What charge port connector?

[Cottonwood]

It still seems to me that for a car like the Tesla, there's not a lot of difference between 10kw charging and 40 kw charging. The rate has to be at least Supercharger 90kw or faster to really make a difference for most trips for most people.

.....

I realize that people currently do long trips stopping for a few hours at KOA etc. during the day, but doubt that most non-enthusiasts are willing to do that.

It seems to me that for normal use, for a Tesla-like car, medium level charging isn't particularly useful.

I beg to differ. Its all a matter of degree. 15 minutes is way better than 2 hours, but 30 minutes is not so bad. Let's look at a long distance drive that I do. When I make the 300 mile trip from Boulder to Pagosa, climbing 3,000 ft and going over multiple passes, I need one top up on the battery. Let's call that 60-90 mile to avoid range anxiety going over the last pass, Wolf Creek.

1. If I stop at an RV Park, with a 50 Amp, 14-50 outlet, that is 30 mph charging and I need 2-3 hours. These are essentially free to install, because the RV Parks already exist.
2. If there is a supercharger on the way, the top up is 15-22 minutes. This is great, but the chances of a supercharger showing up on that route are pretty small. The supercharger install takes the 500 kVA 3-phase transformer and costs something like $400k to install.
3. If there is a 40kW charger along the way, I need 30-45 min for the top up. That is way better than the 2-3 hours, not too much worse than the 15-22 min for the supercharger, and may actually be economical in the near term. This can be powered by one 240V, 200A panel, or more taps off the larger panel at an RV Park, and presumably can be built from 4 10kW Tesla chargers ($1,500 each, retail) with the associated control structure done for the supercharger. As a wild guess, $10-15k at an existing RV park.

If it is possible to make a downsized version of a supercharger, or some other DC standard that can charge at 40kW for a reasonable price, I think that it would be very, very useful. A 40kW charger only needs a 200A, Split phase, 240V panel, or a 100A, 3-phase, 208V panel. If the install cost can be cut by a factor of 10 to 40 and get 1/2 charge rate, there is a happy middle ground that can serve many EVs well.

 

[eledille]

More rumours, supposedly info from Tesla employees, at the Tesla forum. Quite vague, though.

... I didn't start out as an EV fanatic ...

I've experienced exactly the same. When we bought our Think five years ago, it was the best performing EV available in Norway. It's a bit underpowered and not pretty, but a joy to drive nonetheless. Even that little plastic box of a car was able to turn both me and my wife into EV fanatics. I didn't expect that at all, we bought it because of the bus lane access and congestion charge exemption. All of a sudden both of us are trying our best to avoid the gas burner, which I used to be rather proud of. Now my wife is talking about selling the fossil to get another EV while we're waiting for Model S.

Several times per year we drive 435 km to visit her parents. There are two mountain passes. A 43 kW, or even 22 kW charge point somewhere along that route would be very, very useful, half an hour of 43 kW would be enough to complete the trip without worry. If I had to settle for 22 kW, I would still much rather take two half-hour breaks and drive a Model S than drive a gasser.

 

[TEG]

RDoc: You're missing the point. Level 2 charging can make trips at or a little beyond the single charge range doable, even reasonable, and the faster the Level 2, the better the result...

When I got the LEAF there weren't really many good options for J1772 charging in San Francisco.
So, I would not use the LEAF to drive up from the Palo Alto area to San Francisco out of fear that I might not be able to make it back.
Fast forward to now and there are J1772s scattered around SF, so I have made many trips there when I knew I would be near a J1772 spot for at least an hour. So, going to a movie, a meeting, convention, visiting a friend all work out now even with slow J1772 charging because I just need a little bit extra to have enough charge to make the trip back.

So, like tomsax says, the slow(ish) charging can be helpful if making a short range EV work for slightly longer trips if they are put in strategic "destination" locations.

 

[Brian H]

When I got the LEAF there weren't really many good options for J1772 charging in San Francisco.
So, I would not use the LEAF to drive up from the Palo Alto area to San Francisco out of fear that I might not be able to make it back.
Fast forward to now and there are J1772s scattered around SF, so I have made many trips there when I knew I would be near a J1772 spot for at least an hour. So, going to a movie, a meeting, convention, visiting a friend all work out now even with slow J1772 charging because I just need a little bit extra to have enough charge to make the trip back.

So, like tomsax says, the slow(ish) charging can be helpful if making a short range EV work for slightly longer trips if they are put in strategic "destination" locations.

Yeah, there seems to be insatiable demand for that "finishing touch"!