Tesla Supercharger network

[napabill]

I heard from a Tesla employee this weekend that he overheard his Regional Manger saying that there are 3 sites in Arizona that should be lit off in the next 2-3 months; Blythe, Kingman, Yuma. That would cover PHX to Las Vegas, LA, and San Diego. Hope he heard correctly!

 

[Todd Burch]

Tesla seems to very rarely hit time targets. (Model S release date, smartphone release date, etc.)

Although it may just be that this isn't a linear process.

 

[NuclearPowered]

That aligns with what I have been told as well.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[stopcrazypp]

Although it may just be that this isn't a linear process.

It's definitely not linear since the roll out of the current stations have been done in batches (geographically near each other).

 

[Darmok]

Yay Kingman! I hope the hearsay is correct. As for Nevada, we need Primm, on the California border. Barstow to LV is a long stretch and can be cold.

 

[FredTMC]

Yay Kingman! I hope the hearsay is correct. As for Nevada, we need Primm, on the California border. Barstow to LV is a long stretch and can be cold.

Totally agree

 

[rolosrevenge]

I just hope they finish the I-5 corridor soon.

 

[JRP3]

Yeah, I'll be quite surprised if they meet that target.

I never took that to be a hard target.

 

[slyastro]

New twitter post from ELON:

Btw, more free East Coast Superchargers coming soon. Will allow lower initial charge, v high speed trip & long detours, like NYTimes drive.

 

[ElSupreme]

New twitter post from ELON:

Btw, more free East Coast Superchargers coming soon. Will allow lower initial charge, v high speed trip & long detours, like NYTimes drive.

Holy cow he really tweeted it! That is hysterical!

 

[AMPd]

Elon is just too awesome

 

[Clprenz]

After I heard rumor that their will be a supercharger in Bloomington IL (my town), I decided I will solicit out a location and watch everywhere for signs that this is true. I will post as soon as I find out!

 

[Mycroft]

The saddest aspect of the recent NYT brouhaha was that we didn't get information that might have been amazing if the original article had been written.

From Elon's blog post:

When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology. There was no need to write a story about existing Superchargers on the East Coast, as that had already been done by Consumer Reports with no problems!

I want to know about the future advancements in Tesla's Supercharger technology!!!

 

[npiwovar]

Supercharger Network

Well, as the NYT article demonstrates, the availabilty of charging stations is a crucial part of the viability of the electric car.I'm sure everyone driving a Model S gets the same questions I do from people looking at their Tesla.How far can you go on a charge? I personally think the Tesla company should be more open about their plans for a supercharger network across the U.S, and Canada.What kind of a timetable are they looking at for construction of this supercharger network? I don't think that they aren't going to get any kind of help from the government with it.Too much heat on the Obama administration already for the Tesla loans.The other question I have is...how much does it cost to construct these supercharger stations? Even though the charging stations won't bring in income to the company, they must build them anyway to ensure that their customer base is not stuck with luxury cars for driving around town.If there is one positive from the NYT article,it does show Tesla that their charging stations should be closer together,maybe 150 miles apart, especially in the colder climates.

 

[Bearman]

Their timetable is to have around 100 superchargers by year 2015 in the US, dont know about Canada.
That means around 30 new chargers a year, remember 6 of them basically covers California already.

The cost of the one hundred Superchargers is estimated to about 25 Million usd or 250.000 usd per station charging 6 cars according to Bloomberg http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-24/tesla-building-250-000-chargers-for-model-s-drivers-in-highways

Regarding the NYT journey its being done by the CNN jornalists as we speak and they have no problems so take that article with a grain of salt.
Follow their journey on twitter here https://twitter.com/PeterDrives
This exact trip will also be done by several members of this forum on Saturday to disprove the NYT articles claim.
Elon has said that he wants to have them around 140 miles apart when they are expanding the network.

 

[Beckler]

$25M isn't much. 25,000 Model S buyers would only need pay $1000 each. Perhaps tesla should add another option when you're configuring your car: a Supercharger fund. If I could afford a Models S, I'd gladly pay only $1k more for access to 200 superchargers instead of 100!

 

[npiwovar]

I live in the eastern corridor from Miami to Boston so I'm biased but I think Tesla will have to establish a larger supercharger network in that corridor in the next six months to a year and not 3 years from now.The population density is so great in this corridor that it can't be ignored.Of course, if I lived in the midwest I would be petitioning for superchargers in that region.The charging issue is just so important that even though it's been discussed in these boards, I'm surprised there hasn't been heavier discussions in this area.

 

[jerry33]

I'm surprised there hasn't been heavier discussions in this area.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot to discuss. Almost everyone wants them and soon. Superchargers are currently rare, Tesla needs to put a lot more emphasis on rolling them out, as in "There should be Superchargers opening every month, rather than every quarter". I'd suggest that four or five locations need to be opened up every month to stay on schedule (100 in two years). Two every quarter isn't going to cut it.

 

[neroden]

Unfortunately, there is not a lot to discuss. Almost everyone wants them and soon. Superchargers are currently rare, Tesla needs to put a lot more emphasis on rolling them out, as in "There should be Superchargers opening every month, rather than every quarter". I'd suggest that four or five locations need to be opened up every month to stay on schedule (100 in two years). Two every quarter isn't going to cut it.

Being engineers, I suspect Tesla management underestimated the amount of time it takes to finish negotiations with landowners and make legal agreements with them. Tesla's lawyers are not so hot so they are probably having trouble with negotiating easement agreements, etc.

It seems like they've got the technical side of it pretty much done. But as is typical for engineers, they've underestimated the difficulty of the social side of it. (There's an xkcd about that...)

 

[Robert.Boston]

Tesla has to be conservative about announcing the SuperChargers because otherwise it will lose bargaining power with property owners. You don't want to go pre-announcing locations until the agreements have all been signed.

My hope is that, corporately, they've got a couple of people whose full-time job is to build out the SC network. Google, e.g., has a team dedicated to siting server farms, including target site identification, property purchase negotiations, power purchase agreements / tariff negotiations, and so forth. Similarly, there's a lot for Tesla to do to get a SC in place. It's a little disappointing, though, that there has not been a steady trickle of SC additions -- for Tesla to hit its announced goals, there ought to be about one new SC per week. Tesla is well behind this pace, though. Does this mean Tesla needs to put more resources into site development?

[reminder: any discussion about the SC network itself, e.g. locations or source of power, should be put in the Tesla Supercharger network thread in the Charging Standards and Infrastructure forum]