Inside Scoop on Tesla’s Super-Smart Supercharger Network

Great article.

+1, intelligent

+2 - must be a new writer who doesn't understand that his ladder is climbed by ruffling feathers. Truthful articles of wonder generally cause pacificity. Not good in journalism.

:|

Brad wrote:

40kWh will not be available at all. 60 kWh needs to be configured for superchargers when you buy the car. But I agree that with the 60 kWh pack, the network is not quite as useful.

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Think long range here. Today's $100,000, 300M range is tomorrow's $50,000, 400M range car. By the time Tesla has the network fully up, cheaper longer range Teslas can use it too.

I was not sure if that meant the 40kWh would not be made or is not available to use on the network. Maybe they have decided that the 40 kWh battery is too small.

A few comments on his chart:

sublimaze1 said:

+2 - must be a new writer who doesn't understand that his ladder is climbed by ruffling feathers. Truthful articles of wonder generally cause pacificity. Not good in journalism.

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The author, Brad Berman, wrote the pieces for the New York Times. Certainly not a "new writer"!

He sometimes shows up at some of the local LEAF owners group meetings around here.
He wrote a piece very flattering for the Honda Fit that stirred up some interest in that vehicle.
Perhaps why Tesla gave him the opportunity to do this 'piece'. He is generally favorable to EVs although still pragmatic about it.

TEG said:

A few comments on his chart:

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He says in the NYT article that he had to move his car at lunch to allow another company Model S to charge. That explains the hour of flat SOC. However I don't think he is clear enough that this delayed things by a whole hour. He mentioned having 'lunch on the go' would get closer to an ICE timing, but that's not the whole story. A 45 minute restaurant lunch would still have been possible.

It does reaffirm that Harris Ranch needs more than 1 bay.

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Also note how the slope of the charge time is constant pretty much to 70% SOC and then doesn't taper that much. This is good mainly, but does mean that in a shared 2 bay supercharger if another car comes in you will be slowed down - i.e. there is little opportunity to share charger resources.

Brad Berman has been writing on the hybrid/EV space for years. He started hybridcars.com several years ago and has really earned his way into automotive journalism from the ground up. I met him 6 yrs ago when I was working on the "Green Center" for Yahoo Autos. I also met the Tesla Roadster for the first time back then!. Anyway, I found Brad Berman to be a very down-to-earth, all around cool guy. I'm very happy to see him published in the NY Times.

dpeilow said:

He says in the NYT article that he had to move his car at lunch to allow another company Model S to charge...

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I wonder why he didn't "rate" enough to take the space all the way to charge completion?

"Oh, I am just some reporter doing a story about how easy it is to drive this Tesla across the state..."

I am having trouble seeing how someone would think they had higher priority than that.

TEG said:

I wonder why he didn't "rate" enough to take the space all the way to charge completion?

"Oh, I am just some reporter doing a story about how easy it is to drive this Tesla across the state..."

I am having trouble seeing how someone would think they had higher priority than that.

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Or he could just take the opportunity of the wait to show the need for more chargers (maybe) and work on the article a bit while enjoying the stop.

TEG said:

I wonder why he didn't "rate" enough to take the space all the way to charge completion?

"Oh, I am just some reporter doing a story about how easy it is to drive this Tesla across the state..."

I am having trouble seeing how someone would think they had higher priority than that.

Click to expand...

I got the impression that at that point they were travelling in convoy.

vfx said:

Brad wrote:



Think long range here. Today's $100,000, 300M range is tomorrow's $50,000, 400M range car. By the time Tesla has the network fully up, cheaper longer range Teslas can use it too.

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This is absolutely true. As important as Model S is to us it's small potatoes in Tesla's master plan. Gen 3 and Gen 4 are where Tesla is attacking the mass market. Deploying a nationwide SuperCharger network is on the critical path to support that effort.

If Gen 3 ships with a 200 mile range and is supercharger compatible for ~$30k that will put Tesla into a strong position from a marketing standpoint, especially considering they will have maybe 50-60k Model S and X drivers on the road who are using SuperChargers to perform roadtrips.

TEG said:

I wonder why he didn't "rate" enough to take the space all the way to charge completion?

"Oh, I am just some reporter doing a story about how easy it is to drive this Tesla across the state..."

I am having trouble seeing how someone would think they had higher priority than that.

Click to expand...

TEG you should read the article. He said that he had stopped for a charge and had receieved more than enough to allow him to reach his destination before his lunch had arrived so he went out to move his car so that someone else that needed it could use it. Another person in his caravan. Nice thing to do.

OK, thanks. I guess they could have cut that trip time down by another hour if they had two Superchargers at Harris ranch.

Harris Ranch, last Tuesday. I wonder if this was them?

The drive was Monday.