V3 Supercharger Rollout

[Newbie2EV]

Has there been any news, rumours or work carried out on the UK Supercharger network for V3 that anyone has seen? Scouring Google and other engines hasn't produced anything.

This weekend is the first time I've had to wait for Supercharging at every destination I stopped at (3 times, long journey's for a very 'distributed' family). I have the Model 3 Long Range, and being in and out in under 20 minutes is going to alleviate the wait times. Birchanger Supercharger had 5 cars in its stalls and 4 waiting. What probably once coped with a small number of passing vehicles had a number of very bored and exasperated people talking amongst ourselves at the sudden influx of cars and the noticable increase of time people were waiting to charge at different locations. Bluewater was no different, nor another I stopped at near Milton Keynes.

If V3 gets in, then I can see us all being in and out with little to no queing time. As it is, I can only see it getting worse with the influx of vehicles. Getting 130Kwh max seems to be the norm, even when a SC station is rated for 150 too. If anyone has any news on this project, please share for us all!

 

[Newbie2EV]

Correction to "Birchanger Supercharger had 5 cars in its stalls and 4 waiting"

It was the other way around. 4 cars in its stalls and five waiting.

 

[ewoodrick]

It really hasn't even started in the US, just a handful.

 

[Jason71]

Has there been any news, rumours or work carried out on the UK Supercharger network for V3 that anyone has seen? Scouring Google and other engines hasn't produced anything.

This weekend is the first time I've had to wait for Supercharging at every destination I stopped at (3 times, long journey's for a very 'distributed' family). I have the Model 3 Long Range, and being in and out in under 20 minutes is going to alleviate the wait times. Birchanger Supercharger had 5 cars in its stalls and 4 waiting. What probably once coped with a small number of passing vehicles had a number of very bored and exasperated people talking amongst ourselves at the sudden influx of cars and the noticable increase of time people were waiting to charge at different locations. Bluewater was no different, nor another I stopped at near Milton Keynes.

If V3 gets in, then I can see us all being in and out with little to no queing time. As it is, I can only see it getting worse with the influx of vehicles. Getting 130Kwh max seems to be the norm, even when a SC station is rated for 150 too. If anyone has any news on this project, please share for us all!

At this point in time expansion of the number of V2's per site seems to be a most likely option to improve things, that and more sites. both of which are already happening in the UK. As others have said there are only a handful of V3's in the US so can't see upgrades to existing UK ones any time soon.

 

[Rooster6655]

At this point in time expansion of the number of V2's per site seems to be a most likely option to improve things, that and more sites. both of which are already happening in the UK. As others have said there are only a handful of V3's in the US so can't see upgrades to existing UK ones any time soon.

Yes unlikely to see V3 unit at least the expected UK expansion is completed even thought it might make sense to install V3 I doubt that they will do this right now for new installs

 

[Newbie2EV]

At this point in time expansion of the number of V2's per site seems to be a most likely option to improve things, that and more sites. both of which are already happening in the UK. As others have said there are only a handful of V3's in the US so can't see upgrades to existing UK ones any time soon.

I think we're in for a period of choke point for Supercharging if this is the case. According to the Tesla site there are only 52 supercharger sites servicing England, Wales and Scotland. Quite a few of them only have 4-6 stalls.

27 more are listed as 'Coming Soon' which will obviously improve journey routes for us all, but there's no information on when for any of them. As more Model 3's hit our shores amongs other models, I think we're in for a lot of waiting frustration in 2021. I'm seeing it already, so I hope some of these 27 new sites are V3. Getting people in and out ready for the next person in 15-20 minutes seems a much better model of operation than perpetually opening new sites and cuts user frustration in lost time.

Anything to cut the build up of waiting times I'm beginning to see before more cars come is going to be welcome. Whether it's more V2 stations, more charge points at existing stations or new V3, I'm all for the support infrastructure keeping up with the vlume of car sales!

 

[Rooster6655]

I think we're in for a period of choke point for Supercharging if this is the case. According to the Tesla site there are only 52 supercharger sites servicing England, Wales and Scotland. Quite a few of them only have 4-6 stalls.

Well its only going to be during peak periods as most superchargers will be empty most of the time, I plan ahead and rarely go during peak periods, I know it can't always be done that way though.

