This isn't good - charging rate increase

[Eclectic]

Not a detour at all. A matter of false perception. There is NOTHING more convenient than refueling at your own home while you sleep. We have convinced ourselves that taking time out of our day, no matter how long, stopping at a location we would not have gone if not for the need, no matter how close, and claim it to be superior.

We've bought into our own self deception.

Dan

We? I can see how you've bought into your own self deception, but you've not come close to selling it to me.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

While I get the idea in the garage. Great sell to most in daily routines. Starting off fresh everyday is quite a nice feeling.

Driving 3000 miles on a cross country roadtrip as a different view of a use case. Charging is not ideal unless you have significant time on your hands. Taking the scenic route. Not complaining as I do it often. I find this is the other question when I talk to ICE owners. How can I travel? I don't want to have just an in town car. I want to be able to drop all and go anywhere without thinking. Even though I might only do that twice or 3 times a year.

So here is my personal use example.

3.65 hours of charging
1135 miles driven in a 24 hour period

Can't imagine it would take 3.65 hours to put all that gas in an ICE.

So let's call it three hours of charging for every thousand miles in a EV.

9 hours of charging to go 3000 miles. That is being very generous to an EV.

So if you have an olympic swimming pool bladder you can go pretty far in an ICE with NASCAR style pit stops.

While not your original point on the 3000 miles Dan. Just a different view that also presents a few different feelings amongst travelers. If V3 SC's can cut that time 30-40% it would be nice. Then I might lose my naps or jogging at superchargers because of idle fees.

I guess what I am saying. The garage story is just half the story. People need to understand the rest. It isn't really that bad. I travel much more comfortably in the SC stop method more frequent than hitting gas stations and taking a nap at a rest area.

I totally get it. For me, when I do travel, a 15-30 minute stop every 2-2.5 hours is no big deal. For others, could be a different story.

That said, the charge at home thing really isn't half the story...it's more like 75 to 80 percent of the story statistically.

Totally understand that everyone's situation will be different.

Dan

 

[Super_Popular]

supercharging is NOT fast.

I would agree and it seems to be getting slower to charge up.

 

[outdoors]

I totally get it. For me, when I do travel, a 15-30 minute stop every 2-2.5 hours is no big deal. For others, could be a different story.

That said, the charge at home thing really isn't half the story...it's more like 75 to 80 percent of the story statistically.

Totally understand that everyone's situation will be different.

Dan

I would say that is the one of the most common last apprehensions of EV's. When I say last. I mean....We all get the questions. Debunk all the hair brained thoughts about EV's then. BAM! I I am going to throw one last one at you.

Spontaneity. People like to talk about it, but rarely act upon long distance travel spontaneously. It is either in their life or it happens infrequently. Statistics do support this.

Often I have quoted the box most of us live in, and how much it makes sense to a fence sitter. I would say more like 85% or more live within a serviceable range for daily use of an EV. People kind of give me this look like. You can only to to that place. You can't just stop anywhere(fast charging). I go on about how the car navigates to the SC....SC's placed strategically...... That makes synapses start to fire. Then they glaze over.

The story is that people have been conditioned to the environment in which they operate. A gas station on each corner has created the non think. Doesn't matter the % use and how much it makes sense. Convenience trumps the act of thinking for the time being. I think new tech can change that a bit by cutting down charging time. Might be another car life cycle in the eyes of most consumers till that time arrives. Then charging can too become the non think.

 

[jeffro01]

I really don't see what the fuss is about to be honest... In the vast majority of situations it's still cheaper than gas even at the current price of gas which is going to go back up, you can count on it... For someone like myself with free unlimited SC, I couldn't care less but I get why someone would raise an eyebrow...

That being said, Tesla should stop advertising "gas savings" on it's website ASAP and should stop fudging the monthly payment based on gas/incentives. I've always had an issue with that and now even more so that we've moved past the original promise of free supercharging for live forever...

I also think people stop stop overreacting to this as a sign of sudden doom and gloom or whatever. Tesla MUST stay profitable for Wall Street and is going to have to make additional difficult decisions as we move forward. None of those change the reality that they still make awesome cars that literally no one else on the planet currently comes close to. Yeah, yeah, yeah the Tesla killer is coming any day now but until that day, Tesla is literally the only real game in town if you want an EV and be able to leave your neighborhood with it.

Electricity isn't free, Tesla has been giving it away and can no longer do so. Deal with it.

Jeff

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I really don't see what the fuss is about to be honest... In the vast majority of situations it's still cheaper than gas even at the current price of gas which is going to go back up, you can count on it... For someone like myself with free unlimited SC, I couldn't care less but I get why someone would raise an eyebrow...

That being said, Tesla should stop advertising "gas savings" on it's website ASAP and should stop fudging the monthly payment based on gas/incentives. I've always had an issue with that and now even more so that we've moved past the original promise of free supercharging for live forever...

I also think people stop stop overreacting to this as a sign of sudden doom and gloom or whatever. Tesla MUST stay profitable for Wall Street and is going to have to make additional difficult decisions as we move forward. None of those change the reality that they still make awesome cars that literally no one else on the planet currently comes close to. Yeah, yeah, yeah the Tesla killer is coming any day now but until that day, Tesla is literally the only real game in town if you want an EV and be able to leave your neighborhood with it.

Electricity isn't free, Tesla has been giving it away and can no longer do so. Deal with it.

