has had to shoulder in earlier charging sites.
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Tesla Supercharger network
- Thread starter dsm363
- Start date
Doubling the supercharger network in 2017 would be on the order of $160 million (800 statons x $200,000 each), which is loose change compared to the capital cost of the Model 3 assembly line and gigafactory. I am skeptical of whether they have the staff to keep up with the supercharger expansion though.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I don't particularly mind if it extends to 2018 (even the particular stations that would be relevant to me), as long as they get around to it. It's great news regardless.
I don't believe the problem is staff because the construction is done by outside contractors. What slows down the process is the permitting. Depending upon the location, this can drag on for many months or even years.
Presumably a lot of the delay in permitting is related to knowing the right people to contact or reaching out to them regularly to push things along? That would be staff, too - just not construction staff.
I'm not 100% sure how much is subcontracted. Superchargers are built out of a stack of a dozen standard S/X charger modules wired in parallel, but I don't know if Tesla builds all of the modules in house or has the same vendor make them for the cars and Superchargers, or how much of the enclosure and extra circuitry they might bid out.
Before there is construction or even permitting, there is site selection and contracting with the landlord. That's done by Tesla staff and could potentially be a rate limiting step.
Some musings on crowding at SpCs
Now, at T=0, California, as the rest of the US and much of the rest of TeslaWorld knows and resents, leads the way in absolute # of Teslas (good on ya!) and in overfull SpC sites (something else!). At present there is a lot of expressed resentment toward Tesla concerning the inconvenience such waiting causes. But, as I'll try to explain below, this in itself is, indeed, a good thing. As follows:
Per today's blogpost, CA is destined to receive a lot more sites in a fairly short time...but also a lot more Teslas. This occurs in T=1
It seems to me that at an undefined T=2, CA will reach some metastable equilibrium wherein the universe of CATesla owner/drivers will have a pretty good understanding of the time-benefits of supercharging vs destination charging vs home charging vs driving more efficiently vs other inputs. Supercharging wait+use times will level out at some reasonable level and that "total use time" will itself translate into some Tesla Sales level. Easy to write mathematically but too difficult on this keyboard. Integrating this summation, one can derive the satisfaction quotient of this population base.
Easy to see the next step: with CA as the test case, Tesla can determine the appropriate SpC equilibrium level of the rest of its ever-broader reach.
The immediate risk I see in my little exercise is in assuming that, say, as tempers go in California, so they go in Maine.
Or in Austria.
Or in South Korea.
A catastrophically dangerous assumption, on the face of it.
BUT: relevant clues to the appropriate demographic differences amongst such populations are not invisible today, per each such location's charging habits - and these are known to the minutest detail by Tesla. Does the SpC Team employ demographers? I've no idea, but I can see it being of immediate benefit to the company and its long-term fortunes to have done just that.
And no: I haven't any nieces or nephews who hold such credentials. Nor am I looking for that kind of career change.
Easy peasy stuff, though, if you write your equations correctly.
Now, at T=0, California, as the rest of the US and much of the rest of TeslaWorld knows and resents, leads the way in absolute # of Teslas (good on ya!) and in overfull SpC sites (something else!). At present there is a lot of expressed resentment toward Tesla concerning the inconvenience such waiting causes. But, as I'll try to explain below, this in itself is, indeed, a good thing. As follows:
Per today's blogpost, CA is destined to receive a lot more sites in a fairly short time...but also a lot more Teslas. This occurs in T=1
It seems to me that at an undefined T=2, CA will reach some metastable equilibrium wherein the universe of CATesla owner/drivers will have a pretty good understanding of the time-benefits of supercharging vs destination charging vs home charging vs driving more efficiently vs other inputs. Supercharging wait+use times will level out at some reasonable level and that "total use time" will itself translate into some Tesla Sales level. Easy to write mathematically but too difficult on this keyboard. Integrating this summation, one can derive the satisfaction quotient of this population base.
Easy to see the next step: with CA as the test case, Tesla can determine the appropriate SpC equilibrium level of the rest of its ever-broader reach.
