US Supercharges 20% done ?!?!

[Kevin Harney]

Thoughts on how many superchargers will will have when the system is completed.

I am predicting about 750. Based that on approximately 48,000 interstate highway miles in the US and a Supercharger about every 65 miles or so. That gave me 20% done. Your thoughts on totals and percentages ? Substantial (since the system will probably never be completed due to upgrades etc) completion date ? I am going for 2018.

 

[jerry33]

I'll be very disappointed if the stop at only interstates. There are many better highways that should be covered.

 

[Rheazombi]

Ideally you should be able to drive from any city (pop. 100,000?) in the USA to any city in the USA without issue. (Plus some remote national/state parks/skiing areas/attractions,etc) I have no clue how many this would require though.

edit: I realize population size may be relative based on the overall population of a state. A 'city' in Nebraska may be much smaller than a city in CA for example.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

National Highway system (US routes and Interstates) is 160,955 miles.
Assume every 100 miles then ignoring chargers at intersections, and any termini, it'd need 1610 Supercharger sites.
- Each charger at an intersection could reduce the number of sites required.
- Each a terminus might not require a Supercharger.

Then there might be other state highways that need to be covered.

So, quite a while to go.

 

[jerry33]

edit: I realize population size may be relative based on the overall population of a state. A 'city' in Nebraska may be much smaller than a city in CA for example.

In Nebraska, there's only two 100,000+ cities and they don't need a Supercharger to do a round trip drive between them, but there are many towns that you should be able to drive between. Same goes for all the prairie states and provinces.

 

[emupilot]

Tesla will need to keep adding superchargers for capacity purposes as the number of Tesla vehicles grows, so the network won't be built out for decades.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

In Nebraska, there's only two 100,000+ cities and they don't need a Supercharger to do a round trip drive between them, but there are many towns that you should be able to drive between. Same goes for all the prairie states and provinces.

100,000? Huge!

(I moved from a town in the UK with a population of over 100,000, in a borough with over 300,000 to a city in Maine with a population under 20,000.)

 

[NoCO]

In addition to superchargers which Tesla is will be continuing to build (about the same number next year), Tesla is going to have to come up with a solution to the cost of them. Tesla announced a billion kWh over the summer and then two billion kWh in October, I can see a time when it will be more than a billion kWh a month. If I assumed .05kWh cost that would be 50 million a month (or more). I hope they have the future figured out.

 

[Johan]

In addition to superchargers which Tesla is will be continuing to build (about the same number next year), Tesla is going to have to come up with a solution to the cost of them. Tesla announced a billion kWh over the summer and then two billion kWh in October, I can see a time when it will be more than a billion kWh a month. If I assumed .05kWh cost that would be 50 million a month (or more). I hope they have the future figured out.

Solar. It will be, for practical purposes, free in the future.

 

[omarsultan]

At some point, we will attain EV critical mass and commercial charging will become a financially viable business, so alternate methods for fast-charging should also be taken into account. I am not sure Tesla is responsible to offering SCs on every potential route in the US. At some point, its going to make more sense to add SC capacity to existing routes (say the I-5 or I95 corridors) then it does to start expanding to tertiary routes.

The good thing is Tesla can make data-driven decisions--they can see where the is SC congestion and they can see what routes drivers are taking that might warrant SC coverage.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Solar. It will be, for practical purposes, free in the future.

This may be true from an accounting POV, but in no way is solar power "free". First, there is a significant capital expenditure in building the solar arrays. Second, there is the opportunity cost of using power at Supercharger sites that you could have sold to a third party.

- - - Updated - - -

I did a ballpark calculation of a back-of-the envelope buildout of the SC network over in the Investor's Forum, and got to 600 in the U.S. You get to that number either by filling the U.S. mainland with 40-mile-radius circles, or by putting SC sites every 40 miles on every interstate. Clearly the second number is too dense; you don't need them every 40 miles, so you can put them every 80 miles instead and put the other 300 SuperCharger sites on state highways.

If I'm right about 600 U.S. SuperCharger sites, then we're about one-quarter of the way done. Of course, some sites may scale up in the number of individual bays, as we've seen happen in a number of California locations already.

If the Model 3 rollout goes according to plan and we have a million Teslas on the road by the end of 2020, then I expect that the density of SpC sites will increase. Based on the basic math and the availability of home charging, though, it would seem very unlikely that we'd get to more than a few thousand SpC sites in the U.S.

