Tesla Supercharger network

[CapitalistOppressor]

Interesting (potential) caveat for anyone wanting to take their Model S out tomorrow to try out a SuperCharger.

Tesla unveils faster electric car charging station - US News and World Report

The first six, which were developed and deployed in secret, are in Barstow, Hawthorne, Lebec, Coalinga, Gilroy and Folsom. Tesla spokeswoman Christina Ra said they are open only to company employees, but would be available to the public in early October.

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Somebody said that about people living in Barstow and Folsom etc. Buy an S and have free gas for life in town.

The cost for electricity is extremely low. I doubt a ton of people who are buying a $60,000 car (minimum for MS60) are going to go take an hour out of their life to save ~$10 or whatever it is to charge up during off peak hours.

 

[vfx]

Or, some tech to throw down against the massive CHAdeMO invasion .

Out of the gate there are now double the CHAdeMO chargers in CA right?

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Only thing I'd like to point out is that the list of cities by population is a poor choice. Here are the top 30 metropolitan areas according to the Census Bureau.

It's based on car sales.

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Yeah, I was surprised by that response too. We probably need a second confirmation on that. If so, that's unlike the vast majority of EVs out there.

I can confirm. The Tesla employee said JB said the car can totally handle it.

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The cost for electricity is extremely low. I doubt a ton of people who are buying a $60,000 car (minimum for MS60) are going to go take an hour out of their life to save ~$10 or whatever it is to charge up during off peak hours.

Unless they worked across the street. I charged at a local Nissan dealership. The guy unplugging his Leaf worked at the Jewish center across the street.

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Anyone talking about impact on batteries? You all own your own, how many times a week will you want to do this.

As much as you want. The car protects the batteries.

Free to use is obviously an attractive price but how will other owners that don't use them feel about paying for them in the costs of their cars and servicing?

they will fell the price is built into only the expensive cars that can use them

For comparison, the $10,000 upgrade fee between base and mid battery would pay my Better Place subscription for more than 4 years or 50,000 miles!

But you would not be driving a Tesla.

How many cars get full speed charge simultaneously?

Two or four depending on the site configuration.


If Tesla would embrace battery switching you could get 240 miles in a couple of minutes and stop to eat where you choose.

These site are in far flung waystations not cities.

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I'm actually hoping that the sites have hpwc in addition to the superchargers. If I am spending the night at that best western I don't need 90kW, just 20 (or even 10).

Many Roadster owners were upset that These sites have no planned HPCs.

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I think its more likely that the initial stations are just incomplete. Tesla went for a quick and dirty build to get some operational charge points.

No. all sites are different. 1-6 units, sometimes solar and sometimes not.....[/QUOTE]

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Just crank it back then. In the car you have the ability to dial back the charging rate, right?....

These sites need HPCs for Roadsters.

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...
The big idea that has been kicking around (aside from taxing carbon, which wouldn't for for EV's) is to meter usage directly at the car. Privacy concerns have kept that idea bottled up for now, but something will need to be done.

Mileage could be logged with DMV registration. Smog checks log miles too.

 

[arg]

How can t hey NOT use batteries or capacitors ? What kind of grid connection do you need for six cars to charge at 100-120kW? Seems like that wild require infrastructure upgrades for most locations.

If you look at the spy photos captured by TMC's agent in Folsom, they've laid in a 500KVA grid connection (it's scrawled on the side of the transformer box):

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10286-Possible-supercharger-location-in-Folsom-CA

 

[vfx]

The Teslobolisk

is actually the Supercharger full of the AC to DC converters. At some sites it just may be the "refrigerator" box we saw at Tesla events. I got mixed answers if the Teslobolisk would be employed everywhere. This one served two cars and there was a box offsite serving two more.

The LED lights only pull 9 watts.

You need it in person to get what it's doing. There are colored lights on the side. If the side is red then the sites are full. There is a Luxor pyramid type light at the top shooting a beam into the sky.

I'll post more tomorrow to details the functions. I like it a lot. I did not think it looked like "anything" but when asked I compared it to a bottle of shampoo different than many of the more salacious[FONT=arial, sans-serif][/FONT]commenters.

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There are no batteries at the site. It's something they can do but it's not in the works.

This is a permanent facility at the design center and open to the public.

