Supercharging Hypothetical #3 -- Inappropriate or not?

[jerry33]

If travelers seldom use a particular SC, Elmo is probably doing Tesla a service by exercising the SC (hopefully he uses a different stall each time). Assuming he reports any failures to Tesla, it will reduce the chances of someone on a trip being inconvenienced. I've run into a couple of SCs that had non-working stalls, and the person I spoke to at Tesla always seems surprised to hear it. I'm absolutely certain that Tesla's monitoring doesn't catch every possible type of failure.

And Nigel's right. The more use the property owners and tenants see, the more likely they are to become EV friendly.

 

[tomas]

Hope Tesla's tracking these scenarios. Fact that vast majority thinks this behavior OK demonstrates the challenge ahead in enabling long distance travel with large fleet. They'd better get ahead of this somehow. Hopefully using telematics and data, as they clearly failed to do with the letter.

 

[techmaven]

I think a key issue here is blocking... if the local was taking up a plug and charging beyond energy to get home + buffer and there are people waiting, then the local should yield the plug.

 

[mknox]

I think a key issue here is blocking... if the local was taking up a plug and charging beyond energy to get home + buffer and there are people waiting, then the local should yield the plug.

Hope Tesla's tracking these scenarios. Fact that vast majority thinks this behavior OK demonstrates the challenge ahead in enabling long distance travel with large fleet. They'd better get ahead of this somehow. Hopefully using telematics and data, as they clearly failed to do with the letter.

I think likely the driving issue behind the Tesla letters was dealing with congestion and not over any great concern about how much electricity is being consumed. After all, Tesla's stated plan is to offset electricity costs with solar (the whole driving on sunshine thing).

I've often pondered this congestion issue. If EVs ever become as ubiquitous as ICE cars, we're going to end up needing at least as many charging stalls as there are gas pumps today, and perhaps more. The Reason? Congestion. You can't charge a car as quickly as you can fuel an ICE. I do realize the "intent" is that the majority of charging takes place at home, but there are still a lot of cars on the road doing all kinds of things, and needing to fuel/charge up as they are out and about. This Tesla congestion may just be a harbinger of things to come.

 

[MassModel3]

P.S. Tesla store staff have encouraged me to park my Roadster at one of the HPWCs at our local mall, people come into the store asking about it. (BTW, there is a bank of 4 HPWCs there, plus 4 Clipper Creek chargers, plus 8 Chargepoint machines, all free to use)

You know, this brings up another related item that I do have problems with. Our Natick Tesla store has spaces in the front of one parking garage marked something like "Reserved for Tesla", with the spaces painted, giant TESLA logo above, and HPWC's. It really annoys me when I go there and Tesla's are parked there (reserved for them, right?) and NOT plugged into the HPWC's. My last trip to Natick I really could have used an extra few miles charge. Unfortunately, there's nothing that says "Reserved for Tesla, but please park elsewhere if you don't need the charge." And yes, there were probably a hundred or more available spaces around the Tesla area. This comes down to just being considerate of your fellow Tesla drivers. Unfortunately, I'm convinced this type of behavior will become much worse with the Model 3.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

I think likely the driving issue behind the Tesla letters was dealing with congestion and not over any great concern about how much electricity is being consumed. After all, Tesla's stated plan is to offset electricity costs with solar (the whole driving on sunshine thing).

I've often pondered this congestion issue. If EVs ever become as ubiquitous as ICE cars, we're going to end up needing at least as many charging stalls as there are gas pumps today, and perhaps more. The Reason? Congestion. You can't charge a car as quickly as you can fuel an ICE. I do realize the "intent" is that the majority of charging takes place at home, but there are still a lot of cars on the road doing all kinds of things, and needing to fuel/charge up as they are out and about. This Tesla congestion may just be a harbinger of things to come.

Right. And I'll give you a more "fringe" example of need should PEVs become more common place rather than the exception and one of the "back of my mind" worries I have that keeps me from completely giving up my ICE vehicle.

Evacuations.

Those of us that have lived through hurricane evacuations know the chaos involved with evacuating a large population center like New Orleans or Houston. The traffic grid lock, gas stations backed up, long delays (6 hours to travel what normally takes an hour or less). With an ICE that has 400+ mile range I know I can fill up before the panic starts and get out when conditions dictate.

I worry that with my 200 mile EV my options are limited.

Mike

 

[LetsGoFast]

I've often pondered this congestion issue. If EVs ever become as ubiquitous as ICE cars, we're going to end up needing at least as many charging stalls as there are gas pumps today, and perhaps more. The Reason? Congestion. You can't charge a car as quickly as you can fuel an ICE. I do realize the "intent" is that the majority of charging takes place at home, but there are still a lot of cars on the road doing all kinds of things, and needing to fuel/charge up as they are out and about. This Tesla congestion may just be a harbinger of things to come.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that this isn't true. No one can install a gas pump in their house, whereas most people can install an outlet. Most EVs will start with a full charge every morning and will never require a charge outside their home on a typical day. Additionally, if plugs as a convenience for your customers become fairly commonplace for businesses, the "supercharger" type stations will be far, far less common than gas stations.

 

[mknox]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that this isn't true. No one can install a gas pump in their house, whereas most people can install an outlet. Most EVs will start with a full charge every morning and will never require a charge outside their home on a typical day. Additionally, if plugs as a convenience for your customers become fairly commonplace for businesses, the "supercharger" type stations will be far, far less common than gas stations.

Well, I was just kinda extrapolating from what we're starting to see with Superchargers and also assuming that by "ubiquitous" I meant a lot of EV owners wouldn't be living in homes with ready charging available. Lots of people today have cars, but live in apartments and such with no facilities. And if all cars become electric, getting every apartment parking spot wired up would be a real challenge. I could be wrong, but I can't help thinking about this as I drive around and realize just how may cars are out there, and what it would be like if they were all electric.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that this isn't true. No one can install a gas pump in their house, whereas most people can install an outlet. Most EVs will start with a full charge every morning and will never require a charge outside their home on a typical day. Additionally, if plugs as a convenience for your customers become fairly commonplace for businesses, the "supercharger" type stations will be far, far less common than gas stations.

Except for John Denver, those who are wealthy, farmers, etc.

Technically, they might not have the pump in their house but they can have a pump on their property. Of course it's much more involved than just getting a 14-50 outlet installed.

 

[jerry33]

I've often pondered this congestion issue. If EVs ever become as ubiquitous as ICE cars, we're going to end up needing at least as many charging stalls as there are gas pumps today, and perhaps more. The Reason? Congestion.

I question the congestion aspect, unless Tesla stops building/expanding their SCs. (I don't think any other carmaker will go with Tesla's SC network, even though it would be a smart thing to do.) The reason is that even on a trip, you use a destination charger once a day, which reduces congestion, and the midday stops are likely to be in low population areas. On our recent trip to the Seattle area, most stops were under 15 minutes, other than where the SC gap was and at the last SC before the Seattle area where we did a range charge. I don't doubt that there will always be a few with congestion, but not the majority.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Firstly, the letter didn't actually say "superchargers are for long distance travel":



You might well argue that Elmo's use is either not occasional or not needed, but you can't actually argue that Tesla has clarified that superchargers are only for long distance travel.

Secondly, Tesla's intent is not entirely the final word. My goal with these hypotheticals is to determine what the average TMC user thinks about this question and I would assume that most of us give a lot of weight to Tesla's intent, so I'd rather not debate what happens if there is a disparity between their intent and what people think they have contracted for here.

I missed the part you quoted, I think that's important that Tesla is saying it's okay for occasional local use. The upshot of all this is that even Tesla doesn't know.