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GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

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Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#91

Post by flurie »

ellisv wrote: post #89
flurie wrote: post #4

I'd seen some rumors that Tesla has been trying to slow down onboarding of other automakers to their charging network, so it's good to see information to the contrary. I still struggle to see how this ends up favorable for Tesla in the long run. They did not charge licensing fees for the connector, and even if they charge a premium to charge non-Tesla vehicles, now owners of Tesla vehicles are going to run into situa…

> where a Chevy Bolt has to double park to use a Tesla fast charger at I’ll have you know my Bolt EUV can get 53, maybe 54 kW, for 5, or maybe 10 minutes, thank you very much. But seriously while the max Bolt charge speed is rather slow I rarely ever fast charge. We recently took a road trip that required multiple charging stops and it was fine. I understand it could be inconvenient for drivers who have cars that wit…

I'm on my third (long story) Bolt, I would pick it three more times if I could, and I'm certain that I've sold more Bolts than most GM salesmen, so my comment was more familiar snark than anything. I have done the trips into minimally friendly locales and spent longer than is wise at a Tilted Kilt with small children in order to ensure a healthy buffer for a trip home. This news is nothing but upside for me personally. Perhaps we will encounter one another at a Tesla charging station one day!

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#92

Post by electronbeam »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #75
actionfromafar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must resist... nitpicking... no I can't. Betamax originally didn't sell tapes which could record more than 1 hour. So people couldn't tape movies onto a single tape, but had to use 2 tapes. What I really came to say is that the current reality is worse. In this analogy, not only did BetaMax win, neither BetaMax nor VHS came to Europe, but instead Philips 2000 won there. (US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe.)

>US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe This is going to be deeply frustrating when they finally build that tunnel across the Atlantic.

Or the bridge to russia

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#93

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ellisv wrote: post #90
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. GM. I was so happy with my Volt. Was going to keep it until it rusted away. Until my wife totaled it last Friday. Now I'm shopping for a new car with the measly amount insurance will pay me out. And... what a sad state of affairs with GM. Discontinued the Bolt, and never evolved that line further, and the only thing in their lineup now are big honkin' trucks and SUVs. And I hear they're dropping Android Auto /…

Do you need to fast charge often?

I barely drive these days since WFH. But when I do more than go get groceries or school drop off, it's for a 7-10 hour drive for a ski trip to Vermont or Quebec. Which would have to involve fast chargers.

Granted, I could probably just drive my wife's Outlander PHEV in that case. But seeing as she just totaled my Volt...

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#94

Post by matthewdgreen »

maxerickson wrote: post #84
bryanlarsen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but some Tesla owners are going to be surprised when they pull up to a third party charger with a Tesla plug that doesn't work on their car even though it plugs in.

Only ~once. A little bit of pain when there aren't that many vehicles is fine if it makes things quite a lot better going forward.

I just scheduled the upgrade for my 2018 Model 3. It’s not free, but only costs $280 and they do it in my driveway. Rumor has it I might get a CCS adapter out of the deal too, but I’m not sure. It’s an older car but still going strong, and my biggest concern is that if I don’t do the upgrade now they’ll run out of upgrade kits and the car’s value will be permanently damaged even if it lasts another ten years.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kelnos wrote: post #63
wlesieutre wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most places it's not like gas stations where there's 3 on the same block and they all have exactly the same price all the time, people are going to stop at whatever charger is located where they need it and pay whatever the price is as long as it's within reason.

A quick search suggests there's around 145,000 gas stations. This article mentions Tesla has 17,800 supercharger stations. I didn't care enough to look up the station counts for the other EV charging companies. But that Tesla figure is around 12% of the gas station total, so let's say the total number of EV charging stations is somewhere between 15% and 20% of the gas station total. I could easily see EV charging sta…

> 17,800 supercharger stations.

Did they mean 17,800 supercharger units or 17,800 locations with super charger units. Because I've seen those numbers interchanged before.