The immediate risk I see in my little exercise is in assuming that, say, as tempers go in California, so they go in Maine.
Or in Austria.
Or in South Korea.
A catastrophically dangerous assumption, on the face of it.
BUT: relevant clues to the appropriate demographic differences amongst such populations are not invisible today, per each such location's charging habits - and these are known to the minutest detail by Tesla. Does the SpC Team employ demographers? I've no idea, but I can see it being of immediate benefit to the company and its long-term fortunes to have done just that.
And no: I haven't any nieces or nephews who hold such credentials. Nor am I looking for that kind of career change.
Easy peasy stuff, though, if you write your equations correctly.
ccutrer
Active Member
From my idle clicking, the sites that were previously on the map are "Target opening by end of 2017" and new ones say "Target opening date to be confirmed". I can't find any listed earlier than that, aligning with the blog post comments about being open for summer travel. I wouldn't expect many of the newly listed locations (especially outside of CA) to open in 2017. But I'm open to a pleasant surprise! My "common" route has two more locations on it, which will be super nice because I hate having to hyper idle when it's super windy. So I'm pretty stoked!
I agree. It's probably worth mentioning this snippet from the blog post:
Surely this is just marketing speak for "we already have some in progress" and not that they're about to blow out a ton before summer.Tesla Motors Blog said:
I hope to be pleasantly surprised, of course.
I tabulated all the Coming Soon superchargers which are targeted to open in 2017 in the U.S. and Canada. There are 288, of which the locations of 23 are known to TMC. The sites whose openings have no target date include I-94 across North Dakota and I-40 across Arkansas, which tells me that Tesla is prioritizing relieving/avoiding congestion over building out new routes.
MikeBur
ManualPilot
There's been a few differing rumours on potential partners and some examples, such as Meijer, which appear to reinforce co-location with supermarkets. One major plus is that TM have partnered with a few Kroger stores and smartly placed the stations *away* from store entrances to minimize ICEing. If true, then my bet/hope* would be some imminent partner announcement with Kroger.
Kroger owns many brands and stores and when combined with the statement about new SpC rollout to be comprehending needs of those without at-home chargers would appear to be win:win for many
Uh.... all the new ones in DC Metro said 'opening 2017'. I didn't see anything that said TBD unless this was a revision after the site came back up yesterday and some errors were corrected (like the current Woodbridge SC that was missing was replaced).
Let me take a current look. That would sure make sense that everything wasn't getting done in the next 8 months!
Yep, all D.C. Metro still 2017 but I do see MT and ND as you say. Looks like they are definitely prioritizing metro and/or 'where the 3's are'!
ccutrer
Active Member
I'm probably colored by familiarity with "my" routes. Newly announced Superchargers of Heyburn, ID, Mountain Home, ID, Ontario, OR, are all completely TBD. I-80 through Wyoming have all been on the map for years, and are listed as 2017. St. George, UT #2 is newly announced, and listed as 2017, so that's one against my point. Outside of these areas I'm just not as familiar with what had previously been announced or not.
Yeah, I have no idea what was 'previously announced' either... and I don't believe many or any in DC metro were. Some down and up the coast, perhaps. But plopping 6 or 7 (depending how you count metro, one across the Chesapeake Bay bridge), is a huge add.
As I said in the local thread, at least we all do have the difference in priority between '2017' and 'TBD', whatever they may actually turn out to be.
As I said in the local thread, at least we all do have the difference in priority between '2017' and 'TBD', whatever they may actually turn out to be.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
That is a great call. I just did a google search for two towns in MT I am interested in and called them. One is checking and will call me back and the other said they haven't seen any permits yet.
Googling found phone numbers in just a few seconds: Planning and Zoning <city> <state>
Many of the more established towns/counties have searchable online records as well, or at a minimum, image PDFs of the minutes from their planning meetings. I've done searches in the past this way.
So far at least 2-3 (out of 265 with unknown locations) have been found:
Erwin, NY (in possibly protracted permitting process)
Tupelo, MS (construction almost complete!)
Baker, CA (permit information is suggestive but not definitive that it will be a Tesla supercharger)
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