 

[spatterso911]

The Teslobolisk

is actually the Supercharger full of the AC to DC converters. At some sites it just may be the "refrigerator" box we saw at Tesla events. I got mixed answers if the Teslobolisk would be employed everywhere. This one served two cars and there was a box offsite serving two more.

The LED lights only pull 9 watts.

You need it in person to get what it's doing. There are colored lights on the side. If the side is red then the sites are full. There is a Luxor pyramid type light at the top shooting a beam into the sky.

I'll post more tomorrow to details the functions. I like it a lot. I did not think it looked like "anything" but when asked I compared it to a bottle of shampoo different than many of the more salacious[FONT=arial, sans-serif][/FONT]commenters.

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There are no batteries at the site. It's something they can do but it's not in the works.

This is a permanent facility at the design center and open to the public.

If the local ordinances allow it, they will build the Teslobelisk (liking the name...)

I was told that in cities or areas that prohibit building the Teslobelisk, the hardware will be placed in the non-descript boxes.

 

[sublimaze1]

In case anyone was wondering, the songs used during the reveal are:
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (Dirtyphonics Remix) - Skrillex (from the album More Monsters and Sprites)
The Veldt - deadmau5 feat. Chris James

Ha! Was going to shazam that today - now I don't have to. Well placed and appreciated side bar to this thread ....

 

[jerry33]

They included Texas and put them between the major cities like we asked for. Amazing. I can really ditch my Jetta now.

And it's close enough to the routes I drive that I can do at least some supercharging--although it might have to be supplemented just a bit.

 

[sublimaze1]

@jerry33 and @dsm363

Yes, I was pleased to see the corridors between DFW and HOU, DFW and SAT and SAT and HOU lined with a red dot. This makes my day, as those are routes I take every year (Sea World, Sister, Schiltterbahn, etc.) and can now plan to take the Model S rather than the Nissan Armada (lordy that thing is massive). My brother in law has a welder in the garage, so I get to have the right adapter to charge there ... but it certainly takes Range Anxiety and nearly eliminates it.

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(sorry for many posts back to back, My ADD is kicking in).

As for the "some" will have solar arrays ... my guess is that Texas and California desert will, but Portland and Seattle may not. I cannot see the benefit with 60-90 sunny days as compared to our 225-270 sunny days. But, this is opinion.

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So, now, someone with some insider needs to post a timeline.

 

[borlock]

According to Puget Sound Energy, in all but the darkest of skies you can still get 50% to 70% efficiency from Solar. So Solar is not entirely unusable over here.

 

[Todd Burch]

I don't see how I can do a normal trip without supercharging at least twice. The best I can come up with is the first (non-supercharge) gets 260 miles, then 240, and 150. Then charge overnight at the day's destination.

I guess my estimate was a little low...but it looks like it's a moot point now. The second supercharge can be a standard charge (or BOTH can be!) and you don't need to worry about the number of times you supercharge! (If you're getting the 85 kWh battery, a standard charge should get you from one supercharger to another in a lot of cases, once the network's built out).

 

[JRP3]

I hope you're right (or the techs are right who you've gotten that info from), but it just doesn't jive with physics or battery chemistry as I understand it.

Actually it may. A supercharger at 90kw charging an 85kwh pack is just over 1C rate, many lithium chemistry can handle much more than that, I expect the new Panasonic chemistry that Tesla is using can at least handle it, especially since the cars have active cooling. I think Tesla knows what they are doing.

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Nice to see so many people excited about driving beyond the range of their battery as I do almost every week! What a pity Tesla didn't go for a world class solution to match their car! 6 miles a minute for you guys, 15 miles a minute for my inferior Renault Israel

If Tesla would embrace battery switching you could get 240 miles in a couple of minutes and stop to eat where you choose.

