-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Tesla Supercharger network
- Thread starter dsm363
- Start date
We used Gilroy, Harris Ranch, Tejon Ranch and Barstow over the past two days and they were all great. Nobody was at any of them when we arrived, though people came after we did at all but Tejon, and there was a wait at Gilroy when we left (two of us left at the same time, so there was then one slot available). They were all super fast, and the car was done charging about the time we were done shopping and/or eating. I'm not sure about the no cost thing--we managed to spend more than we would on gas at the Gilroy and Barstow Outlets while we waited! But no complaints, except that charging at 31 mph at home now seems horribly slow!
Last edited:
jvonbokel
John VonBokel
I've heard rumors from multiple sources about quotes being solicited from electricians in the Bloomington-Normal area of Illinois, but nothing firm.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
Scott, you're welcome to charge on my 14-50 in the garage...It's pretty much right on the way for you!
The original supercharger network appeared to place one on I-95 around Richmond. We will see...
AMPd
Well-Known Member
Anyone know if there were any mentions of the supercharger network during the Q4 call?
Other than faster charging
Other than faster charging
Charger Congestion a Problem for Electric Cars - "I am hearing more and more that as Tesla owners show up at a supercharger location on a road trip, all four supercharge hoses are taken by other Tesla owners. And there are only approximately 5,000 Tesla Model S cars in the field right now. The quarterly deployment rate is 5,000, so the problem will double three months from now. Tesla is just selling too many cars!"
Kevin, the posts I have read about supercharger locations being at capacity are the ones along Highways 101 and 5 and seem to be filled up with new owners who have just taken delivery in Fremont and are on the way home to parts south. Certainly, that is the main North/South commute corridor and use of those stations will gradually increase over time, but I don't think this is an early warning flag regarding customer base and superstation availability.
Philip Macafee
Philip Macafee
Here is the data from the trip, starting with Gilory, to Las Vegas, using four superchargers. We spent between 45 and 60 minutes at each. I didn't do the math for how much charge we added at each stop, but the data is there to figure it out (other than for Gilroy; my recollection is that we arrived there with about 20 miles rated range remaining so would have added 177+).
Gilroy: Charged to 197 rated miles (range charge). Trip to Harris Ranch was 113.7 miles, arrived with 78 rated miles, used 37.4 kWh, avg. 329 Wh/mile. Generally went speed limit.
Harris Ranch: Charged to 188 rated miles, dropped to 184 overnight. Trip to Tejon Ranch was 117.3 miles, arrived with 38 rated miles, used 42.1 kWh, avg. 359 Wh/mile. Had cruise set to 70.
Tejon Ranch: Charged to 181 rated miles. Trip to Barstow was 142.9 miles (taking 99 to 223), arrived with 25 rated miles, used 44.4 kWh, avg. 310 Wh/mile. Generally went speed limit. Used climate control over Tehachapie Pass, as it was foggy. Rated and projected miles dropped well below miles remaining to Barstow while climbing toward the pass but gained all of that back.
Barstow: Charged to 197 rated miles (range charge), which took about an hour. Trip to Las Vegas was 160.7 miles, arrived with 25 rated miles, used 48.8 kWh, avg. 304 Wh/mile. Had cruise set to 70, with a decent tailwind. Making it was never in doubt given the rated and projected miles. Highest elevation is about 4,700 feet, but Barstow and LV are very similar elevation.
You consider doing Harris Ranch to Barstow direct. On a recent trip (Harris-Tejon-Barstow) I ran into two different S's that had done it, but required careful hyper-mileing.
Maybe in an 85, but we would have had no chance in the 60 unless we went well under the speed limit on I-5, which I consider to be dangerous. It's more than 80 miles further than Tejon/Barstow and we arrived with 25 miles of range.
Norbert
TSLA will win
+1. Nevertheless, Superchargers are in fact a popular feature.
BTW, Harris Ranch, which is also on the post-Factory-delivery route, is getting a 10-stall Supercharger. So Tesla intends to keep up with the demand. Chargers that get used are a great advertisement. People see that EV freeway travel is becoming a part of life.
If I remember correctly Elon mentioned Texas, Chicago and Seattle over the next couple of months.
