I was more concerned for someone going to intercity travel for example sanfran to Los angeles or nyc to lake placid routes in which although are not interstate still are large distances approx 5 hours or so. On the 1 percent of trips in which you exceed the range of your car the average consumer/non tesla enthusiast will simply expect to charge with relative non interruption. You and i bonnie know that currently it requires just a tad more intelligence and research to understand the needs of a ev. The problem lies in our relationship in which we have had with vehicles for the past 40 years. Do i mind waiting 10 minutes for a charge? Nope i probably spend more time in meaningless things anyway. But for others it could be this 'big pain"
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Why more superchargers alone can't prevent overcrowding
- Thread starter Teo
- Start date
I was more concerned for someone going to intercity travel for example sanfran to Los angeles or nyc to lake placid routes in which although are not interstate still are large distances approx 5 hours or so. On the 1 percent of trips in which you exceed the range of your car the average consumer/non tesla enthusiast will simply expect to charge with relative non interruption. You and i bonnie know that currently it requires just a tad more intelligence and research to understand the needs of a ev. The problem lies in our relationship in which we have had with vehicles for the past 40 years. Do i mind waiting 10 minutes for a charge? Nope i probably spend more time in meaningless things anyway. But for others it could be this 'big pain"
plaeuschler,
In the opening message LA to Vegas was mentioned as an example. I never talked about driving around the city. Another detail that made it clear that we are talking about intercity driving was that you leave a city with a charged battery.
The reason why between the lines it mimics refueling more is because in the future there will be so many stations to pick from (to cope with 10 times demand) and any of them will do.
bonnie,
The example assumes year 2020 when there are 10 stations between LA and Vegas and any one of the ten will do. Also deciding beforehand doesn't change the fact that you made a random choice that is independent from the choices by all other drivers. Let me expand on that.
We have 100 people leaving from LA on the same day. They all decide where they want to charge before they leave. Statistically is it likely that 20 people out of the 100 might have picked the same station? Yes of course it is likely. That was the point. It doesn't matter whether they decided before leaving or on the road. As long as the decision is up to the random choice by the driver without some data about availability, then 20 or even 30 drivers can arrive at the same station which has only space for 10. This was the example with the office worker.
Here is another analogy:
Imagine there are 100 people. You want them to pick any number between 1 and 10. Is it likely that more than 10 will pick the same number? Of course it is. It is very very likely. A miracle would have to happen for all the people to pick different numbers so that each number is picked only by 10 people. However if people have a screen in front of them that shows what number is picked how many times, then yes it is possible to distribute the people equally to numbers. This would be solution #2. Another solution would be to let a computer pick a number for each person. That would be solution #1.
In the opening message LA to Vegas was mentioned as an example. I never talked about driving around the city. Another detail that made it clear that we are talking about intercity driving was that you leave a city with a charged battery.
The reason why between the lines it mimics refueling more is because in the future there will be so many stations to pick from (to cope with 10 times demand) and any of them will do.
bonnie,
The example assumes year 2020 when there are 10 stations between LA and Vegas and any one of the ten will do. Also deciding beforehand doesn't change the fact that you made a random choice that is independent from the choices by all other drivers. Let me expand on that.
We have 100 people leaving from LA on the same day. They all decide where they want to charge before they leave. Statistically is it likely that 20 people out of the 100 might have picked the same station? Yes of course it is likely. That was the point. It doesn't matter whether they decided before leaving or on the road. As long as the decision is up to the random choice by the driver without some data about availability, then 20 or even 30 drivers can arrive at the same station which has only space for 10. This was the example with the office worker.
Here is another analogy:
Imagine there are 100 people. You want them to pick any number between 1 and 10. Is it likely that more than 10 will pick the same number? Of course it is. It is very very likely. A miracle would have to happen for all the people to pick different numbers so that each number is picked only by 10 people. However if people have a screen in front of them that shows what number is picked how many times, then yes it is possible to distribute the people equally to numbers. This would be solution #2. Another solution would be to let a computer pick a number for each person. That would be solution #1.
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plaeuschler
Member
Focusing on those 2-5% of trips and thinking highly speculatively you certainly have a point and explain it with nicely calculated examples.
Still, if my task was to choose a new SC site, I'd simply take a quick peek at the current usage stats (peak usage of course) and decide if more stalls or even a swap station might be useful at an existing site. No rocket science.
Just keep in mind: your suggested timeframe for planning is very long. There are lots of upcoming ideas waiting to be implemented until then! And a supercharger station needs something like a few months from suggestion until online, not 30 years like a new railway track.