 

[LukeT]

To what extent can the current cars make use of the extra speed of a V3 if they already can't use the full speed of V2 once they're at moderately high SoC, not much over 50%? When I've queued (admittedly very infrequently, I think only twice, but I think your assumption this will increase is a fair one) I have seen some cars staying there for very long periods, suggesting they're taking up a lot of charger time going from 80% towards 100%; if my hunch there is correct then either education or making the 80% limit compulsory might make a significant difference. If you're sitting there charging there's a temptation to add just a few more kWh, even if it's neither needed nor fast.

Or might Tesla consider altering the V2 charge rate curve to up the high SoC currents at absolute peak times to get cars gone with a little more risk to battery? They could warn you they're doing this and reiterate that it's not "best practise" to stay.

On a related note, is it worse for your car to charge at a V3 rather than a V2? If so, how much worse?

Overall, though, more charge points are needed. I'd be happy in general for this to be mainly just increasing capacity at existing locations.

 

[Newbie2EV]

To what extent can the current cars make use of the extra speed of a V3 if they already can't use the full speed of V2 once they're at moderately high SoC, not much over 50%? When I've queued (admittedly very infrequently, I think only twice, but I think your assumption this will increase is a fair one) I have seen some cars staying there for very long periods, suggesting they're taking up a lot of charger time going from 80% towards 100%; if my hunch there is correct then either education or making the 80% limit compulsory might make a significant difference. If you're sitting there charging there's a temptation to add just a few more kWh, even if it's neither needed nor fast.

Or might Tesla consider altering the V2 charge rate curve to up the high SoC currents at absolute peak times to get cars gone with a little more risk to battery? They could warn you they're doing this and reiterate that it's not "best practise" to stay.

On a related note, is it worse for your car to charge at a V3 rather than a V2? If so, how much worse?

Overall, though, more charge points are needed. I'd be happy in general for this to be mainly just increasing capacity at existing locations.

I'm going on a pure assumption that Tesla will sell more cars than ever with Model 3. There's just as many M3's at charge sites as S and X's already, probably down to the much needed affordability over previous models for a lot of us (for me at least). They've only been coming into the country for a little while and they're already a very regular sight at charge points.

With the faster charging speeds, especially on the LR model at 250Kwh, it makes sense that if Model 3's can be in and out of a charge bay in 15-20 minutes, it keeps the future queues down without needing to build new charge sites and then upgrade them later. Just building more V2 at 130-150Kwh seems counter productive given the influx of cars with how few sites and bays are in the UK as a whole. City drivers can be in, get to 80 miles in just five minutes and drive home to complete a charge, quickly freeing the bay for instance.

I don't know how much these points cost to install, but I would imagine around 6 figures and not cheap. I don't know if it's worse for the car to charge on V2 or V3 or if it's the same to answer that question - I'm not at all technical. None of us need to be technical to see the abundance of cars vs charge points vs charge point speed to see the upcoming queing issue of 2020 - 2021 we're all going to experience though! Hopefully I am wrong, but I think we're seeing the beginning of it already.

 

[ivangr]

I think we're in for a period of choke point for Supercharging if this is the case. According to the Tesla site there are only 52 supercharger sites servicing England, Wales and Scotland. Quite a few of them only have 4-6 stalls.

27 more are listed as 'Coming Soon' which will obviously improve journey routes for us all, but there's no information on when for any of them. As more Model 3's hit our shores amongs other models, I think we're in for a lot of waiting frustration in 2021. I'm seeing it already, so I hope some of these 27 new sites are V3. Getting people in and out ready for the next person in 15-20 minutes seems a much better model of operation than perpetually opening new sites and cuts user frustration in lost time.

Anything to cut the build up of waiting times I'm beginning to see before more cars come is going to be welcome. Whether it's more V2 stations, more charge points at existing stations or new V3, I'm all for the support infrastructure keeping up with the vlume of car sales!

Edinburgh has two stalls. Both are slow. Both are hogged by the same Model S’s
all the time. It’s appalling really.

 

[Adopado]

Edinburgh has two stalls. Both are slow. Both are hogged by the same Model S’s
all the time. It’s appalling really.

No doubt on free charging. That really needs to be addressed. It would be easy enough for Tesla to monitor this pattern of usage and communicate with individual drivers about the inappropriateness of their supercharging habits.

(Mind you 2/2 available just now ... get in there!)

 

[Roy W.]

I suspect the problem might well depend on where you live, and the time of day you’re trying to charge. I’m in Derby, had the car almost four months, and we’ve used the Superchargers perhaps a dozen times, but so far no site has been full. I think the nearest to full I’ve seen is 5 out of 8 stalls including us.

