Why the extremely large Supecharger sites?

[Rocky_H]

Not sure if someone mentioned this but tesla is strategically maxing out the power company so it's extremely not cost efficient for a competitor to put chargers in nearby

I'm going to concur that this is a grasping conspiracy theory without proof or evidence. You are phrasing it as a motivation of an offensive attack to try to sabotage others. That would be contrary to Tesla's mission statement. But I will put forth a counter theory that it could be a defensive motive. When Tesla wants to build a station, maybe they would "go big" in the initial build to get a large chunk of supply capacity. Because if others come in and build later, consuming more supply, then Tesla might be empty handed and out of luck if they want to expand that site in another 5 or 10 years. So better to overbuild some initially.

So it may not be about trying to block others, but to get enough so that you don't get blocked later.

 

[Earl]

Perhaps there is some level of experimental deployment here (covered, solar, megapack) and having a lot of redundancy allows them to try things without impacting dozens of people charging. If they threw a site like this in a more populated area and something went awry, there would be a lot more chickens clucking.

Great point, but there are plenty of exits off of I-5 in the wide-open central valley of CA that are quite empty and EV friendly. These are only a couple of hours drive from Tesla engineers so they'd be more convenient test labs. Harris Ranch comes to mind as well as a few others.
Quartzite might be a candidate, I just think there are probably closer ones too.
Quartzite probably is hotter on average though.

 

[Videomatic3]

I'm going to concur that this is a grasping conspiracy theory without proof or evidence. You are phrasing it as a motivation of an offensive attack to try to sabotage others. That would be contrary to Tesla's mission statement. But I will put forth a counter theory that it could be a defensive motive. When Tesla wants to build a station, maybe they would "go big" in the initial build to get a large chunk of supply capacity. Because if others come in and build later, consuming more supply, then Tesla might be empty handed and out of luck if they want to expand that site in another 5 or 10 years. So better to overbuild some initially.

So it may not be about trying to block others, but to get enough so that you don't get blocked later.

Fair enough, and I'll also point out like with the baker station and electrify america had to build solar and battery backup in order to put their fast dc chargers there. I don't know who was there first, tesla or ea, but that's the companies way around the limits of the power company.

 

[Earl]

Fair enough, and I'll also point out like with the baker station and electrify america had to build solar and battery backup in order to put their fast dc chargers there. I don't know who was there first, tesla or ea, but that's the companies way around the limits of the power company.

Good points.
I wouldn't be surprised if Baker just didn't have enough power coming anywhere near it to handle the EV load. It's basically a crossroads of an interstate with a minor desert road with nothing else nearby. Dragging a new wire from a substation in town is a lot different from running power lines hundreds of miles.
During my first EV roadtrips: Driving from LA to Bryce N.P or Salt Lake City in our Roadster, I chose to try to hypermile from the Calico KOA (outside Barstow, CA), all the way to Las Vegas because there wasn't even an RV park in Baker that I thought I could count on.
Quartzite, a seasonal RV city of snowbirds (mostly all electric powered), probably has had a very large power capacity for a long time.

 

[father_of_6]

I don't have any real numbers, so this is just conjecture... but my guess is that in an area where vacant land is plentiful and inexpensive, it makes financial sense to "go big".

There are fixed costs when building a supercharger site, and there "per stall" costs. The more stalls they add, the lower their total cost per stall is, and it would certainly cost more to increase it in the distant future.

If Tesla actually believes that EVs will replace ICEs, every Supercharger site should have many, many stalls.

 

[phxazcraig]

i dunno at the dateland place here in the picture above there are like 4 EA 350KW DCFC as well (also empty).. so if that was their strategy it didnt work

Go watch the big EV truck race across america (Out Of Spec, others) and see what happened when the Cybertruck and the Rivian showed up there at the same time. It cost Rivian the race, or at least 2nd place, when they hit those EA chargers. I think the Cybertruck was in and out in less than 10 minutes while the Rivian suffered there for about 30.

How about this? With Rivian having access to Superchargers, what's the chance they would install any in Dateland or Quartzite? And as some have mentioned, it may be that there is not enough excess power to be had at peak to supply another big charging station.

Mercedes, G, BMW, Stellantis and others are supposedly putting in 30,000 new charging stations (stalls) across America. It's sounding like nobody can put in a competitive charging station in Dateland, Quartzite, others. How would they get you to use their chargers instead of Superchargers, assuming they could get power and put in a station in the area? Well, those chargers would either have to be better-sited, cheaper, more reliable, faster charging, or available when SC's are full. Doesn't sound like there is a competitive advantage there, with possible exception of 'faster'. 350kW or so, which the Silverado was capable of, can make a huge difference on a huge battery pack. (Silverado 4wt can charge at 300+kW, and needs to with a 200+kWh battery pack, or it would take 3x as long to charge as a Model 3).

 

[stopcrazypp]

Any of you looked at Thanksgiving and other holiday traffic here?

I know Tesla have had issues with that in the past, which is why they "overbuilt" some sites for example in the SF to LA route.

 

[phxazcraig]

Any of you looked at Thanksgiving and other holiday traffic here?

I know Tesla have had issues with that in the past, which is why they "overbuilt" some sites for example in the SF to LA route.