Still, if my task was to choose a new SC site, I'd simply take a quick peek at the current usage stats (peak usage of course) and decide if more stalls or even a swap station might be useful at an existing site. No rocket science.
Just keep in mind: your suggested timeframe for planning is very long. There are lots of upcoming ideas waiting to be implemented until then! And a supercharger station needs something like a few months from suggestion until online, not 30 years like a new railway track.
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Some good responses thus far to the issue.
Given your specific example of the ~280 mile route from LA to Vegas, I think there are some additional factors:
All in all, it certainly is something that will have to be managed, and there may be several significant facets to the solution, but I don't see it as an insurmountable problem.
Given your specific example of the ~280 mile route from LA to Vegas, I think there are some additional factors:
-Not all traffic on those travel will originate from LA. Some will be from San Diego, and other outlying areas, this only a subset of traffic will all hit the "bottom of the pack", and hence be REQUIRED to charge at the same point along the route. The folks from San Diego will need to be charging "sooner" along the route.
-Cars will have differing ranges. We have ~265 miles on the S. The X might have slightly less. The Gen3 might be ~200. The Upgraded S 5 years from know might have 325. This will spread the load around a larger geographic area.
-Charging times will get batter. We may be able to charge at twice the rate we do today 5 years from now.
-For that ~280 mile route, you need another 50-75 miles of range (allowing for higher than rated energy consumption) to make it if you start with a full charge, thus you can effectively stop anywhere along a ~200 mile stretch of the route to top off and be good.
-The "restaurant" model that demonstrates the problem also demonstrates the solution: we don't build single "mega restaurants" all in one place. We spread out the seating in a number of locations over several geographic areas to accommodate diners, a significant percentage of whom tend to clump their eating requirements in to several specific time windows of the day.
-Given the above, I challenge the assertion that energy availability will be a limiting factor. While it might not be practical for a single site to have 20 bays, I doubt it will be a show-stopper to have 50 bays within a 10 mile stretch of road...
-Cars will have differing ranges. We have ~265 miles on the S. The X might have slightly less. The Gen3 might be ~200. The Upgraded S 5 years from know might have 325. This will spread the load around a larger geographic area.
-Charging times will get batter. We may be able to charge at twice the rate we do today 5 years from now.
-For that ~280 mile route, you need another 50-75 miles of range (allowing for higher than rated energy consumption) to make it if you start with a full charge, thus you can effectively stop anywhere along a ~200 mile stretch of the route to top off and be good.
-The "restaurant" model that demonstrates the problem also demonstrates the solution: we don't build single "mega restaurants" all in one place. We spread out the seating in a number of locations over several geographic areas to accommodate diners, a significant percentage of whom tend to clump their eating requirements in to several specific time windows of the day.
-Given the above, I challenge the assertion that energy availability will be a limiting factor. While it might not be practical for a single site to have 20 bays, I doubt it will be a show-stopper to have 50 bays within a 10 mile stretch of road...
All in all, it certainly is something that will have to be managed, and there may be several significant facets to the solution, but I don't see it as an insurmountable problem.
I think you missed Bonnie's point: longer trips in a BEV have some planning. With a limited or high-contention network drivers do not simply drive until the car beeps.
So, let's assume that your original premise is valid*.
- Drivers would recognize the potential for contention.
- Drivers would learn the busy Superchargers and avoid them.
- Drivers would stop at earlier Superchargers to avoid getting stuck at a busy Supercharger.
- If drivers can't skip Superchargers there's nothing that can be done about contention anyway.
You don't need any analogies. The premise is simple. *I think that it's invalid.
Plus, you missed another resolution scenario: combination of historical data (which is how people have generally planned their driving anyway) combined with crowd-sourced status updates posted on an app. Real-time couldn't be done anyway because the Superchargers won't understand the queues.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Bonnie's point is that the choice is not random. It's heavily determined by the amount of range your car has and the distance from the previous station and your home. Therefore with enough data on this, it's possible to predict which locations will statistically have more demand and account for that when expanding the network.
Your premise seems to be that there is a need to evenly distribute the demand, however that is not the case, because there is no requirement that Tesla has to expand stations in an even way (some locations will have more stalls, some less).
19 months of driving data - I don't have some crazy commute
most trips between Humboldt and the Bay Area are the 350. trip to Vegas hit the upper mpd never had to wait. Barstow would have been the only place to wait but there were always 2 stalls free as soon as I arrived
on average it would be about once a month that I use SC's. Even if there was one close to me I would still only use it maybe 2 times a month.
This is what I expect will happen in next few years:
In 2015 I expect that real-time data on available stalls will be on the screen. However it won't have any effect on driver habits. People will still plan their journey before they leave. The supercharger usage levels in 2015 and 2016 are not high enough to change how you plan your journey.
