Will Gen III mean more supercharging? Good for battery?

[RobStark]

You have to think about this in terms of scaling. Model E will have at minimum 10x the production capacity that Model S has.

In the automotive industry generally if you half the price you increase volume four fold.

Tesla expects sustained demand at 20k Model S sales in North America, Europe and Asia. The same for Model X. That is 120k units. That would tell us 480k units for Gen3 Sedan and SUV.

Gigafactory builds battery packs for 500k units( if no batteries go to stationary storage) plus enough batteries from Japan for another 120k units.

We know that Tesla has vacated Model E trademark application so we should probably start calling it Gen3 Sedan for now.


BTW Free and forever beats low cost low margin independent charging stations.

 

[ecarfan]

It will be a decade or two before the EV charging market is big enough to support a widespread L3 (DC) nationwide commercial charging network besides the Tesla Superchargers. I think Tesla will continue building out their network for years after the Gen III goes into production because as Johan and others have pointed out the cost of the SC network is paid for in advance by those Tesla owners who by the SC charging option, and I think a majority of Gen III buyers will purchase that option. It makes building out the network ridiculously simple.

 

[FlasherZ]

BTW Free and forever beats low cost low margin independent charging stations.

To the consumer? Sure. But is it the right long-run model? I am unsure of Tesla's ability/desire to keep maintaining and rolling out charging stations for that scale.

I see you're in California, but you should come try the rest of the country sometime... does free/forever beat low-cost/low-margin charging when the Tesla supercharger is 20 miles out of your way? 50 miles out of your way? 100 miles out of your way? Right now, based on Tesla's projected coverage map, if I want to go from my home to Santa Claus, IN, I will need to stop in Mount Vernon, IL to charge up, then drive to Santa Claus - but I can't make it back to Mount Vernon without REALLY conservative driving (240 mi RT not counting local driving). Instead, I'll have to drive 75 miles further east to Lousville, KY before I can return to Mount Vernon and go home. That's over 2 hours out of my way. I'll HAPPILY pay $10 for a third-party quick-charge vs. that 2 hours out of my way if energy companies want to build.

Eventually, vertical business models break down into horizontals when enough standardization comes about (or enough dollars are involved).

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It will be a decade or two before the EV charging market is big enough to support a widespread L3 (DC) nationwide commercial charging network besides the Tesla Superchargers. I think Tesla will continue building out their network for years after the Gen III goes into production because as Johan and others have pointed out the cost of the SC network is paid for in advance by those Tesla owners who by the SC charging option, and I think a majority of Gen III buyers will purchase that option. It makes building out the network ridiculously simple.

I realize it's all speculation at this point, but I'm not sure it's a nationwide commercial charging network. I think it's a credit card @ POS model, like pay-at-the-pump, probably built more regionally/locally. Tesla's SC's help to prevent crazy price gouging and creates an open field for others to join quickly (anti-monopoly).

I would debate the decade, I think it's more like 5 years before they start springing up, but generally I find I'm an optimist and perhaps you're right. I don't think Tesla's in the free charging market for the long term though. I'll be happy if I'm proven wrong, though.

 

[RobStark]

To the consumer? Sure. But is it the right long-run model? I am unsure of Tesla's ability/desire to keep maintaining and rolling out charging stations for that scale.

I see you're in California, but you should come try the rest of the country sometime... does free/forever beat low-cost/low-margin charging when the Tesla supercharger is 20 miles out of your way? 50 miles out of your way? 100 miles out of your way? Right now, based on Tesla's projected coverage map, if I want to go from my home to Santa Claus, IN, I will need to stop in Mount Vernon, IL to charge up, then drive to Santa Claus - but I can't make it back to Mount Vernon without REALLY conservative driving (240 mi RT not counting local driving). Instead, I'll have to drive 75 miles further east to Lousville, KY before I can return to Mount Vernon and go home. That's over 2 hours out of my way. I'll HAPPILY pay $10 for a third-party quick-charge vs. that 2 hours out of my way if energy companies want to build.

Eventually, vertical business models break down into horizontals when enough standardization comes about (or enough dollars are involved).