Jeff

Yup, totally agree with everything you said. I think the big thing to keep in mind regarding the increase in Supercharging fees is that it's not so much the electricity cost but the cost to expand the network. Right now, with a very few exceptions, there is a Supercharger within about 100 miles of anywhere in America, often several. That still leaves "dry spots" that one has to plan for. When that gets down to about 50 miles I think this becomes a no brainer. Supercharger sites and stalls are the real driving cost to the rise in fees I think. They have to keep expanding the network and that is certainly not going to be cheap.

I have no problem with Tesla mentioning gas/oil change savings on their site as that is a real and true consideration, but I agree that they should stop rolling it into the quoted price of the cars. I think that is misleading. As we have seen on this thread, everyone's experience will be different.

Dan

 

[neroden]

IMO, the correct Supercharger pricing is, in each location, "slightly less than gasoline for a Prius, but substantially more than home charging". Tesla has not yet hit that sweet spot everywhere.

 

[djplong]

A year ago, I calculated that, from my home in Southern New Hampshire, there were 26 Supercharger stations within range IN ALL DIRECTIONS. Where do I want to go? Maine? Montreal? Toronto? Philadelphia (where my kids live)? Washington DC (where I'm running a race next month)? Indiana (where my mom lives)?

Spontaneity is NOT a problem here.

To adapt an advertising line from another product...

Superchargers - They're everywhere you want to be.

 

[dyoreo]

Musk Says All Superchargers Being Coverted to Battery/Solar Power
June 9, 2017
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says “almost all” Supercharger stations will eventually disconnect from the grid. Musk made the comment on Twitter in response to a tweet pointing out that Superchargers utilize energy from traditional fossil fuels like coal. All Superchargers are being converted to solar/battery power. Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electric grid.
If Tesla would follow through with this plan, local electric rates would have no bearing on Supercharging rates.

 

[dyoreo]

I really don't see what the fuss is about to be honest... In the vast majority of situations it's still cheaper than gas even at the current price of gas which is going to go back up, you can count on it... For someone like myself with free unlimited SC, I couldn't care less but I get why someone would raise an eyebrow...

That being said, Tesla should stop advertising "gas savings" on it's website ASAP and should stop fudging the monthly payment based on gas/incentives. I've always had an issue with that and now even more so that we've moved past the original promise of free supercharging for live forever...

I also think people stop stop overreacting to this as a sign of sudden doom and gloom or whatever. Tesla MUST stay profitable for Wall Street and is going to have to make additional difficult decisions as we move forward. None of those change the reality that they still make awesome cars that literally no one else on the planet currently comes close to. Yeah, yeah, yeah the Tesla killer is coming any day now but until that day, Tesla is literally the only real game in town if you want an EV and be able to leave your neighborhood with it.

Electricity isn't free, Tesla has been giving it away and can no longer do so. Deal with it.

Jeff

I really don't see what the fuss is about to be honest... In the vast majority of situations it's still cheaper than gas even at the current price of gas which is going to go back up, you can count on it... For someone like myself with free unlimited SC, I couldn't care less but I get why someone would raise an eyebrow...

That being said, Tesla should stop advertising "gas savings" on it's website ASAP and should stop fudging the monthly payment based on gas/incentives. I've always had an issue with that and now even more so that we've moved past the original promise of free supercharging for live forever...

I also think people stop stop overreacting to this as a sign of sudden doom and gloom or whatever. Tesla MUST stay profitable for Wall Street and is going to have to make additional difficult decisions as we move forward. None of those change the reality that they still make awesome cars that literally no one else on the planet currently comes close to. Yeah, yeah, yeah the Tesla killer is coming any day now but until that day, Tesla is literally the only real game in town if you want an EV and be able to leave your neighborhood with it.

Electricity isn't free, Tesla has been giving it away and can no longer do so. Deal with it.

Jeff

Musk Says All Superchargers Being Coverted to Battery/Solar Power
June 9, 2017
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says “almost all” Supercharger stations will eventually disconnect from the grid. Musk made the comment on Twitter in response to a tweet pointing out that Superchargers utilize energy from traditional fossil fuels like coal. All Superchargers are being converted to solar/battery power. Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid.. it could be free... my solar panels have been providing all my electricity for over 10 years.
If the Superchargers were off the grid as planned the local rates would mean nothing.

 

[Spiz516]

supercharging is NOT fast. it's f'in slow. if it wasn't free (for me in my grandfathered car), there would be no damned way i would take a road trip in an EV. gas all the way.

It's faster than any other charging, but yea it's slow compared to a gas fill. I love my model 3, but I would never take it on a long trip. It doesn't even get close to the advertised 310 miles. Like not even remotely close. I took a 140 mile trip the other day, starting with 270 miles remaining, got home with 4 miles remaining. Talk about stressful.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

It's faster than any other charging, but yea it's slow compared to a gas fill. I love my model 3, but I would never take it on a long trip. It doesn't even get close to the advertised 310 miles. Like not even remotely close. I took a 140 mile trip the other day, starting with 270 miles remaining, got home with 4 miles remaining. Talk about stressful.

I am averaging 316 miles of range in the 4 months I have had the car. Just sayin'. I most DEFINITELY will take the car on long trips.

Dan

 

[dgpcolorado]

My S60 is down to 181 RM range but I regularly take it on 2000 mile road trips.

Yes it takes longer than an ICE car but I enjoy the road trips a LOT more in the Tesla. Perhaps this is because I drive alone and don't have any "are we there yet?" questions from impatient passengers!

 

[djplong]

It's amazing what happens when you practice cutting about 5MPH off your speed, find SUVs and semis to draft behind and, in the winter, turn the heat down a bit (after all, I'm still wearing a winter jacket).