With more cars being produced, superchargers becoming more congested

[Silicon Desert]

I dunno, I only use SC’s for road trips. I love plugging in at home every night, and waking up with a full tank of electrons. Why would I need to go to a SC?

You probably wouldn't need to go to an SC based on what you say. However, someday you might want to go on a trip and need to use a supercharger. At present, its pretty nice and easy, at least according to my coast to coast trips, but as I mentioned, it has been noticeably more busy to me in the last several months. Hopefully the day won't come where we have to wait in line at a supercharger on a road trip like I had to do twice on my last coast to coast trip. The point is that things aren't getting better, but I can't seem to get it across to folks. Time will tell.

 

[ljbad4life]

Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I tried to point out that there are a lot of variables I don't consider at this time. The whole point is to show a trend that cars are selling faster than superchargers are bring installed. At some point it becomes a problem if nothing changes. Oh and I don't see BigDog's postings. My ignore list of "untactful" replies is big.

Have you taken into account that Tesla may have slowed down building Superchargers (v2) to switch to building v3 supercharger? It's not a simple swap out from a legal stand point. All plans have to be resubmitted to the municipality, permits redrawn/new permits etc. For an upgrade I am sure it's tied up in as much red tape(maybe more). Why go through the process twice (and pay all associated fees for permits and work hours) when Tesla can wait 6 months for the v3 beta testing to be done and forge ahead with building stations that have 50% higher through put.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Have you taken into account that Tesla may have slowed down building Superchargers (v2) to switch to building v3 supercharger?.

That's a really good thought; however when you look at the data over the months and years, installation has not slowed at all. In fact it slightly increases every month on average. I haven't seen a month where the combination of installations going live or ones in process have dropped.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

I think this boils down to that which Tesla can control (vehicle production) and that which it can’t (obtaining approval govt and/or property owners/lease). So, given Tesla’s history of vertical integration, I will predict that there will be more lounge SCs like Kettleman, whereupon Tesla owns the property, produces the electricity, sells food/snacks/movies/massages/services, and controls the experience. At least that would be one of my goals as CEO, unless of course the property owners begin to see contracts with Tesla as a big boost to their business, and then PAY Tesla to have a SC installed.

 

[Misterbee]

You probably wouldn't need to go to an SC based on what you say. However, someday you might want to go on a trip and need to use a supercharger. At present, its pretty nice and easy, at least according to my coast to coast trips, but as I mentioned, it has been noticeably more busy to me in the last several months. Hopefully the day won't come where we have to wait in line at a supercharger on a road trip like I had to do twice on my last coast to coast trip. The point is that things aren't getting better, but I can't seem to get it across to folks. Time will tell.

Au Contraire, mon frere. I just got back from a nine week, 8000 mile road trip. The only places where the SCs were busy were in the Bay Area, and SoCal. The rest of it was cake. Here at home, Supercharging is a non-issue for me. Remember, you asked for feedback...

 

[SR22pilot]

Every time I look at Supercharge.info I see several locations under construction in the Bay Area and several more permits. Considering that the highway across Canada still lacks Superchargers, I think the Bay Area is getting plenty of attention. The Supercharger network was supposed to be about long trips. There are still places which aren't close to a Supercharger. Considering Tesla's present financial situation, I think Supercharger rollout is going nicely.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Au Contraire, mon frere. I just got back from a nine week, 8000 mile road trip. The only places where the SCs were busy were in the Bay Area, and SoCal. The rest of it was cake. Here at home, Supercharging is a non-issue for me. Remember, you asked for feedback...

Totally agree, and I thought I said that, but maybe not. I think (and hope) that Interstate travel will be ok for some time to come. The point I am trying to make is that if installation of SCs don't keep pace with sales of cars in the future, then at some point it will be pretty obvious that people will be waiting more. I have noticed more busy SCs as mentioned, so maybe your 8,000 mile trip doesn't mirror mine. Glad to hear you had good luck.

 

[ccdisce]

From my experience yesterday Sunday, the SC in Kingsland GA was full about 1/2 MS, MX and 1/2 M3 there was no waiting line but an X was parked over by the local cop cars waiting for a slot,

I was charging trying to get a full charge to make it to the Macon SC at Tom Hill Snr I quit after 1 1/2 hrs charging to 310 (was hoping for 325) The Navigation Advisory said keep it below 65mph to make it to Macon GA which I did so if you came across a MS100D driving on Interstates 95 and Interstate 16 it was me, so finally I made it there at 13% instead of 8% by drafting tractor trailers at 66.

The SC at Tom Hill was one of the newer ones charging at 142KW in adding 160 mi 15 minutes I was ready for the 100mile sprint to Atlanta.

So IMHO it is starting to influence interstate travel for me and probably for that X as it had Florida plates.

 

[Rocky_H]

No one has mentioned this yet, but it's a bit of a contributing factor--lack of adapters for other fast charging.

Most of the country that is not California or a few other really large cities still don't have these crowding problems at the Superchargers. I still look at my local Supercharger when I drive by and am excited seeing a car there.

So it is mainly in the very large cites that have clogged Superchargers. Well, guess what really large cities have? Other charging stations. But up until right now, the Model 3 could not access CHAdeMO or CCS stations throughout these cities, so they were all getting funneled into the very limited number of Supercharger locations. If some other choices were available, this would be a supply and demand problem that would sort itself out, and people could go to less used stations.

Just in the past week, Tesla has created a new firmware version that will let the Model 3 use the CHAdeMO adapter, but it is just barely beginning to be deployed to the fleet, so it will take some time to get that choice capability out there and still won't enable CCS stations.

There is also another factor that @Big Dog is alluding to--uneven distribution--but specifically because of price. In the smaller cites, incomes are a bit lower on average. For the first few years of having our Model S, most people I talked with thought it was cool, but couldn't conceive of buying a car that cost over $70,000. That's kind of outrageous for areas that aren't like L.A. or San Fran. A lot of flyover country is that way. But they will somewhat reasonably tolerate buying a car that is $30,000 to $40,000.

Sooo, California was getting kind of saturated with early S and X buying. Now, we are into the later phases where a lot the middle of the country who couldn't afford an S or X are buying Model 3s in areas that still have pretty good excess Supercharger capacity. So the generalized ratio number climbing shouldn't be quite such a nationwide issue.