Tesla Supercharger network

[Vger]

I think this change is a direct result of the raging discussion on the thread about the early cars limited to 90 kW. There have been totally unrealistic exaggerations on the Tesla Supercharger web page, and I think Tesla finally woke up to the danger of disillusionment from such imprecise, shall we say, marketing. The change coincides exactly with Jerome Guillen FINALLY responding formally to those of us affected by the 90 kW battery limit. I expect we will see some more adjustments in Tesla's communications about supercharger performance.

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BTW, I did a quick test today of this graphic, starting at 4 miles rated range. In 30 minutes, I got about 140 miles of range, on my 90 kW-limited Signature. This was at the brand-new Ellensburg, WA supercharger. To get to 170 miles rated range added, required about 40 minutes.

 

[GB_gen3]

I notice that on the UK site it still states 200 miles in 30 minutes. Perhaps this reflects the planned 135kw charging rate planned for the uk?

 

[Cottonwood]

Have you guys noticed that, on Tesla's main Supercharger web page, the "Road Trips Made Easy" graphic just changed? It used to show 200 miles range gained for 30 minutes charging; now it shows only 170 miles. Discuss.

This is a correction to the site and makes it consistent with the graph later that shows 80% in 40 minutes. My guess is that the 200 miles in 30 minutes claim was a result of some marketing person multiplying 400 mph (120 kW) charging by 0.5 hours and getting 200 miles. The problem with this is that there is some small taper of the charge rate even at 50-80% SoC. If you look at the 0 to 80% in 40 minutes graph lower down, you can see that.

This change is a correction to web page. It would have been nice if Tesla has been a little more careful here in the beginning, but at least they are correcting it now. What they still don't state clearly is that the 170 miles in 30 minutes is for the best case scenario of a recently produced 85 starting at 0 miles SoC. They could at least include a footnote stating those assumptions.

 

[GSP]

Speaking of it would be nice if Tesla was more careful, it looks like the supercharger bar is still scaled to 200 mph instead of 170 mph. This give a false impression of how much faster supercharging is than a 30 or 40 amp 1-phase AC connection, for which the bars are scaled correctly.

This may seem nit-picky to some people, but the whole idea of bar graphs is to communicate relative sizes visually. It only works if the sizes are correct. I hope Tesla fixes this soon.

GSP

 

[Chipper]

Hawthorne definitely needs help. It was thankfully only a 5-minute wait last time at 11 am on Tuesday after I arrived to a full house (granted it was the day before Christmas). I'm wary of what to expect on Sunday around 10 am as I dogleg through there on my way from Palm Springs to Tejon Ranch.

Really??? You guys are griping about waiting 5 or 10 minutes to get a supercharge?? Come on, give the rest of us a break. There are hundreds of us who are not even in range of a SuperCharger yet and according to the map, will not be for a year or so. I hope Tesla will concentrate on spreading the wealth a bit before ensuring that you guys don't have to wait a few minutes in a line at the SC. I understand they have built SC's where there are the most Tesla's in need, but it is kinda like a chicken v. egg thing. Perhaps if there were SC's within range there might be more people willing to purchase???

 

[purplewalt]

Really??? You guys are griping about waiting 5 or 10 minutes to get a supercharge?? Come on, give the rest of us a break. There are hundreds of us who are not even in range of a SuperCharger yet and according to the map, will not be for a year or so. I hope Tesla will concentrate on spreading the wealth a bit before ensuring that you guys don't have to wait a few minutes in a line at the SC. I understand they have built SC's where there are the most Tesla's in need, but it is kinda like a chicken v. egg thing. Perhaps if there were SC's within range there might be more people willing to purchase???

Bingo!
Those with the vast amount of Superchargers already in their vicinity and ability to actually take a meaningful trip sometimes might have to take their turn and wait.
Just to Supercharge.
And they still want more SpC (because they "would be nice"), while huge blank areas still exist in the rest of the country and anywhere in Canada.


Perhaps they might try the alternative method of charging @ an RV park, and wait, let's say six hours for a decent range charge, not 5 or 10 minutes, or even 30 minutes in a line.
Seriously?
Even an HPWC charging @ 60 miles per hour (with twin-chargers) is probably too slow for them.
Or maybe they might try watching the data which is always available to them and perhaps driving effectively, and slowing down a bit.

 

[ChrisC]

Thanks Vger for the link. VERY interesting. Didn't mean to derail here. Anyone intending to continue on this tangent, you might want to head over to the "raging" thread that Vger linked to above.

