Tesla Supercharger network

[Larry Chanin]

It's really just a question, not a point. I'm wondering why the "South Coast" is not talked about as much as "East Coast" and "West Coast". After thinking about it a little, my first guess would be that the east and west coast are more important due to their ports being more important economically.

Yes, I got that off-topic remark. :wink:

I was referring to your other remark, "And there seems little asking for a network along it."

Larry

 

[Norbert]

Yes, I got that off-topic remark. :wink:

I was referring to your other remark, "And there seems little asking for a network along it."

Maybe it would be better to say: Unlike for East and West Coast, I didn't notice more asking for "South Coast" than for other regions within the country.

 

[ckessel]

It's really just a question, not a point. I'm wondering why the "South Coast" is not talked about as much as "East Coast" and "West Coast". After thinking about it a little, my first guess would be that the east and west coast are more important due to their ports being more important economically.

That's probably part of it. I'm guessing part of is also the long standing mangling of the term "west" that dates back a very long time. Chicago, for example, is in the "mid-west" which is an absurd name since it's east of the center of the US. It should be the mid-east and something like Wyoming would be mid-west.

Consequently, if you're talking about a "western" state that can be really vague because it could be anything from Illinois to California. West "coast" helps clarify just how west we're really talking.

Not sure why the south coast doesn't get used as a phrase, though you do fairly often hear about the "Gulf" coast, typically in reference to hurricanes .

 

[jvonbokel]

It's seems extremely unlikely that each of these areas is only getting one supercharger. A single supercharger isn't much use and they've never rolled out an isolated supercharger previously.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The Pacific Northwest could easily start with one, between Seattle and Portland, or could just as easily start with 2 (adding Seattle-to-Vancouver). In Texas, they'll likely need at least 3 - one on each edge of the triangle made up of Austin, Dallas, and Houston. In Illinois, however, I think they'll almost certainly start with just one location, along I-55 between St Louis and Chicago (we've heard many rumors centered on Bloomington). Florida will likely require more than one as well, because while the peninsula has a large number of reservations/owners, they're more spread out along the two sides rather than concentrated in a couple cities.

 

[dennis]

Not sure why the south coast doesn't get used as a phrase, though you do fairly often hear about the "Gulf" coast, typically in reference to hurricanes .

And in those endlessly repeated ads from BP post oil spill cleanup.

 

[gregincal]

Maybe I completely misread Greg's statement, I thought he was referring to individual supercharger units at the same location (e.g., 5 at Harris Ranch). I would fully expect to see each state eventually get an SC between major cities within the state and in neighboring states. And indeed I hope each of the three recently mentioned states get that immediately, though that might be a long shot. Why can't they just add an image to the SC page on their site with "Coming Soon" dots, like they did for Service Centers? Would that be so hard? If they are within months or weeks of opening, you would think the leases and permits are already secured.

I'm definitely talking about sites, and I don't see why it's a long shot for there to be at least two sites opening up in each of the mentioned areas. I find it much more unlikely that there will only be one.

 

[JakeP]

I hope you are right Greg, the more the better. Seems like CA went with the big bang approach, and the NE received the absolute minimum coverage. Eager to see what the next batch brings.

 

[mitch672]

Interesting analysis of Teslas "SuperCharger" business model by Randy Carlson

SuperCharging Tesla - Seeking Alpha

 

[palmer_md]

Interesting analysis of Teslas "SuperCharger" business model by Randy Carlson

SuperCharging Tesla - Seeking Alpha

what is the bottom line? I did not get to read the second page because they make you sign up, and everything I read on that site is garbage, so I'll never sign up. Even this article on the first page is loaded with garbage. One example.

Tesla stock plummeted recently when it was 'discovered' that their electric cars will stop all by themselves if driven past the point where the charge gauge reads zero.

Has nobody discovered that an ICE will stop when the gas gauge gets to zero?

 

[arg]

what is the bottom line? I did not get to read the second page because they make you sign up, and everything I read on that site is garbage, so I'll never sign up.

You can read the 2nd page without signing up by using "view source" on your browser. The text is all in one lump in the source, albeit surrounded by reams of javascript - remember a keyword from the bit you can see to search for in the source. Then read as-is, or if you care about illustrations etc, cut&paste into a separate document to view.

In this case, his bottom line was that selling lifetime Supercharger access for $1500 a pop is highly profitable. His thesis is that Tesla can't monetize their advantage in EV tech by building vehicles without needing a lot of extra capital, and simply licensing their technology to others won't bring enough margin. However, if they license the vehicle technology but keep hold of the Superchargers, and have the supercharger network built out, then they can make a lot more margin by selling supercharger access to these vehicles that have been built by other manufacturers.

I'm not at all sure he's right, but it's an interesting read.

 

[mitch672]

The bottom line is the author is long TSLA, and concludes that the SuperCharger network has the potential to make twice as much money in 10 years as Tesla building 120,000 cars per year (as they will be licensing SuperCharger access to their likely partners Mercedes and Toyota, who will be building 3-4 million Vehices/year with SC access), for $1,500 per vehicle.

