roblab
Active Member
1.. Why would a business do this
2. Don't underestimate the time value of a tesla owner.
Exactly.
Picture the well off businessman. He wants to take the S from LA to Sacramento, as it's faster than flying, renting a car, etc. He heads out of LA area, goes over the pass and hits Harris Ranch. In 5 minutes he has a full pack. You know that whatever your pack type, a full charge takes at least an hour, and he's done in 5 minutes. On down the road, he gets to his meeting. While there, he's plugged into an HPWC. A few hours later, meeting done, business completed, he's headed back home. It's late. Hits Harris, 5 minutes and he has a full charge, on his original battery that he dropped off that morning. On down the road, and home. He's saved at least two hours, and to him, it's worth at least that. I'm not in this category.
Depending on how many people use this quick charge, Tesla is renting a battery for a few hours. If the battery is good for 500 cycles, and simply gets cycled per swap, then the value is 1/500th of a $30K battery, or $60. If for some reason it turns out that the battery is cheaper, which we believe it is, then our hypothetical businessman is paying for the station also.
Of course, the rest of us use superchargers. We see Tesla building out more and more stations every year (you thought they were gonna quit end of 2014?) and the rate of build will match with new cars, of course. I'm not worried that Tesla will keep up. But they don't need many swap stations, and then only between high end business areas, as on the East Coast, and as in LA to Frisco or Sacto.
On a side note, I have never been at a supercharger station where I had to wait, including Gilroy and Hawthorne. Most times I am the only person there. But, surprise! going at peak volume times (Fri eve thru Sun AM) you're gonna have bottlenecks. I highly recommend driving when it isn't so busy, if you possibly can. Sort of like avoiding LA traffic. If you CAN, don't go there during rush hour, ie. between 5 AM and 9PM. And then you don't have traffic jams.