 

[Kraken]

More pics of the Toledo location are up in that thread. I've looked around the location a bit so I can try to answer any questions anyone might have.,

 

[DouglasR]

BTW, I did a quick test today of this graphic, starting at 4 miles rated range. In 30 minutes, I got about 140 miles of range, on my 90 kW-limited Signature. This was at the brand-new Ellensburg, WA supercharger. To get to 170 miles rated range added, required about 40 minutes.

It's possible that Ellensburg is not yet set up for 120 kW. See this post: Ellensburg Supercharger - Page 4. I think the new display of 170 miles reflects the reality of the taper curve rather than the limitation of older batteries or the use of rated as opposed to ideal miles.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Hit a high of 105 kW with my S60 at Tejon Ranch just now:

Hawthorne was a mess this afternoon. Took 20 min to get a spot to begin with and then plateaued at 26 kW for 15 min before it ramped up to 54 kW. Added only 110 miles in an hour of charging.

 

[callmesam]

Just spoke with Dave at the Las Vegas SC construction site. There will be no trenching. Electricity is being run at the ceiling of the parking garage. 6 chargers.

His company is working on the 3 AZ super badgers. Did Corning, Shasta South Dakota. Said it took nearly 2 months just to get the power company to do hookup in Shasta.

Delays on that end are common. Not a permitting issue.

Thinks there may may be same issue with power company in Vegas.

Said that some if the zappos cars have been stopping by to check out the status. Not sure how many of tony hsai's cars had been delivered.

 

[roblab]

Hawthorne was a mess this afternoon. Took 20 min to get a spot to begin with and then plateaued at 26 kW for 15 min before it ramped up to 54 kW. Added only 110 miles in an hour of charging.

You're gonna talk me into avoiding Hawthorne like I avoid LA. We plan trips so we go thru LA at about 4 in the morning.

Is Hawthorne open 24/7? Looks like they need more sites!

 

[Gear]

Hit a high of 105 kW with my S60 at Tejon Ranch just now

Good to know! I've used a handful of them but didn't pay super close attention to the charge rate as I think it was before the 120kW chargers started rolling out. I remember somebody saying the 60s max out at 90kW, so it's good to know that's not necessarily the case.

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You're gonna talk me into avoiding Hawthorne like I avoid LA. We plan trips so we go thru LA at about 4 in the morning.

Is Hawthorne open 24/7? Looks like they need more sites!

Yeah, it's open 24/7. The problem is a lot of local people use it on a daily basis. The one time I went, almost all the people there were local. They were nice enough people but it is a little unfair when people do that. To be fair, one of the ones I talked to couldn't charge at home because he lived downtown in a condo or something and there were no charging facilities available to him, so he'd go to the Supercharger once or twice a week to top up. Personally, one of the things I love most about the Model S is not having to make weekly stops to fill up my tank, so that'd personally take away much of the allure for me if I couldn't charge at home every night. To each their own I guess.

 

[LakeForest]

Now as winter is upon us, and the "coming soon" map seems to be coming together, I am curious where everyone thinks the construction crews will move next. While the crews are from third parties it seems like Tesla has good relationships with a number of them and some of the crews have also become very efficient at building the stations. So, my thought is all those crews are heading South, and with that in mind I counted all the dots on the 2015 map south of the northern edges of OK, AZ, TN and NC (picked somewhat arbitrarily, but that guarantees no snow for the most part). There are 81 dots, and 18 of those are already built, leaving 63. So, how many of those do we think will be built in the next three months? I believe there have been 13 built in December so far, and at least four in Wisconsin(which due to the cold were slowed down, they had to put up tents) are set to be online the first week of January. Could they build nearly all those stations in early 2014? That would be awesome!

 

[purplewalt]

Now as winter is upon us, and the "coming soon" map seems to be coming together, I am curious where everyone thinks the construction crews will move next. While the crews are from third parties it seems like Tesla has good relationships with a number of them and some of the crews have also become very efficient at building the stations. So, my thought is all those crews are heading South, and with that in mind I counted all the dots on the 2015 map south of the northern edges of OK, AZ, TN and NC (picked somewhat arbitrarily, but that guarantees no snow for the most part). There are 81 dots, and 18 of those are already built, leaving 63. So, how many of those do we think will be built in the next three months? I believe there have been 13 built in December so far, and at least four in Wisconsin(which due to the cold were slowed down, they had to put up tents) are set to be online the first week of January. Could they build nearly all those stations in early 2014? That would be awesome!