As long as Tesla customers are willing to pay for supercharger enabling Tesla will continue to build superchargers where they make sense. If it makes sense for an independent to build a fast charging station it will pay for Tesla to do it, at least for the foreseeable future. Elon and JB have said as much. Tesla is not stopping in two years. And Tesla is not stopping on increasing range either IMO. By the time Tesla figures it has saturated a national market not much room for anyone else to service Tesla customers.

Eventually someone will build pay charging stations for other OEMs road BEVs. And Tesla customers will be able to use those if more convenient than a Supercharger.

 

[callmesam]

Just run the numbers:

If GenIII has a $2000 fee for access and 150,000 sales with 100,000 paying the fee (yes, wild ass guess), you'd net 1333 Superchargers (at $150,000 per).

That will fill in a TON of gaps.

Even if Tesla puts half the revenue to Superchargers 667 per year, that leaves $100,000,000 to add solar and backup batteries.

 

[Doug_G]

Renamed thread to say "Gen III" instead of "Model E" due to Tesla dropping the trademark application.

 

[ecarfan]

FlasherZ wrote "Eventually, vertical business models break down into horizontals when enough standardization comes about (or enough dollars are involved)."

In the case of EV charging there is no "standardization" likely for many years to come. Tesla had to develop its own DC charging system because it was the first company to offer a large battery and truly useful range. The existing standards were pitifully slow.

As @callmesam points out, the Tesla SC network is self-funding for the foreseeable future. The North American network will continue to be built out for years after the 2015 map and all the gaps will be filled in and stations expanded as needed. The cost to do so is relatively modest and the marketing advantage is enormous. No other car company is doing anything like it and none of them show any sign of understanding the competitive advantage Tesla is developing.

And of course in a few years Tesla will be offering longer range batteries as it drives the price down, meaning those who wish to pay more will be less dependent on the SC network for long distance travel, while others can choose to buy a smaller battery but still pay for Supercharging for long distance travel.

 

[aronth5]

FlasherZ you bring up some really good points. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in 5+ years when range should be higher. Once range approaches 350+ miles some of the challenges will diminish if I can drive 500 miles in a day with only one supercharge.

 

[richkae]

Tesla is doing good things right now. No doubt. But.

With TEsla Model 'e' more and more folks are going to buy an BEV, but not everyone will have a garage like Model S users today.
That means they have to go charging at a Supercharger every week. Thus, that means they will charge the vehicle at 2C every week.

Even if Tesla sells 10x Gen3 vehicles in the US market than they do Model S, that is still only about 1% of the total vehicle market.
It will still be an expensive car. Garages will remain the most common home for a Tesla, perhaps slightly less than the Model S.

I can not imagine anyone buying a Tesla if the only way they can charge it is to visit a supercharger twice a week. Only if it was on their daily route, or a few miles from home. The number of people that fit that category is very small. In an area where that was actually common, the Supercharger would quickly become inconvenient.

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That's over 2 hours out of my way. I'll HAPPILY pay $10 for a third-party quick-charge vs. that 2 hours out of my way if energy companies want to build.

I find it hard to believe that you value your time at only $5 per hour.

 

[ecarfan]

I can not imagine anyone buying a Tesla if the only way they can charge it is to visit a supercharger twice a week. Only if it was on their daily route, or a few miles from home.

I can easily imagine that. Remember what Elon said on the recent earnings call, that Tesla was considering placing chargers in Chinese cities and also in places like London UK and San Francisco because there are a lot of prospective buyers in those places who don't have garages.

Say you have 200 miles of range and your daily commute is just 20 miles. You want a nice EV. You buy a Tesla and spend 30 minutes a week charging at a Supercharger.

There is a market for that and it would be a smart move for Tesla to put SCs in cities like that.

 

[Kitt]

As i have understood from this lecture it is not really high capacity charging Professor Jeff Dahn - WIN Seminar Series - YouTube
but rather charging slowly at elevated temperatures what degrades battery life more. What makes sense because higher T means more molecular movement, thus undesired molecular compounds which cause the degradation at the anode
occur more likely. A basic thumb rule in chemistry is that reaction speed doubles with 10° higher T.
Very low T for battery life doenst matter how Prof Dahn explained , its even better. Logically because you slow down chemistry.
But for dis/charging them they need to be actually warm. But heating them up isnt really the deal at Superchargiers.
That graph that Jeff Dahn showed directly implies that TEsla Model S battery will retent 60% cap after 20,000 cycles. Well at least for this kind of cycle rates. (+1,5C,-2,5C @37°C/8years)

 

[Doug_G]

A whole bunch of posts have been moved to snippiness

 

[FlasherZ]

I'd like to appeal the movement of this post:
snippiness - Page 87

I think it belongs here, is on-topic, and wasn't snippy.