In 2017 we will pass a critical threshold of usage levels. Number of drivers using superchargers will be so high that deciding where to charge beforehand won't work anymore because the random fluctuation in drivers picking this or that station will be higher than a single 10-stall station can handle with reasonable wait times. In other words, on the road decision making based on availability will be more common.
In 2017 when the 4 year free 3G runs out for 2013 production Teslas, the connection will downgrade instead shutting off. I think dsm363's idea makes sense. If you don't pay for the connection after 4 years, diagnostics and software updates will continue working. Web browsing and Internet radio won't. I'm not sure if navigation will work or not.
In 2019 supercharger use levels will reach another threshold where availability data doesn't work anymore. This method can't tell if there are too many queues or just a short wait time. Tesla will implement the smart navigation idea. Instead deciding on the road you will decide anytime you want and the computer will check availability and recommend alternative locations if the station you picked is going to be too crowded. Deciding earlier will be in your advantage. In this forum terms like queue jumpers or late bookers will be common. There will be discussion about whether the system handles them fairly.
In 2020 in Europe Mennekes plug will be the standard for DC fast charging. The superchargers and the Model S in Europe have already the Mennekes plug. Most other EVs also have the Mennekes plug. But at the moment only Tesla uses the Mennekes for both AC and DC charging. I think this will change in 2020. Others will start using it for DC too. Teslas will be able to use these stations. Other cars will be able to use Tesla stations too, of course after they pay a fee. Real time availability data will be on the screen in Teslas, also it will be on digital road signs for other cars and there will be also smartphone apps.
In 2015 I expect that real-time data on available stalls will be on the screen. However it won't have any effect on driver habits. People will still plan their journey before they leave. The supercharger usage levels in 2015 and 2016 are not high enough to change how you plan your journey.
In 2017 we will pass a critical threshold of usage levels. Number of drivers using superchargers will be so high that deciding where to charge beforehand won't work anymore because the random fluctuation in drivers picking this or that station will be higher than a single 10-stall station can handle with reasonable wait times. In other words, on the road decision making based on availability will be more common.
In 2017 when the 4 year free 3G runs out for 2013 production Teslas, the connection will downgrade instead shutting off. I think dsm363's idea makes sense. If you don't pay for the connection after 4 years, diagnostics and software updates will continue working. Web browsing and Internet radio won't. I'm not sure if navigation will work or not.
In 2019 supercharger use levels will reach another threshold where availability data doesn't work anymore. This method can't tell if there are too many queues or just a short wait time. Tesla will implement the smart navigation idea. Instead deciding on the road you will decide anytime you want and the computer will check availability and recommend alternative locations if the station you picked is going to be too crowded. Deciding earlier will be in your advantage. In this forum terms like queue jumpers or late bookers will be common. There will be discussion about whether the system handles them fairly.
In 2020 in Europe Mennekes plug will be the standard for DC fast charging. The superchargers and the Model S in Europe have already the Mennekes plug. Most other EVs also have the Mennekes plug. But at the moment only Tesla uses the Mennekes for both AC and DC charging. I think this will change in 2020. Others will start using it for DC too. Teslas will be able to use these stations. Other cars will be able to use Tesla stations too, of course after they pay a fee. Real time availability data will be on the screen in Teslas, also it will be on digital road signs for other cars and there will be also smartphone apps.
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Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
For me, it appears to be zero so far. I'm at 15 months and have used a Supercharger 3 times. Once because it had just opened and I wanted to see what it was all about. The other two were to get pics of Monsoons' sons' Flat Stanley. All 3 were Supercharger destination trips. I've never truly needed a Supercharger.
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igotzzoom
Active Member
Speaking hypothetically as a non-(although hopefully future) Tesla owner, I only really see the need to use a Supercharger on long-distance road trips. Otherwise, I see having a home charger installed, and buying a UMC for overnight charging at destinations. Although not a perfect analogy, I've driven/tested CNG vehicles, and with a little research, you find out where the filling stations are. Fortunately in Southern California, they're relatively abundant. Stopping/fueling in an EV definitely requires more planning and strategy than a gasoline-powered ICE, but seems like it will continue to get easier with each passing year.
I'm starting to get lost in the analogies as well. The pit stop concept isn't necessary. There are many stores and restaurants right off the highway Tesla can work with for supercharger locations. No need to buy land 0.01 miles off the highway with no rest stop or food when one 0.1 miles away has all of that.
Buying an EV is also self selecting. People with zero ability to charge at home tend to not buy an EV unless they are dedicated to the idea. Some do of course but I'd bet at least 90+% of Tesla owners have at least a 120V outlet at home.