Maybe the other tact that TM might take during the Winter would be to do the Southern loop, connect Texas to FL to the East, and to (Colorado to the North West could happen in the Spring or Summer), San Diego/LA to the West during the Winter.
My logic being that in the Summer, it gets pretty durn hot in the South and Arizona, and the mellower temperatures of Spring and Summer might work better for the more Northern routes.

It looks like 7 to 10 new SpC could connect Washington State with Wisconsin, Chicago and the path East, and construction during the dead of Winter would be onerous in the extremely rural areas.

 

[wraithnot]

Hit a high of 105 kW with my S60 at Tejon Ranch just now:

Hawthorne was a mess this afternoon. Took 20 min to get a spot to begin with and then plateaued at 26 kW for 15 min before it ramped up to 54 kW. Added only 110 miles in an hour of charging.

Still three cars charging at Hawthorne right now (8 pm on a Saturday night). Luckily I'm getting a full speed charge. I guess it's a good thing it took so long to get a table at Sugarfish . . .

 

[emupilot]

Now as winter is upon us, and the "coming soon" map seems to be coming together, I am curious where everyone thinks the construction crews will move next. While the crews are from third parties it seems like Tesla has good relationships with a number of them and some of the crews have also become very efficient at building the stations. So, my thought is all those crews are heading South, and with that in mind I counted all the dots on the 2015 map south of the northern edges of OK, AZ, TN and NC (picked somewhat arbitrarily, but that guarantees no snow for the most part). There are 81 dots, and 18 of those are already built, leaving 63. So, how many of those do we think will be built in the next three months? I believe there have been 13 built in December so far, and at least four in Wisconsin(which due to the cold were slowed down, they had to put up tents) are set to be online the first week of January. Could they build nearly all those stations in early 2014? That would be awesome!

Winter hasn't stopped Tesla from putting superchargers in Minnesota and Wisconsin, so I don't think weather is an important consideration. There have been rumblings about upcoming construction in Coeur d'Alene and Montana, so they might work on creating a more sensible cross-country route by building the 7 superchargers between Ellensburg, WA and Rapid City, SD. Building a bridge to the Texas network would have to be a priority - I'd guess I-40 via Oklahoma would get there first. Atlanta is due as well, and only a couple are required to connect that area to I-95.

 

[Kraken]

His company is working on the 3 AZ super badgers. Did Corning, Shasta South Dakota. Said it took nearly 2 months just to get the power company to do hookup in Shasta.

Beware of the super badgers

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Maybe the other tact that TM might take during the Winter would be to do the Southern loop, connect Texas to FL to the East, and to (Colorado to the North West could happen in the Spring or Summer), San Diego/LA to the West during the Winter.

Says the guy from Texas...:tongue:

 

[jerry33]

Originally Posted by purplewalt
Maybe the other tact that TM might take during the Winter would be to do the Southern loop, connect Texas to FL to the East, and to (Colorado to the North West could happen in the Spring or Summer), San Diego/LA to the West during the Winter.

Says the guy from Texas...:tongue:

Works for me. (Says the other guy in Texas).

 

[purplewalt]

Says the guy from Texas...:tongue:

Should someone from Florida or Georgia want to go to the West Coast (or conversely), the trip would be a lot more direct (thus more efficient and less miles/days) if they could travel due West.
Otherwise they would have to circumnavigate up the East Coast, drive near the South route of the Great Lakes to travel to Disneyland or TESLIVE.

Winter has not completely stopped work on SpC in Northern Climates during the Winter, but they are either taking steps to work around it (Macedonia's tent), shoveling snow and being delayed by the cold weather simply working in multiple layers of clothes, hoodies and gloves.

And I have driven in Southern Arizona during Spring training and Memorial day.
Testify: it is plenty HOT at those times, so I have only a vague idea what 115+ degrees would be like to work in, (because 108 is as hot as it gets here).
Taleisen West is in Scottsdale for a reason.

Summary: It should be very evident that the TM map is going to get Built.
It is simply a matter of which locations the next cross-country path is situated.
Working within the parameters of seasonal conditions is (IMHO) the smart thing to do, as it takes less dollars and time.
Spring and Summer and Autumn are decent times to do construction work in the North, whereas Winter typically presents a lot of climatic challenges.
My suggestions would be to Pick the Easier Path.