timpoo
Member
He said later on that he was just meeting some EV enthusiasts, but I think it's a good location to put one - 200km out of Sydney, 90km out of Canberra. Would cover the Sydney to Canberra route very nicely.
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Superchargers in Australia
- Thread starter JOH
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- Australia Supercharging
He said later on that he was just meeting some EV enthusiasts, but I think it's a good location to put one - 200km out of Sydney, 90km out of Canberra. Would cover the Sydney to Canberra route very nicely.
Yeah that was me that asked, not a SC meetup. But I think he is locking in locations as we speak based on other tweets regarding planning requirements for connections.
timpoo
Member
Guys just saw that Tesla will be implementing battery swap stations in California from December. Do you think this is something you'd use instead of the Superchargers?
Yes, it's faster than refueling the car, but you have to pay close to $100 (by the time it's converted to AUD, $60-$80 in US), AND have to pick the battery back up on a return trip or face more charges.
I don't think I would use it that much - do you think it's suitable for Australian conditions?
Yes, it's faster than refueling the car, but you have to pay close to $100 (by the time it's converted to AUD, $60-$80 in US), AND have to pick the battery back up on a return trip or face more charges.
I don't think I would use it that much - do you think it's suitable for Australian conditions?
I think its really intended for return long distance trips where waiting for a charge may not be ideal. Also a bit of proof to those who don't like to break their current ICE driving habits.
I'd take the supercharger, coffee and a sandwich myself.
Dborn
Confirmed
I wouldn't use it. If i go to Canberra, i would expect destination charging. The Novotel there has two BetterPlace chargers, but whether they are operational is another question.
I am going to adopt a radical and controversial position on the Tesla supercharger network. It's a complete waste of time. Why build a separate charging network for Tesla cars that non Tesla electric cars cannot use? The DC charging network in Australia will be based on Combo 1 (assuming that CHAdeMO is deprecated) and there will be more Combo 1 DC charging stations than Tesla DC charging stations. Tesla owners will simply need an adapter to use Combo 1 stations.
Proprietary charging stations is the Better Place approach and look what happened Better Place. Electric car charging has to be based on open standards.
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There is intense driver resistance to the idea of swapping battery packs. Why would you swap the most expensive part of your car which you lovingly maintained by trickle charging for a dud pack degraded by thousands of DC fast charging cycles that has half the range? No two batteries are the same.
I agree about proprietary chargers, except that teslas chargers are far superior in regards to charging times, which is very important when considering the large capacity of the batteries.
I seem to remember reading something about Tesla trying to get other car manufacturers to use the supercharger plug/system. Don't know where I read it or what the conditions were.
Re: battery - you get your battery back.
You have to recollect it within a certain amount if time, or be charged for the cost of delivery. They will want the loan battery back as well. No one else gets use of your battery while you are using a swapper.
I think I agree. It would be very rare to use battery swap. On long trips I wouldn't bother as I appreciate the break time and it is part of the fun I look forward to on road trips in a Tesla.
For my SYD-CBR scenario I agree destination charging at a hotel overnight makes sense - but sometimes I'm going non stop, same day round trip, and have no time to muck around with 30mins+ charging or getting cabs etc. Customer sites won't have chargers so being able to batt swap makes sense and makes the day trip possible like it is in an ICE today.
Only scenario I can think of.
For my SYD-CBR scenario I agree destination charging at a hotel overnight makes sense - but sometimes I'm going non stop, same day round trip, and have no time to muck around with 30mins+ charging or getting cabs etc. Customer sites won't have chargers so being able to batt swap makes sense and makes the day trip possible like it is in an ICE today.
Only scenario I can think of.
timpoo
Member
yeah all your thoughts are the same as mine. Plus can you imagine the cost of installing something like that in Australia??? And I'm assuming it would need to be manned as well. Probably more of a publicity thing than a practical worldwide rollout thing
Gabz
Member
Charging times aren't linear going from a 50kW charger to 100kW doesn't save you half the time... kia have released the 100kW CHAdeMO (which saves you 8mins on their 22kwh battery) which is fast approaching telsas 120kW. so it's not longer really that technically superior (it was when the fast chademo was 60kW) . It's still a bit like a apples proprietary usb connectors.
I was very happy when they in euro spec decide to go type 2 plug and socket. for AC charging that was a step in the right direction.
I'd be more than happy to see a standard plug provide the charging times of the Tesla charger, but so far they aren't. I'm against proprietary plugs but at the same time they did something groundbreaking when they brought it in.
Maybe a better solution would have been to develop a more advanced standard plug system. Then they would have had to bring in a type of log in system so only the teslas could charge for free.
I know about power and charging, I'm an electrical engineer and 20kW is still a huge difference in power, the difference in charging time isn't negligible.
Because of the low price of electricity there is little incentive for people to install chargers so it took someone like Elon with the need to install high-powered chargers to get them built on-mass. I also highly doubt that any non-Tesla DC charging network will exist in Australia within the next 3 years, possibly even longer. It would not surprise me if "Tesla" became synonymous with electric car in Australia simply due to the lack of competition.
Gabz
Member
it is because that's the max power and the batteries don't accept max power for very long it's something like (not sure of actual charge curve i can find it later if really interested.)
20-50% SOC max power
50-70% SOC it's limited to 75% max power
70-80% SOC it's 50%
80% to 100% it can drop down to only 1% of max power. if when a 120kW charger the batteries will only accept 1-4 kW at this high end.
it's also rummered that on a multiple car station that the max power is limited as more car begin charging to decrease network capacity requirements.
for smaller battieres like on the leaf etc.. a 25kW it's 40 mins to 80% 50kW it's 30 mins to 80% and on a 100kW its only down to 22 mins to 80% not 15 mins as you would expect from a linear double in power.
so the difference in charge time is measurable but negligible real world.
Interesting.
I wonder who is going to pay for the power consumed by the supercharger network.
For example:
60 kWh * $0.25 = $15.
80 kWh * $0.25 = $20.
80 kWh * $0.25 = $20.
These are indicative figures because the battery packs won't be flat but if the supercharger was averaging $50 per day then the cost of a years power consumption would be $18,250. Will Tesla pickup the bill?
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The RAC WA Electric highway is going ahead.
Yes, Tesla pays for all power used by the Superchargers, always have, always will. In fact, they probably get cheaper rates than what you've quoted (and I believe they are looking heavily into solar in Australia).
The WA Electric Highway is not nationwide and will see a tiny percentage of usage in comparison to Tesla's SC network in Australia.
WhiteStar
Member
Yes Tesla pays and by extension, anyone who ever buys a Tesla, whether they have the Supercharger option or not.
I believe it's factored into the Supercharger cost (hence why it's a few thousand dollars).
WhiteStar
Member
I wonder if Supercharger option revenue would cover all the costs of rollout & power supply globally? It's possible I guess but with ongoing & ever increasing power costs with increasing sales volumes into the future, I'm not so sure unless the Supercharger option price will rise significantly.
I guess that's why there's SolarCity, at least in the US, and economies of scale when considered as an integral masterplan. It'll be interesting to see if the first Superchargers here will be solar installations which presumably will only supplement available power from either traditional dirty or renewable sources.