Babylonfive
Power12
Norbert
TSLA will win
I did my best to transcribe that Q&A (starts at 30:00 in the conference call):
Question: Despite all the noise in the press, and all the back and forth, do you see the potentially necessary additional planning for a driver of an electric vehicle, do you see that as a headwind, are you hearing that from anybody?
Answer: I think for a long distance trip right now, depending on where you are in the country, a little bit of extra planning is needed. I think if you are in California or Nevada, we got a good density of Superchargers for long distance driving, so you don't really have to worry about it. The ideal density of Superchargers is roughly every 120 to 150 miles. Whereas right now, on the east cost from DC to Boston, it is about every 200 miles, because we only have two. But we have a bunch more SuperChargers that are going into the east coast and across the country, into Texas, the Seattle area, Chicago. You really want to get to the point where you don't even have to think about it, and I think we are very close to that point, it's not like that is some distant point in the future.
We are very rapidly deploying the network of Superchargers and we are hooking that into the software in the car, so that the navigation system will automatically route you to a Supercharger. So you just [inaudible] in wherever you want to go, and it will just route you through the Supercharger network to where you want to go, so you don't even have to think about it.
And all that is going to happen in the next several next months, it is not far away. And I think we do actually use the Supercharger system, which is free by the way. In fact, that seems to be lost in this whole debate. Like: With what car do you have free long distance? It's pretty freakin' great.
And we continue to improve the rate at which the Supercharger can put energy into the car, [continue] to deploy some of the solar panels over the Superchargers; we are going to start planning to have a lot more, which cuts our cost of electricity down, and it is pretty awesome I think.
And then we got a fairly meaningful announcement about a step change in supercharging technology coming later this year. That is actually what we originally wanted to do the article with the New York Times about. Who knows, maybe we will ultimately [inaudible], but I think people are going to be pretty interested in that announcement when it comes out.
[Continues to talk about the car working well in the cold, actually]
- - - Updated - - -
It is faster to wait for a Supercharger, and then drive a normal speed, than to drive slowly (trying to save charging time).
Last edited:
Norbert
TSLA will win
In another thread, I was talking with dsm363 about the gasoline cost saved, per Supercharger charge, and the equivalent in work hours, to compare that with the waiting time when charging the Model S.
The latest numbers are this: CNBC made the 203 mile trip (Delaware Supercharger to Milford, CT Supercharger) with more than 40 miles range remaining, so the total was about 24o miles *real* miles for a complete charge. dsm363 suggested an average mpg for a gas car of about 22 mpg, so that's 10.9 gallons. Per gasbuddy.com the US average for *regular* gasoline is today $3.73.
So 10.9 gallons (regular) are $40.66. For most in the US, in after tax money this corresponds to more than 2 hours of work!
So with free Supercharging, the choice becomes: Do you want to take a brake of about an hour, with an EV. Or with a gasoline car, work even more than that.
The latest numbers are this: CNBC made the 203 mile trip (Delaware Supercharger to Milford, CT Supercharger) with more than 40 miles range remaining, so the total was about 24o miles *real* miles for a complete charge. dsm363 suggested an average mpg for a gas car of about 22 mpg, so that's 10.9 gallons. Per gasbuddy.com the US average for *regular* gasoline is today $3.73.
So 10.9 gallons (regular) are $40.66. For most in the US, in after tax money this corresponds to more than 2 hours of work!
So with free Supercharging, the choice becomes: Do you want to take a brake of about an hour, with an EV. Or with a gasoline car, work even more than that.
They should definitely push this angle. The 22 mpg number I used might even be on the high side as the average car on the road is probably at least a few years old
The Average Fuel Economy of All Vehicles Sold in the U.S. in 2012 was 23.8 MPG : TreeHugger
The Average Fuel Economy of All Vehicles Sold in the U.S. in 2012 was 23.8 MPG : TreeHugger
To play the Devil's advocate
Using the average price of gasoline and the average auto's fuel economy sets one the next question. What is the average price of a car?
Obviously The Model S is not average. Nor will the paycheck of most owners.
Using the average price of gasoline and the average auto's fuel economy sets one the next question. What is the average price of a car?
Obviously The Model S is not average. Nor will the paycheck of most owners.
Similar threads