Holiday traffic with a 90% EV rate might start making the site fill up. Maybe. Over 100 V3 stalls - that's a HECK of a lot of capacity! (I wonder what the average throughput would be? What is the average length of time spent at the average Interstate V3 site?)

 

[Unclepaul]

Tesla sees a future, where almost all vehicles will be electric. They are building towards that future.

They are tying up the choice locations and opening them up to all the EV manufacturers production.

Already they are having an impact on gasoline sales. In the future you will see many existing gas stations closing down.

 

[gt2690b]

Go watch the big EV truck race across america (Out Of Spec, others) and see what happened when the Cybertruck and the Rivian showed up there at the same time. It cost Rivian the race, or at least 2nd place, when they hit those EA chargers. I think the Cybertruck was in and out in less than 10 minutes while the Rivian suffered there for about 30.

How about this? With Rivian having access to Superchargers, what's the chance they would install any in Dateland or Quartzite? And as some have mentioned, it may be that there is not enough excess power to be had at peak to supply another big charging station.

Mercedes, G, BMW, Stellantis and others are supposedly putting in 30,000 new charging stations (stalls) across America. It's sounding like nobody can put in a competitive charging station in Dateland, Quartzite, others. How would they get you to use their chargers instead of Superchargers, assuming they could get power and put in a station in the area? Well, those chargers would either have to be better-sited, cheaper, more reliable, faster charging, or available when SC's are full. Doesn't sound like there is a competitive advantage there, with possible exception of 'faster'. 350kW or so, which the Silverado was capable of, can make a huge difference on a huge battery pack. (Silverado 4wt can charge at 300+kW, and needs to with a 200+kWh battery pack, or it would take 3x as long to charge as a Model 3).

but they did put EA chargers in Dateland... yeah the EA sites are not as reliable but that is not the fault of the utility (or tesla for that matter)

 

[Videomatic3]

Tesla sees a future, where almost all vehicles will be electric. They are building towards that future.

They are tying up the choice locations and opening them up to all the EV manufacturers production.

Already they are having an impact on gasoline sales. In the future you will see many existing gas stations closing down.

I hope gas stations don't shut down, I just hope they all convert over to fast charging stations.
I'd love to see more supercharging stations with convenience stores and bathrooms, so we have something to do while we wait when charging

 

[Earl]

Oh great. Someone complains about Supercharger sites being too large; Musk decides there must be enough and fires the whole team.

 

[ucmndd]

Why is Tesla putting in extremely large supercharger sites like Quartzite, Arizona? This is a very rural area with a major interstate freeway.

That’s exactly why. It’s a must-stop site for most on a major east-west thoroughfare, right in the middle of two major metropolitan areas, and it’s been a problem during peak holiday travel times in the past.

 

[Videomatic3]

Oh great. Someone complains about Supercharger sites being too large; Musk decides there must be enough and fires the whole team.

So this is from a tesla employee, they are focusing on expanding current sites where congestion exists and less on new locations
Things will ramp back up.

Maybe elon is upset that he's made the promise to never need to wait at a charger and that isn't happening, so firing the entire team instead of pointing fingers was a better answer for him

 

[SSonnentag]

I suspect it comes down to the price of land and grid connections. CA land and grid connections are EXPENSIVE. Quartzsite is inexpensive and it's at the crossroads of East/West and North/South traffic.

 

[Earl]

So this is from a tesla employee, they are focusing on expanding current sites where congestion exists and less on new locations
Things will ramp back up.

Maybe elon is upset that he's made the promise to never need to wait at a charger and that isn't happening, so firing the entire team instead of pointing fingers was a better answer for him

I was joking. This isn't Musk's first shenanigan and I'm sure it won't be his last.
There are plenty of folks who can do the job, should/if they ramp it back up - heck, I might even retire from my current job and throw my hat in the ring.
A positive is that there are now a lot of good, experienced charger experts on the market available to all of the non-tesla companies, should they wish to hire folks who know how to do it right.

 

[DuncanM]

Here's a thread for speculation with little or no evidence!

Why is Tesla putting in extremely large supercharger sites like Quartzite, Arizona? This is a very rural area with a major interstate freeway. There were 36 v2 & v3 SC's here already before Tesla put in a huge 84-stall SC site a few blocks away. I've been there twice and seen it in a lot of road trip videos. There are never more than 5-6 cars charging there.

Frankly, it would take a local total eclipse plus opening the SC's to all other brands to fill this SC site. So why? Why here, and why now?

Someone somewhere mentioned that it could be to per-emptively freeze out competitors. Basically the 'Walmart in small towns' theory. Put in something so big that it dominates and prevents other competition from coming in.

For example: Why would Electrify America come in and put in 4-8 stalls now? What's the chance for a competitor to put in 16-24 stalls and have anyone show up there?

I've charged there on a week day, during a week that included Thanksgiving and the site was at over 50% capacity. The I-10 corridor from LA to Phoenix is a very popular route for EVs.

The thing is that its much cheaper, per charging post, to put in lots of posts. During the same drive, we stopped at a 40 post SC station north of Tejon Pass (I5 CA) and as we plugged in a line up formed as all 40 posts were in use.