With a Model S you don't need to stop as often as you do in your Renault. I don't see how a 265+mile Model S is the least bit limited for 99.99% of all driving, and then only slightly so for the other 0.01% of driving. In actual miles you are trapped in Israel, while a Model S can go much much farther already. You can swap yourself in circles all you like :wink:

 

[daniel]

This is great news. An extensive supercharger system will be a game-changer for EVs. However, there are no stations in, or east of, or north of Spokane on the two-year map, and on the long-term map there's one in Spokane, but none east or north. IOW I could drive to Seattle (which I could do in the Roadster if I wanted to stop at the one HPC on the way for a couple of hours) but in the direction I actually drive, there's nothing. Guess I'll be driving the Prius on my summer hiking trips for the long term. OTOH, a 500-mile car and overnight charging at hotels, would make superchargers obsolete. 500 miles @ 2.5 miles/KwH = 200 kWh; 200 kWh/10 hours overnight charge = 20 kW charging rate. That's well within the realm of possibility. Maybe in a decade. If we settle for 400 miles and assume 3 miles/kWh the pack need only be 133 kWh and require only slightly over a 13 kW charging rate. 400 miles @ 65 mph is 6 hours of driving. But you need a buffer for unexpected detours.

 

[tdelta1000]

Tesla Motors has may another bold statement to the automotive world...play ball or play catch up.

 

[ElSupreme]

So, what the limit on 'Free' charging? There is always a limit.

Can I buy a Model S as a Taxi and continually hit my local cities supercharger 3x a day, every day? I'm sure there is/will be fine print somewhere on how many charges per day/week per location, etc.

If the SC is along my work commute, can I stop 2x/week and 'fill up'? This just added a remarkable amount of value if so.:biggrin:

Tesla may actually be fine with that. The amount of exposure and advertising may be well worth a pseudo-dedicated supercharger location. I bet after these are setup they are profit makers. And I am certain with this ambitious plan their capital cost was placed into the Model S, or they are using their sales of CARB credits to put them in.

 

[AnOutsider]

Yeah it definitely has some marketing value, but if they can put enough back into the grid, it likely has its own monetary value as well. These things would basically sit out there making money -- maybe not enough to justify it as a good business model for a startup, but mixed with the fact that it provides value to model s customers and good PR for Tesla, I bet it makes great business sense.

I'm honestly a bit surprised they didn't try to also make money from us on top of it already being self sufficiently profitable. I guess they do get it in the form of the cost of SC hardware in the cars, but they could have made it $5 a charge and people still would have been happy.

 

[bonnie]

I love the idea that cars can be topped off with damaging the battery - and would do the same if it wasn't just more convenient to plug in when I get home at night.

But if there will be supercharging stations at light rail locations (like the Folsom site), I predict we will have the undesirable outcome of commuters filling the slots all day. That could become a problem if there isn't some incentive NOT to do that (assumed battery damage would have prevented that).

 

[ElSupreme]

Free to use is obviously an attractive price but how will other owners that don't use them feel about paying for them in the costs of their cars and servicing? For comparison, the $10,000 upgrade fee between base and mid battery would pay my Better Place subscription for more than 4 years or 50,000 miles!

Yeah but for $10k I get free charging for life, and I get an extra ~70-80 miles on a single charge. I don't have to pay another 10k for the next 50,000 miles. Which for me will only take about 2.5 years.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Ok, just got off the phone with a mate of mine ... told him to look at this ... his comment about free was ...

The government will find a way to tax this.

As there's no $ charge to start with, could they?

Electricity is already taxed -- remember that, although Tesla is selling more power to the grid than it will be buying, those are not linked transactions, so Tesla Motors is signing up to pay the various taxes that are built into the electricity tariff.

There has been an active discussion about alternatives to a gasoline tax (which is getting pinched by increasing fuel efficiency standards) over here:Road taxes instead of gas taxes?

 

[ckessel]

Actually, this shouldn't be hard to do. ~99% of miles driven will be close to home with no supercharging needed.

I'm pretty sure most folks road trip more than 10 miles out of every 1000. One trip a year from Portland->San Francisco and back nets me ~1500 miles.

One trip from Portland->Seattle and back is ~400 miles. Even if I start charged up and only supercharge in Seattle for the trip back, that's 200 miles off the supercharger. Even if I made that trip 1/year, if 200 miles = 1% then I'd have to drive 20,000 miles a year.

 

[RDoc]

Based on the apparent distance between the Superchargers, it looks like the 85 kwh pack is going to be just enough. and will require the 80% charge. A lot of them are over 200 mi apart which is doable with the 85 at 65 mph, but would require a car with the 60 kwh pack to drive under 50 mph.

Do we know how long an 80% charge on the 85 kwh pack will take?