Having said that, more chargers please, Tesla!

 

[evsingh]

Not sure if this is going to be more tricky when we are going to have thousands of cars delivered in uk. It will be interesting after March.

 

[LukeT]

.... if Model 3's can be in and out of a charge bay in 15-20 minutes, it keeps the future queues down without needing to build new charge sites and then upgrade them later. Just building more V2 at 130-150Kwh seems counter productive given the influx of cars with how few sites and bays are in the UK as a whole. City drivers can be in, get to 80 miles in just five minutes and drive home to complete a charge, quickly freeing the bay for instance.

I don't know how much these points cost to install, but I would imagine around 6 figures and not cheap. I don't know if it's worse for the car to charge on V2 or V3 or if it's the same to answer that question - I'm not at all technical. None of us need to be technical to see the abundance of cars vs charge points vs charge point speed to see the upcoming queing issue of 2020 - 2021 we're all going to experience though! Hopefully I am wrong, but I think we're seeing the beginning of it already.

Part of what I'm driving at is there is a fair bit of behavioural change required to reap the rewards collectively of V3. Right now 15 mins at a full 150kw gets you 37.5kwh of charge. That's a decent charge, in most cases enough to get that car to the end of its day and a home/work charge, I'd wager. If we only ever did that then we'd have a lot less queuing, perhaps nearly none with today's fleet, but we don't. So the same folk might put in say 9 mins at 250kw for that first 37kwh, then still hang around for the same few extra kwh at the same slow speeds, automatically limited to protect the battery as today. Benefit of increasing top end charging speed therefore quite small...

Maybe there's a bit of devil's advocate in this - it's not to say I'm not looking forward to faster charging, just that I think overall number of stalls is important too. Perhaps more so....

 

[NorfolkMustard]

Other companies (Ionity, Polar, Instavolt, engenie) are ramping up their deployment of >100kW charging infrastructure too, which will be some relief for the superchargers. Some of which are also faster than Superchargers.

Tesla could help by letting other suppliers add their chargers to the in-car map

 

[Mr Miserable]

There has been a noticeable slowing of supercharger expansion this year in the UK. Tesla hierarchy cannot be happy with the situations at Fleet S, Leavesden and Motherwell (can't remember the name of the hotel there) where big money has been spent with nothing to show for it.

 

[Ant M3]

Concerning that Tesla are selling more cars in the UK, at a faster rate than ever before, but are not matching the development of the charging network...

 

[MrBadger]

Concerning that Tesla are selling more cars in the UK, at a faster rate than ever before, but are not matching the development of the charging network...

Actually, I think the rollout of CCS was pretty impressive. In the space of a week, all non CCS supercharger equipped stalls were upgraded to CCS to accommodate Model 3 and beyond. At some locations, this was a 4x or more increase of capacity for Model 3 vehicles.

What is missing is some of the not spots across the country imho.

Ironically, Model 3's don't seem to be the hogs. Disproportionally its S and X that seems to take up majority of the stalls for longer periods - probably a consequence of slower charging and free supercharging. So whilst large influx of Model 3's and probable Model Y's, I suspect their impact on supercharger network will be less than expected especially as free supercharging referrals run out so they become more of a necessity rather than free option.

 

[ivangr]

No doubt on free charging. That really needs to be addressed. It would be easy enough for Tesla to monitor this pattern of usage and communicate with individual drivers about the inappropriateness of their supercharging habits.

(Mind you 2/2 available just now ... get in there!)

The same red model S with plate *CTO* is in there all the time. Never seen the driver.

It’s really just a capacity issue. I don’t blame the s/x hogs, they got it for free so whatever. But Tesla is selling like hot cakes up here, they need to build a proper charging centre in edinburgh. I see Tesla’s on the road almost every day now.

 

[ivangr]

The same red model S with plate *CTO* is in there all the time. Never seen the driver.

It’s really just a capacity issue. I don’t blame the s/x hogs, they got it for free so whatever. But Tesla is selling like hot cakes up here, they need to build a proper charging centre in edinburgh. I see Tesla’s on the road almost every day now.

having said that Edinburgh Council has committed to building 25 stalls at Ingliston park and ride next year. 3 of which i think will be “rapid”. I’ve been going to IPR when the tesla chargers at the airport are blocked.