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Photos from Milan Store Opening & Infos

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Photos from Milan Store Opening can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teslatuning/sets/72157626032038914/

A view photos for example:
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and
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The most "important" picture on a technical view is this:
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It was just made seconds after Elon Musk and JB Straubel confirmed on the podium that - especially to a dedicated question from Eberhard - Model S onboard Charger is SINGLE PHASE. It is a 22kW onboard charger, from what I understood is able to accept DC, but on the AC Side, ONLY single phase, definitely not 3phase.
There was some audience quite unhappy, but it is at it is. JB said they had to make this decision somewhere early in the projects stage, have to save every dollar on the car, and now have to bring everything to road, no other options.

JB was some kind of a surprice guest, was introduced from Elon as some other co-Founder, and it was great to talk to him. As he is relatively unknown in europe except to freaks, all the crowd was around Elon, and JB could not really escape our small group of tech oriented owners. But problem: If I had known that JB was coming, I would have prepared myself with a list of questions. Not sure if there will ever be again the chance to speak to the CTO in face to face small group for nearly half an hour. As I was not prepared, it was miscelaneous stuff, including this odd 1 phase / 3 phase thing, the mobile phone access / status infos, and so on.
 
This is bad news for European Model S sales. I fear that the Renault Zoe (of all things) could eat their lunch (it has 63A 3phase support i.e. 43kW).

OK realistically they aren't in the same class of car. The Fluence though is similar enough that it could be a real threat. I can't recall but I think that is initially limited to 16A 3phase (11kW). In principle the Model S will charge faster (90A 1 phase I presume to get 22kW) BUT there won't be many/any such EVSEs around the bulk of Europe, whereas 16A and 32A 3-phase (22kW) will be common, and cheap and easy to implement.

Was there any news on the type of DC connector, and what power it can accept? This could be decisive now in whether Model S is a total fail in Europe or redeemable.
 
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Yep - Fluence is meant to get the three phase support from the second model year onwards.

I'd also be interested to hear if here were any technical details on the DC connector. Seems like it's going to be necessary if three phase is out the window. Can't help but think that's a strategic error here.
 
Despite my initial reaction, one thing stands out as odd: 22kW. That would much more easily map to 32A 3phase than any reasonable 1phase amperage. Are you sure the answer was what you reported?

Yes. In seperate talks, JB said they had to think of the whole world as their sales area. And from what I understood, in the US and in Japan 3phase is not common.
My "simple" suggestion was to make the charger accept 3phase, and in those parts of the world where they might not have it, use only one of the 3phase of the charger. JBs answer was than "for that people the solution would not be ideal". So yes, it is single phase accepting only. We did not talk for the amperage.

As on the phone issue: Tesla is totally focusing on the model S release. They want not put any effort on this roadster things at the moment. Especially as the roadster was designed at a time that these features were not in mind. For example, preheating the car would not be easy. The VMS could control the HVAC, but the cooling is only working when the battery system and the motor controller is on. So this would require the whole car to be in something like the "on" mode. And do you really want to be the car "on" when you are not there? So JB said all this design strategies were done long time ago with no phone application in mind.
Seems now they put every effort on Model S and dont want to bring out a (small) solution for the roadster.
 
Alpine Driver: Thanks. I was referring to the Model S. Did they say if that's a feature they're planning for the Model S? I guess ends any hope of a Tesla solution for the Roadster with the iPhone though.
 
Seems quite blinkered when they were talking about 10,000 cars in NA and 10,000 in European markets at one stage. I would have thought that enough to make both variants.

Besides, one of the companies I have dealt with in my day job offers this in a white paper:

Baseline: Current North American 208 VAC 3-phase Power Distribution

To understand this new approach to power distribution within the cabinet, it helps to
understand the current standard distribution systems. In North America, 277/480 VAC,
3-phase power is delivered to most large commercial buildings and IT facilities
. The
voltages are measured from line-to-neutral (277 VAC) and line-to-line (480 VAC), as shown
below in Figure 2.

So if true, there's no reason to think that 480V 3P couldn't be offered at fast charge locations.
 