 

[jvonbokel]

I'm enjoying this conversation and I very much like many of these various estimates, but I think it's interesting that nobody is considering the possibility of increasing range over time. In 2017, when the Model 3 can go at least 200mi for $35k, do you think a base Model S will still only have 208mi of range for $70k? Granted, they're continuing to add more features, which may not all be available on the Model 3, but when battery costs drop by 30%, that applies to the Model S as well. My guess is range will go up, reducing (slightly) the burden of the Supercharger network. Eventually (Model 3 + 5yrs... 2022?) there will be 200mi range BEVs for ~$20k, and $70k+ may buy you a 500+mi battery. Due to trip distance distribution, doubling range reduces the need for Supercharging by more than half. 800mi trips will need one stop instead of 3, and 400mi trips will need zero stops instead of one.

 

[flankspeed8]

Another consideration is the cold weather states where range can be significantly reduced 3-4 months of the year. Try to drive to northern Minnesota to your cabin in the winter and you will have to leave the EV behind unless we get substantially more than the 3 to 4 additional that are planned for the next year here in MN. These states will require closer proximity.

 

[macpacheco]

I'm sure there will be over 1000 SCs in the USA alone when there are 2 million Tesla's on the road or 500k MS+MX. However I don't expect Tesla to provide dense coverage ahead of time.
With another 100 SCs 99% of conceivable trips will be doable with charging on the origin and destination plus the SC net.
The high priority is getting the Giga factory online. Once its fully operational it might be more logical to offer an incentive for 60 kWh customers to upgrade to a dual motor standard 85 and offer a 100 kWh pack available too.
I'm expecting MS+MS production to eventually reach 200k / yr, with at least 40% of that for North America. By 2025 there might be over a million high end Tesla's on the road. Somewhere along the way there will be strategical partnerships formed with large mall chains that might close a deal to supercharge all of their properties.
But don't set your expectations too high. You are sure to be disappointed, the question is just by how much ! I'm very patient, so I wont be disappointed.

 

[Cottonwood]

Most of this discussion has been for long distance travel assuming connectivity and range are the driving issues. As more and more Teslas are sold, dense areas will need more Superchargers for charging capacity. Below is an approximate set of calculations that show Tesla needs another Supercharger for about every 300-400 cars sold, just for charging capacity.

Supercharger installs to support charging capacity are already starting to happen in the LA basin and San Francisco Bay areas.

 

[Adm]

When making calculations on how many SpC needed I think one needs to consider that with Model III a higher percentage of owners will have no home charging.

 

[ecarfan]

set of calculations that show Tesla needs another Supercharger for about every 300-400 cars sold, just for charging capacity.

By "another Supercharger" is it correct to assume you mean "one Supercharger pedestal" and not a complete multi-pedestal Supercharger location?

 

[Cottonwood]

By "another Supercharger" is it correct to assume you mean "one Supercharger pedestal" and not a complete multi-pedestal Supercharger location?

Sorry, i should have been more specific. I meant another Supercharger Site with 8 pedestals per 300-400 Teslas, or 1 pedestal per 40-50 Teslas. This is, of course, for Supercharger enabled Teslas, but I assume that is most cars shipped now. I have read that the percent of Supercharger miles is 8%. I upped that to 10% in this calculation to be conservative.

Also, as the number of pedestals per site increases, the Erlang efficiency improves, so fewer total pedestals are needed.

 

[mknox]

At some point, we will attain EV critical mass and commercial charging will become a financially viable business, so alternate methods for fast-charging should also be taken into account.

I agree. I see the Tesla Supercharger rollout as them trying to deal with the Chicken/Egg issue by kickstarting public high speed infrastructure. Right now, it's one of the only ways for them to sell cars. If EVs become ubiquitous, market forces will bring a lot of EV Charging players forward.

 

[jvonbokel]

I agree. I see the Tesla Supercharger rollout as them trying to deal with the Chicken/Egg issue by kickstarting public high speed infrastructure. Right now, it's one of the only ways for them to sell cars. If EVs become ubiquitous, market forces will bring a lot of EV Charging players forward.

Perhaps in theory, but since their network only services their cars, it doesn't really promote sales of EVs so much as it promotes sales of Tesla EVs. And how can Tesla EV charging become financially viable when Tesla is giving away charging? I suppose there could be paid charging stations in locations that Tesla has neglected, but is it worth the capital investment if you can't be sure Tesla won't later put a free Supercharger just up the road?