If your point is life is random and there won't always be 8 supercharger slots open in a 10 bay station then I would agree. All the things already mentioned as ways to minimize have been well covered. It will take real time data, software and more stations to keep up with demand and Tesla is working on all of that I bet.
Buying an EV is also self selecting. People with zero ability to charge at home tend to not buy an EV unless they are dedicated to the idea. Some do of course but I'd bet at least 90+% of Tesla owners have at least a 120V outlet at home.
If your point is life is random and there won't always be 8 supercharger slots open in a 10 bay station then I would agree. All the things already mentioned as ways to minimize have been well covered. It will take real time data, software and more stations to keep up with demand and Tesla is working on all of that I bet.
callmesam
Member
From Elon Musk Reasoning from First Principles:
"I think its important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy…The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy…
We are doing this because it’s like something else that was done..or it is like what other people are doing…slight iterations on a theme…
“First principles” is a physics way of looking at the world…what that really means is that you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there…that takes a lot more mental energy…
Someone could –and people do — say battery packs are really expensive and that’s just the way they will always be because that’s the way they have been in the past…
They would say it’s going to cost, historically it cost $600 KW/hour. It’s not going to be much better that in the future…
So first principles..we say what are the material constituents of the batteries. What is the spot market value of the material constituents? It has carbon, nickel, aluminum, and some polymers for separation, and a steel can..break that down on a material basis, if we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost. oh geez…It’s $80 KW/hour. Clearly, you need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much cheaper than anyone realizes."
Elon Musk: The Role of Analogy and Reasoning From First Principles in Disruptive Entrepreneurship | Taking Pitches:
"I think its important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy…The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy…
We are doing this because it’s like something else that was done..or it is like what other people are doing…slight iterations on a theme…
“First principles” is a physics way of looking at the world…what that really means is that you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there…that takes a lot more mental energy…
Someone could –and people do — say battery packs are really expensive and that’s just the way they will always be because that’s the way they have been in the past…
They would say it’s going to cost, historically it cost $600 KW/hour. It’s not going to be much better that in the future…
So first principles..we say what are the material constituents of the batteries. What is the spot market value of the material constituents? It has carbon, nickel, aluminum, and some polymers for separation, and a steel can..break that down on a material basis, if we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost. oh geez…It’s $80 KW/hour. Clearly, you need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much cheaper than anyone realizes."
Elon Musk: The Role of Analogy and Reasoning From First Principles in Disruptive Entrepreneurship | Taking Pitches:
I am going to enter (and exit, because this is our SillySeason time, and I've no excuse for not having my nose to the grindstone) this conversation only by responding to a specific comment made and not followed up on; this is from Igotzz..., back in post #42:
It makes me more than sad to contemplate not only that some people think this way, but that TMC also might follow this. If the network of SpCs is so constructed, then Teslas are relegated only to the worst of all roads with which to enjoy North America - effectively, the interstate highway system. That's terrible! and I dearly hope it does not come to pass.
As an example, I suggested two weeks ago to the SpC Team they consider a N-S route that covers Rte. 93 - one of the gems of travel on this continent. It begins in Jasper, in the high Canadian Rockies, and takes travelers through some of the absolute finest scenery that BC, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona have to offer; tying together a number of Tier 2 cities along the way. Is it ever a major thoroughfare? No, thank goodness. But it is one of many, many wonderful roads that remain a delight to travel - something that cannot be said about the Interstates.
It makes me more than sad to contemplate not only that some people think this way, but that TMC also might follow this. If the network of SpCs is so constructed, then Teslas are relegated only to the worst of all roads with which to enjoy North America - effectively, the interstate highway system. That's terrible! and I dearly hope it does not come to pass.
As an example, I suggested two weeks ago to the SpC Team they consider a N-S route that covers Rte. 93 - one of the gems of travel on this continent. It begins in Jasper, in the high Canadian Rockies, and takes travelers through some of the absolute finest scenery that BC, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona have to offer; tying together a number of Tier 2 cities along the way. Is it ever a major thoroughfare? No, thank goodness. But it is one of many, many wonderful roads that remain a delight to travel - something that cannot be said about the Interstates.
There are some key differences between gas stations and supercharger stations:
1. Gas stations are for profit. They make some money selling gasoline. The margins sometimes get thin when there is a lot of local competition, but if there is little local competition they don't need to be. They make a lot of money from their convenience stores, and the majority of the traffic to the store comes from people buying gas. Superchargers are currently free with no attached convenience store.
2. Gas stations can be independent and market forces make them spring up where demand is. Superchargers are Tesla controlled ( for now ).