It's a very detailed analysis, you should read it.

 

[markb1]

what is the bottom line? I did not get to read the second page because they make you sign up, and everything I read on that site is garbage, so I'll never sign up. Even this article on the first page is loaded with garbage. One example.

Tesla stock plummeted recently when it was 'discovered' that their electric cars will stop all by themselves if driven past the point where the charge gauge reads zero.

Has nobody discovered that an ICE will stop when the gas gauge gets to zero?

I take the quotes around "discovered" to mean "yeah, duh, of course it stops when it runs out of juice".

 

[andystj]

It's really just a question, not a point. I'm wondering why the "South Coast" is not talked about as much as "East Coast" and "West Coast". After thinking about it a little, my first guess would be that the east and west coast are more important due to their ports being more important economically.

Manifest Destiny was an east to west phenomenon, and expansion of the US from the original 13 westward to the Pacific may be a partial explanation. The Coast in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the west side of Florida are referred to as the Gulf Coast.

Frankly "South Coast" would be confusing because of the existence of Mexico.

 

[Citizen-T]

The bottom line is the author is long TSLA, and concludes that the SuperCharger network has the potential to make twice as much money in 10 years as Tesla building 120,000 cars per year (as they will be licensing SuperCharger access to their likely partners Mercedes and Toyota, who will be building 3-4 million Vehices/year with SC access), for $1,500 per vehicle.

It's a very detailed analysis, you should read it.

Yeah, the "discovered" comment was clearly sarcastic.

 

[DriverOne]

It's really just a question, not a point. I'm wondering why the "South Coast" is not talked about as much as "East Coast" and "West Coast". After thinking about it a little, my first guess would be that the east and west coast are more important due to their ports being more important economically.

Though not the "South Coast", it has a name - the Gulf Coast. Why it's never referred to as the South Coast I don't know! After all, we have the Eastern seaboard, the Atlantic coast, the east coast etc. But the Gulf coast... only merits one name!

Ports on the Gulf Coast are very important - Houston for oil, and Louisiana for much of everything else. LA alone has 5 of the top 15 ports in the US. Both Houston and the Port of the South Louisiana are in the world's top ten busiest ports. The Mississippi connects much of the mid-west.

 

[jkirkebo]

Some of us Norwegians have made a map of suggested SuperCharger locations in Norway,to see how many are needed. The end result was 41, of which 24 is important:

Tesla SC foreslåtte lokasjoner i Norge

Color codes:

Dark red: Stage 1 - 6 location. Very important locations, opens up travel between the largest cities.
Red: Stage 2 - 9 locations. Opens up multiple routes between cities, adds flexibility.
Blue: Stage 3 - 9 locations. Opens up the north of Norway
Green: Stage 4 - 17 locations. Infill, more flexibility, relieves eventual congestions at Stage 1&2 sites.

My hope is for something like Stage1&2 to be finished before the end of 2014, Stage 3 in 2015 and Stage 4 as needed in 2016-onwards. I hope this is doable for Tesla.

Selling for example 2000 cars here per year they will have about 3 million dollars per year to expand the system (counting $1500 per car towards SuperCharging, $2000 fee (for 60kWh, built into 85kWh price) minus $500 hardware cost). That should be enough for 10 new locations per year + maintenance.

 

[Banahogg]

Cool map jkirkebo. If Tesla is selling enough cars in Norway to make that many superchargers worthwhile for 5M people, we'll all be pretty happy.

Maybe they should just have a "Teslagruten" car ferry with on-board superchargers to handle the west coast cities up to Trondheim

 

[jkirkebo]

Cool map jkirkebo. If Tesla is selling enough cars in Norway to make that many superchargers worthwhile for 5M people, we'll all be pretty happy.

Maybe they should just have a "Teslagruten" car ferry with on-board superchargers to handle the west coast cities up to Trondheim

Well, charging on a ferry would be from fossil fuel so that's a "no" vote from me

 

[Bipo]

That should be enough for 10 new locations per year + maintenance.

The problem is that in Norway the Sun does not shine enough to provide full energy to SC (IMHO), so the long-term costs for Tesla will be larger there than in the USA or other Southern countries :/

 

[jkirkebo]

The problem is that in Norway the Sun does not shine enough to provide full energy to SC (IMHO), so the long-term costs for Tesla will be larger there than in the USA or other Southern countries :/

It's true that we have less sun, so you need more solar panels to generate the same amount. However, we also do not have the same type of demand charges that exists in CA, so grid the grid connection should be cheaper. The power would also be cheaper than in CA, spot price is around 5-6 cents per kWh + delivery now.

BTW, solar is not the only game in town for renewables here. Small hydro is also a possibility.

Also I'd think we don't need as many stalls per location. The blue ones covering the north should be fine with just two stalls, also at the green ones would 2 suffice I think. The dark red ones need 4 or maybe 6 at half of them. The regular red ones would need 4 at most.