So painful that the actual article was buried because they used a different link: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger
I wonder why they used CGI renders if there's supposed to be actual stations already in operation.
Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
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Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
generate as much energy over the course of the year as the vehicles consume Yeah right. At what utilization rate? A single charge is ~90KWh, and takes half an hour. Two charges back to back are 180KWh. jws guesses that each slot generates 28KWh/day. A ten slot charging station would only be able to charge three cars without going into the red. Tesla would have to build a lot of very oversized installations in a lot o…
They could have solar only at some locations and excess capacity to make up for the locations without solar.
Ok, but prob with solar is it does you no good if its not connected to anything. And if they are just putting it into the grid what is the point other than PR?
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#43As a plugin prius owner. I find it a bit annoying that they don't just work with existing charging networks like ChargePoint to help expand the accessibility of electric car charging.
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#44I 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…
"I wonder if the extra electricity generated from the solar panels will go into paying the rent for the spaces."
The article definitely made it sound like that would be the case. They might also be counting on charging people in cars other than Tesla ones.
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#45I notice that they have multiple stations along the 5 between SF and LA, but nothing between Gilroy and Los Angeles, which is around 350 miles. Why not a stop in Santa Maria or similar?
I suspect the problem is no where isolated enough that they won't have to worry about large numbers of local residents choosing to just go to Supercharger station rather than charging at home. As an occasional use to make people comfortable with a Tesla (long trips are possible), this is probably well worth the money. But it's unlikely to sustainable if owners choose to forgo the home charger.
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#46I understood it to be free for existing Tesla customers, not new ones...
Right, owners of the "S" model can charge free for life. No word on what owners of subsequent models will pay for it. I'm eager to see whether they can trim that 30 minutes down to, say, a max of 15. 30 minutes every three hours is too long, but 15 would work. Get out, plug in, go take a bio break, come back, wash your windows, and you're just about ready to hit the road again.
These are exciting times to live in.
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#47Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could have solar only at some locations and excess capacity to make up for the locations without solar.
Ok, but prob with solar is it does you no good if its not connected to anything. And if they are just putting it into the grid what is the point other than PR?
Well for one, you presumably get paid to put power back into the grid. Secondly, is there not value in putting as much power into the grid as you consume anyway?
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#49Tesla had a 250 million dollar operating loss in 2011 and 106 million last quarter. Add 700 million of debt onto that, and... I wonder how long they can keep up this kind of expansion. This however, is really cool.
Elon Musk alone has an estimated $2B fortune, so at least five years at that burn rate? :)
Facebook's IPO bled much more money out to bankers than all Tesla has spent so far, it's not like they are doing bad. Tesla has the potential to take over a sizeable slice of the (huge) automobile industry.
Re: Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups
#50Making a "charging station" that could take the place of an existing gas station would be huge feat of engineering.
When I go from the SF bay area down to LA, I get gas at kettleman city (because of the in-n-out :) and I go to the chevron station there. From google street view, it looks like that station can fuel 12 cars at a time. And when I'm there, there's often a line for a pump.
A gas stop takes, say, 2 minutes. A tesla charging stop takes 30 minutes. So serving the same peak flow of cars would take 15 times as many car spots: 180. Land looks cheap in that part of the central valley, so it might be feasible to have that much space. But 180 chargers, peak, each using 100 kilowatts would use 18 megawatts.
Great scott! That's a lot of power. So it looks like this is still in the range of luxury-car, low-volume stuff. I can't imagine what it would look like as a mass-market thing.