3. Gas stations can have about 10x the traffic of a supercharger station for similar area because the fillups are faster.
4. Popping into a convenience store at a gas station makes sense because you are only there to fill up for a few minutes. Visiting a convenience store attached to a supercharger would still leave you lots of time to kill.
5. The critical mass of customers needed to support some form of for profit Supercharger station model does not yet exist.
1. Gas stations are for profit. They make some money selling gasoline. The margins sometimes get thin when there is a lot of local competition, but if there is little local competition they don't need to be. They make a lot of money from their convenience stores, and the majority of the traffic to the store comes from people buying gas. Superchargers are currently free with no attached convenience store.
2. Gas stations can be independent and market forces make them spring up where demand is. Superchargers are Tesla controlled ( for now ).
3. Gas stations can have about 10x the traffic of a supercharger station for similar area because the fillups are faster.
4. Popping into a convenience store at a gas station makes sense because you are only there to fill up for a few minutes. Visiting a convenience store attached to a supercharger would still leave you lots of time to kill.
5. The critical mass of customers needed to support some form of for profit Supercharger station model does not yet exist.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
chickensevil
Active Member
I think most people just want the stigma of "you can't go very far with that car" to go away and that is the driving force behind placing them near interstate highways. I wholly expect once they cover the interstate highway system they will start to cover alternative highways. Especially in more rural states like Ohio (at least the southern half). Even Texas, unless you live in or near one of the big major cities and then want to travel to one of the other big major cities there isn't any plans to cover out the rest of the state at all right now. So if for no other reason, we will need most of those routes covered so you can actually get from any starting point to any ending point like you can right now in an ICE.
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what makes you think Tesla with their current business model can't easily be on the positive side of this? Consider SiriusXM, they have a little known option to pay a large sum of money up front and get their service free for the life of your radio. It turns out that it is basically like paying for 3 years up front. How long does the average radio last before you need a knew one? well for me, mine lasted me a little over 3 years (there is more to this but I won't bore you for the example). The point is, it is entirely possible that they have not just a break even business model but a profitable one by having you pay 2k up front for the usage. This gets even more in the black for them when they are through with the bulk majority of the roll out since most of their new income from cars with then go toward maintenance and electricity. Go look up the numbers people have ran, that 2k goes a VERY long way over the life of your car.
AmpedUP
EV Nut
Skimming through responses, I didn't see mention of Tesla freeing up patents. This is a HUGE consideration that needs to put into this discussion. As others have noted, charging stations are not the same as fuel stations. Users of charging stations, particularly those driving long range vehicles such as a Model S, are typically on extended road trips outside of their usual zone of travel. To a very great degree, they are FAR more likely to be on vacation or on business travel than a gas station user. This, combined with the longer wait times for charging vs. gas pumping, makes them a local business DREAM customer. If you are a regular user of plugshare, you'll notice that an owner of a string of Cracker Barrel restaurants in Tennessee has installed chargers at every location. Just think what the removal of patent restrictions on super charging would mean to such an entrepreneur? I betcha they're already looking for a way to install super charging right now...and with patents no longer a barrier, I bet they'll have a lot of company from other entrepreneurs, world wide. There's a reason Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP became the standard for web servers throughout the world...open source code made it all happen. The freeing up of these patents will do the same for super charging.
My point is that gas stations will spring out of nothingness where there is demand, because they make money. Superchargers do not. Tesla puts in superchargers because they have to or the demand for the Model S may wane.
Somewhere at Tesla, a bean counter tries to figure out how much money they need to spend on superchargers to keep the demand from falling. Every dollar they don't spend on superchargers they get to keep.
I don't believe that the 2K per car ( minus the cost of the hardware in the car ) goes into an account just for building and operating superchargers.
If supercharger stations could make a profit by themselves, and Tesla could get out of the business of building them, then I believe market forces would do a better job of getting them installed.
There are many routes I want to drive that Tesla has no plans to put supercharger service on, I hope somebody else gets the chance.
I don't want to see independent dealers selling Tesla cars ( unless they have to compete with factory stores ). But I think it would be a great thing to see independent superchargers.
Merrill
Merrill
I'm not sure you are aware of the fact that gas stations are declining and they make very little on gas and there has been a 25% decline in convenience store sales. The consumption of gas in this country has declined 20% since 2005.
^^^^This. I don't travel on the interstates unless it can't be avoided. The two solutions are:
1. Have enough range so that long stretches on non-interstate roads is feasible.
2. Build Superchargers along highways like 77, 177, 377, 380 etc. so that you don't have to use the truck-littered interstates.
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