The problem with chargers (and I say this as an EV owner) is that many people mostly charge at home, so they aren't using them even weekly. However, everyone goes for a road trip say around memorial day, and the EV chargers are PACKED. It is just a huge disparity between normal and peak usage. Or you go on a road trip and you need one in the middle of nowhere Idaho on the way from Seattle to Yellowstone.

Thankfully L3 charger units at least are cheaper to buy/install/maintain (in theory, if people didn't think the coords had copper worth scrapping) and can be installed in more locations than gas station pumps (like super market parking lots).

Given the disparity in peak usage, it makes sense, at least, to compete on availability rather than price, since even if you are paying $60 to charge up, it is only a few times a year. It is much more important that the chargers be where you need them, and to have free units when you need them, oh, and they should be working! ... than to be the cheapest price.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#96

Post by modeless »

I tried the reverse recently, charging my Model 3 at third party CCS chargers with adapter (and CCS compatibility retrofit). It is bleak out there. The chargers are few and far between, half of them are broken, and even the ones that aren't broken have compatibility issues so they may not work anyway. The required apps are unreliable and annoying.

I remember 5+ years ago Superchargers were a lot less common and also frequently broken. But those days are long gone. Tesla has really figured out reliability and maintenance, and there are plenty of stations for all but peak times. And the charging experience couldn't be simpler, park and plug in, unplug and go. No tap, no app. Crazy how no one else could figure this out.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#97

Post by peutetre »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95
kelnos wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search suggests there's around 145,000 gas stations. This article mentions Tesla has 17,800 supercharger stations. I didn't care enough to look up the station counts for the other EV charging companies. But that Tesla figure is around 12% of the gas station total, so let's say the total number of EV charging stations is somewhere between 15% and 20% of the gas station total. I could easily see EV charging sta…

> 17,800 supercharger stations. Did they mean 17,800 supercharger units or 17,800 locations with super charger units. Because I've seen those numbers interchanged before. The problem with chargers (and I say this as an EV owner) is that many people mostly charge at home, so they aren't using them even weekly. However, everyone goes for a road trip say around memorial day, and the EV chargers are PACKED. It is just a…

> Did they mean 17,800 supercharger units or 17,800 locations with super charger units.

They mean 17,800 DC fast charging plugs open to GM cars (and say so in the article). Tesla has 2,397 DC fast charging sites (or stations) in the US and a total of 27,711 plugs.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#98

Post by matthewdgreen »

secabeen wrote: post #45
metal_am wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I’m located, Supercharger prices are ~4x business electric rates. That’s something like $15 profit per charge. No idea on infrastructure costs or usage though.

Business electric service often has a demand charge in addition to the usage rates; superchargers could easily incur a lot of cost on that element.

Tesla’s entire business revolves around batteries. They have a huge opportunity to install batteries onsite that spread usage over times when high demand charges don’t apply. There’s some loss in that, but still could make sense if demand charges are really high. I’ve been waiting to see Tesla roll something like this out, but presumably it’s not pressing right now.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#99

Post by _ea1k »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #75
actionfromafar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must resist... nitpicking... no I can't. Betamax originally didn't sell tapes which could record more than 1 hour. So people couldn't tape movies onto a single tape, but had to use 2 tapes. What I really came to say is that the current reality is worse. In this analogy, not only did BetaMax win, neither BetaMax nor VHS came to Europe, but instead Philips 2000 won there. (US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe.)

>US Teslas don't fast-charge in Europe This is going to be deeply frustrating when they finally build that tunnel across the Atlantic.

It won't be that bad. Adapters are simple for this case.

Re: GM electric vehicles can now access Tesla Superchargers

#100

Post by _ea1k »

PaulWaldman wrote: post #3
darknavi wrote: post #2

Great step. NACS is so nice compared to CCS 1. Can't wait for this to standardize and EV charging stations to stop being so novel.

This still feels a long way off. I have yet to encounter a charger, not made by Tesla, that has an NACS plug.

There's a huge wave of chargers building over the next 24 months. Many will have NACS.
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