EDIT: re-posted below with slight modifications.

 

[Doug_G]

Sorry, I don't do surgery on posts. My rule is, if it quotes any post that goes to snippiness, it also goes. Otherwise it's just too much of a mess to deal with.

Please do re-post the useful part! :smile:

 

[FlasherZ]

I find it hard to believe that you value your time at only $5 per hour.

I don't, but that wasn't the point.

The pricing is built into my opinion that we will see third-party charging stations with commodity pricing (not opportunity pricing) appear near the time of Gen3. At that time I would expect the free-but-sparse Tesla model to prevent/disturb high price models (there have been a couple of threads with ideas similar to "why wouldn't a third party charging station charge the same price as a tank of gas today?")

I think the model changes from Tesla-owned-and-operated Supercharging to a broader-based network just after introduction of GenIII, providing Tesla gets the CHAdeMO and/or combo-plug adapters out there or opens/encourages the Tesla connector more.

[After a question as to whether or not this conversation is on-topic or not:]

This conversation is square with the original topic -- what does volume Supercharging look like in the (hopefully near) future when there are millions of Teslas (and other EV's) on the road? Elon has already said that GenIII will have Supercharging, and that it will be free from Tesla.

As to whether it's "good for the battery", I'll simply say that the issue is not going to be the batteries -- we already have battery technology that can be charged at amazing rates. The issue is going to be power density at these Supercharging stations. When a couple handfuls of "charging/parking spots" can draw more power than a few-hundred-square-feet data center and big power distribution avoids populated areas (think of the "not in my backyard" arguments about high-power distribution), things change quite a bit.

 

[RadicalIgnorant]

As I don't expect to afford Model S and I quite like living inside the city, where it's hard to get a garage, I was thinking a lot about charging possibilities for Gen III.
One thing is wrong in this topic IIRC. Someone mentioned that supercharging will be enabled for Gen III and that's true. He also mentioned that "supercharging will be always free", what is out of context. I heard it a lot and every time it was "supercharching will be allways free for Model S owners" - to assure current users that, as they paid upfront, this deal will be respected always. But I'm quite sure it's not decided yet about supercharging payment for cheaper models.

1. There is one crucial thing: If you wan't to have as many clients as possible upfront cost can be really meaningfull factor. For average MS owner it would be about 2% difference in price, for average G3 owner that would be probably about 5% difference in price. That is one factor for pay as you get model.

2. Someone mentioned problems with card validation and so on... Do you make credit card operation every time you call using pre-paid phone card? That's compeling model I believe. No any card, just account on Tesla site with some balance and car id.

3. Tesla goal is to accelerate EV revolution. So once you develop model of paying, like for moblie calls, it's easy to allow every other car maker to use their infrastructure and in this way accelerate pace of this revolution. And profit from success of others.

4. If you have easy payment method (like in car ability to pay for electricity) it's probably not so hard to develop mini-super-charger or rather "usual charger" which can be fetched to every parking lot: underground garage, restaurant stop or even on street sideway. There is no problem with "who will pay the bills for all this cars in front of my..." if there is simple current meter and little chip with soft to charge car and enable/disable power. I think one need to realize that if EV's will become dominant we will have to often share charging points (like parking spaces in city centers) and there will go lot of juice through them.

And this model (PAYG) fit well to what JB said few days ago. TSLA is not only car but also, and maybe even more, energy company.

Cheers
Adas L.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

The system you describe means that if a supercharger site loses connectivity to Tesla you will be unable to validate if the user is authenticated. You could leave it to fail towards free charging that is later accounted for though and the system could have a local database that is synced a few times a day with central repository with VIN + balance allowing the car to charge even if connectivity is lost. So yeah, it may work... Or Tesla might go the 60kWh method that it's built in, but you need to opt-in by paying an upfront fee and get free for life. We'll see, so far it's been mentioned on a number of occasions that supercharging will be free for all cars that are able to supercharge. S, X, G-3 were implied in multiple Elon's talks, I think the most detailed ones were from the recent EU trip.