3. Do you have any cost figures you can provide? At the original introduction, you had a ballpark for each station. Has the timetable accelerated a little bit (vs. 100 ...)?
Yes, it has [accelerated]. Cost is approximately what we first estimated, roughly $150K per station in expenditures without solar. And another $150K with solar. We'll probably be at the 100 station mark next year. About twice as fast as originally planned.
5b. Explain how the solar works for the stations that do have solar?
The general principle is that we want to generate more energy from the sun over the course of the year than used by Model S at the SCs.
Most SCing on Friday afternoon and evening. Low usage during the week.
The solar panels are generating power throughout the course of the week. Cumulatively adds up to more than the cars consume.
We actually have grid storage going on at some of our supercharging stations. Stationary battery packs that take in energy through the week, through the solar panels. The solar panels charge the battery pack, and then that stationary battery pack charges the Model S battery pack. Capable of going completely off-grid. These stations will operate even if the national grid goes down.
(Joking) Zombie apocalypse you'll still be able to charge with the SC system.
5c. Solar panel location?
Above the SC parking stalls. Examples at Tejon and Hawthorne. Over time we'll have that at all SC stations. Takes longer for panel installation.
Side benefit: carport, shielded from sun and rain while charging.
6. How much of an issue has reliability been on the SCs?
Need to make sure we have a lot of parking spaces available. SC has the ability to route power to multiple parking bays. Currently 2, but will be upgrading to 4. [some 8-10] Need to make sure there's always an excess of stations.
6b. Unmanned stations. Any issues with people showing up and it not working?
Multiple stations, redundancy. Minimum of 2 at each station. Thus, at least 4 parking bays. It's fairly unlikely that 2 or more would be down.
Superchargers...stacking a whole bunch of chargers designed for the cars. Twelve chargers inside. Redundancy. On failure power is reduced, rather than [offline].
10. Solar, superchargers, grid storage. Which percentage of SCs will have the solar component? Which percentage with have grid storage with that solar?
Long-term, all of them. Just a matter of time. In order to expand rapidly, install without them and backfill over time. Solar lag behind SC installation 12-18 months. Grid storage 6-12 months after that.
10b. Solar before storage?
Yes.
10c. How many grid storage so far? How big are they?
Two in operation now. Pretty sizeable. Half MWh. Capable of putting out a MW if need be.
10d. Where?
Rather not say so people don't futz with them. California.
Grid storage is a helpful thing because it offers a buffer to the grid. They like.
13. Clarification on number of SC plugs now vs. this year, EONY.
Don't have the number handy. One thing that's not obvious: in addition to new stations, we're increasing the number of ports at existing stations.
Example: Harris used to have just 1 port. Now it has 10. Not reflected in the map.
13b. [Followup question about impact of ports increasing]
Two to three thousand [charging] ports... (once 200 SCs rolled out ... at 10+ parking bays)
