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Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

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Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#3
I was looking forward to this announcement and watched the live announcement. The most interesting/surprising parts of the announcement to me was:

1. Superchargers are already deployed in California. Nice work, Tesla, for building it out and proving it works.

2. The whole U.S. will be covered in a few years. Great for traveling cross country.

3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup... probably, my guess. But still impressive.

4. It will be FREE for Tesla owners. I don't know how they're pulling this off. To me, this was the most shocking part. How are they going to pay for construction, rent, etc, and still afford this? It's a great extra benefit for Tesla owners... to travel around the country for free (of course you need to buy the car and maintain the car, but still).

I wonder if the extra electricity generated from the solar panels will go into paying the rent for the spaces.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#7
post #3

I was looking forward to this announcement and watched the live announcement. The most interesting/surprising parts of the announcement to me was: 1. Superchargers are already deployed in California. Nice work, Tesla, for building it out and proving it works. 2. The whole U.S. will be covered in a few years. Great for traveling cross country. 3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup... probab…

It won't be free forever, but it's one less barrier to buying buying a Tesla.

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#9
Ugh, tech reporting. Is there a original source for this somewhere? Theres some limited info at http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger.

100 kilowatts good for three hours of driving

From the announcement video, it seems they are charging at 370V with a maximum of 225 amps = 83.25kW. So that 30 minute figure for half a charge is pretty real. The cost for one such charge would be approximately 3$ with industrial prices for electricity. Given that you can feed solar power back into the grid at rates above or equal to what normal customers pay for their electricity, I could see them making break-even on this when discounting the initial investment (which will pay back hundred-fold in adoption rate for their cars).

Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

#10
post #3

I was looking forward to this announcement and watched the live announcement. The most interesting/surprising parts of the announcement to me was: 1. Superchargers are already deployed in California. Nice work, Tesla, for building it out and proving it works. 2. The whole U.S. will be covered in a few years. Great for traveling cross country. 3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup... probab…

3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup...

It's grid electric powered. The canopy doesn't do much.

Let's calculate:

  Guess that the canopy for each bay is 7 by 4 meters, 28m^2

  Sunny spots receive about 4kWhr of solar power per square meter per day.

  Solar panels might be 25% efficient.

  Total daily power: 28m^2 * 4kWhr/m^2/day * 0.25 = 28kWhr/day

  Model S has an 85kWhr battery, half charge is 42kWhr.
It is going to take about two days to charge off the solar.
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