I think Elon Musk is in danger of being Henry Ford. "Any power as long as it's single phase" - "any colour as long as it's black". A similar analysis (http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...s-mistake.aspx?source=izmmblmre0000001&lidx=1) of another succesful, self-believing technology business leader (Steve Jobs) asks if the approach of "Apple's product, Apple's way" will win out long term. The comparison with Henry Ford is that when Henry Ford said "you can have the Model T any colour as long as it's black" he was being arrogant towards the legitimate desires or needs of the customer. And an upstart competitor (General Motors) offered the alternative people wanted - lots of colours. In this case I think Elon is in danger of being like Henry Ford in denying the legitimate needs of a market that represents one third of world demand at least. In that market competitors that offer what the market desires, needs or wants better will win. I suspect Elon feels predestined to sell an awful lot of Model S in Europe. Without a change of plan on this issue I wonder.
 
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I dunno... it seems to me that you don't really need high power charging at home. I almost never charge at 70 amps; if I had to do it over again I'd probably not bother with the HPC.

If there are DC chargers available for road trip fillups, surely that will meet the need.

Also someone is bound to come out with a home DC charger with 3 phase input. If there is market demand it will be met.
 
It's not home charging that is at issue here.

It's on-the-road fast charging.

In some countries DC fast charge will prevail. Great. Model S supports it and will sell well there.

In other countries 3-phase 63A 43kW is so cheap to implement that it HAS been adopted as the standard for fast charge (I cite the Netherlands) or likely will be (I cite Germany).

In these countries DC fast charge may not take off. A cheap DC home unit doesn't help - though a cheap portable DC unit would if it can be built.

Oh and one other thing. The DC countries and the 3phase countries sit next to each other in Europe like a patchwork quilt - we need cars that do both because we tend to like to drive across the continent just as much as North Americans do.
 
I just realised something. Back in 2009 at the launch of model S Tesla were saying the built-in charger would charge from any 120V, 240V or 480V socket. (see for instance report here: http://www.yourautostuff.com/tag/480v/). Now in a North American context 480V is 3-phase.

So I think we have just seen Tesla break one of their commitments about Model S. I hope there aren't a lot more to come because I really want Model S to succeed.
 
Really? Maybe you need to look at the registration numbers of the owner Roadsters in the Milan store opening photos: German, Swiss, British, Monaco at least.

More generally, many people from Nortern Europe (Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Belgium) drive all the way to Southern Europe for their summer vacations - it wouldn't be rare to find a Volvo with Swedish plates from Stockholm 2400 miles away in Malaga, Spain.

Personally we have done 3,000-4,000 mile summer tours around Europe in our Prius. None of this is unusual. I want to have an electric car that is not crippled for this use case. Ideally I'd like that it's a Model S.
 
Ah - so it's 277V phase to neutral. Kind of a weak version of "480V" charging!

Maybe we can persuade them to at least support 380-400V (Europe), 480V (North America) Phase to Phase (just to be clear this means between any pair of the three phases, so it's still single phase charging). I expect the hardware would be essentially identical, but it would give up to 38.4kW in the US, 30.4-32 kW in Europe, from very cheap infrastructure.

EDIT: what it really means is that plugging a model S into a "Mennekes" in Germany will yield max 14.5kW (drawing 63A on 230V phase to neutral) - far less than the 22kW which should never have even been mentioned in Europe as it's essentially unattainable here - but with phase to phase charging we could get back up to 23.9 kW (63A on 380V phase to phase).
 
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Sorry guys, as I am a roadster owner and not a model S reservation holder, my questions and my knowledge is roadster oriented. So I took a few ansers from JB as they were. But regarding to the question of Andrew B., I remember someone asking (may be it was Eberhard or another guy) the voltage input specification of Model S. And the answer from JB was from xx (sorry I forgot that) to 280V. Because the guy asked back if they could support 400V than (see Andrews arguments above)... -> but JB denied that supporting. His words were "the design of a 400V charger would have been completely different". I believe that on a technical way, so it stick with supporting 280V.
It was on more than one sentence, that JB Straubel gave us right for asking for a 3phase onboard charger on a physical sight for europe, but very often he pointed out that they have limited recources (he told that they have 5 people working on chargers), they have a tight time shedule to bring things to the road, and at least they have to save every dollar on the car to make it a (commercial) success.
So under these circumstances, they decided for this design. I personally think this is a big error not to support that 3phase common in europe, but it is not so important what I personally think. Time will tell.