Tesla Supercharger Network

[GRA]

Tesla chose 400 kWh free per year because that would cover most owners' limited road trip needs. I find that interesting because I did 9000 miles of road trips in my first nine months! But I didn't get my car for urban commuting; I got it, in large part, for road trips.

I have a short commute, but I'm a bit of a weekend warrior. I do roughly 10k miles/year of road tripping per year.

Hmm.. if a Tesla gets 3 miles/kWh, that's 3,333kWh per year. That's well over the 400kWh Tesla is giving owners.

Of course, that assume all of that road trip uses the Supercharger network. In reality, the first charge of every weekend are from charging at home. So that's 60kWh / week or 3120 kWh/year.

So even with my 10k miles/year enabled by the superchargers, I'd only actually use it for about 200kWh, or half of my allowance.

Seems like Tesla did their homework, and is being very generous to boot.

I agree with your (and dgpcolorado's) comments generally, although where the SC price will really matter is for people who can't charge at home or work and must use SCs. At current California gas prices ((average $2.816/gal. regular on 1/13/17) and ignoring charging overhead/inefficiency, $0.20/kWh @ say 3.5 miles kWh average (being generous) is 5.7 cents/mile, so you'd need a car that gets over 49.4 mpg to better that. At 3 miles/kWh it's 6.33 cents/mile, or over 44.5 mpg to better it. It's a good thing for PEVs that gas prices are on the rise again, but things are still bleak for for-profit charging companies like Blink, who simply can't compete with gas prices.

[cwerdna]

...

And, even then, for some folks in high tiers of expensive utilities like PG&E, 20 cents/kWh is cheaper than the marginal cost to charge at home. Non-TOU plan of E1 (https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf) is 40 cents/kWh in tier 3. Many/most households w/an EV driven more than a short distance w/o PV will hit tier 3.

Wouldn't most households with an EV be enrolled in the EV TOU program?

Maybe, if they didn't do their research and blindly chose it or if it actually is the cheapest plan for them. I can't post images anymore but PG&E has a comparison tool showing me what my rates would be between the 7 plan choices I have. They range from $660 per year to $895 per year for my usage patterns. The 2nd most expensive for me is EV-A (electric vehicles but w/no separate meter for EVSE) at $770/year.

I'm on the 2nd cheapest (E6) at $680/year and it's currently telling me E6 Smartrate is $20/year cheaper. But, I've seen the tool flip flop between the two. Smartrate, IIRC doesn't do anything outside of "summer" months.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf page 1 is the EV-A plan. EV-B on page 3 is ONLY if you have your EVSE on a separate meter that's used for EV/PHEV charging only. The time periods on are page 4 which are pretty horrible. Cheap charging during the very limited off-peak window means all your other rates are jacked.

E-6 has totally different time bands. See https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf page 4, rates on page 2.

My baseline is 10.1 kWh/day in "summer" and 10.9 kWh/day in "winter". Those periods are defined on page 6. So, in "summer" every kWh above 303 I use in a 30 day month ends up being at tier 2 prices. Over 606 is tier 3. For "winter", it'd be 327 and 654.

[dgpcolorado]

I agree with your (and dgpcolorado's) comments generally, although where the SC price will really matter is for people who can't charge at home or work and must use SCs. At current California gas prices ((average $2.816/gal. regular on 1/13/17) and ignoring charging overhead/inefficiency, $0.20/kWh @ say 3.5 miles kWh average (being generous) is 5.7 cents/mile, so you'd need a car that gets over 49.4 mpg to better that. At 3 miles/kWh it's 6.33 cents/mile, or over 44.5 mpg to better it. It's a good thing for PEVs that gas prices are on the rise again, but things are still bleak for for-profit charging companies like Blink, who simply can't compete with gas prices.

While Blink can't compete with Tesla's Supercharger network, save where their stations are more conveniently located, they still have a customer base of cars, such as the Bolt and the LEAF, that can't use Tesla's proprietary network.

But, as we've discussed before, the for-profit charge station companies have a much more difficult business model than gas stations because the vast majority of EV charging is done at home.

[GRA]

End of January summary. 7 U.S. SCs opened last month, making 7 for the year and 347 total: Kuttawa, KY (1/1, I-24/69); Moosic (Scranton) , PA (1/1, I-81/476); Junction, TX (1/4, I-10); Lincoln, NE (1/5, I-80); Grand Island, NE (1/6, I-80); Lima, MT (1/9, I-15); and Ozona, TX (1/19, I-10).

6 U.S. SCs are known to be under construction: Fremont #2 (dormant); Las Vegas #2; Santa Fe, NM; Van Horn, TX; Naples, FL; Milford, CT.

1 Canadian SC opened last month, Merritt, BC, making 25 total.

The SC listed under construction at the soon to open store/service center in Oakville, Ontario last month seems to have disappeared.

[scottf200]

a)

we plan to accelerate expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.

Via: Tesla Quarterly news letter
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ ... 016-4Q.pdf

b) Feb work....

Image: i.imgur.com/SOAG4UW.jpg


c) permits and currently under construction. Will be exciting to see warmer weather in the 'north'- https://supercharge.info/
Image: i.imgur.com/t0A4xnK.jpg

[GRA]

End of February summary. 2 U.S. SCs opened last month, making 9 for the year and 349 total: Van Horn, TX (I-10); and Naples, FL (U.S. 41).

9 U.S. SCs are known to be under construction: Fremont #2 (dormant); Klamath Falls, OR; Las Vegas #2; Santa Fe, NM; Arlington, TX; Traverse City, MI; Myrtle Beach, SC; Waterloo, NY; Milford, CT.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Canadian SC opened last month, still 1 for the year and 25 total.

1 Canadian SC is known to be under construction: Calgary, AB.

[GRA]

we plan to accelerate expansion of the Supercharger network this year, starting with doubling our number of North American Supercharger locations in 2017.

Via: Tesla Quarterly news letter
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ ... 016-4Q.pdf

To say this claim seems unlikely is almost a British level of understatement, as they are about at the same level of (U.S.) completions as last year 5 (4 in 2016) for January, 2 (2 in 2016) for February, when they completed 92 for the year. They do have more under construction this year, 9 rather than 3, although in both those cases one of them is Fremont #2 which has been dormant. Added to that is all the money they're going to have to spend on getting the Model 3 into production plus ramping up the Gigafactory, and you've got to wonder just how they expect to pay for a tripling of SC completions this year compared to their best performance to date (102 in 2015), never mind how they'd be able to build that many.

They obviously need to considerably increase the number of SCs to handle the Model 3s, but I suspect 150 in the U.S. this year would be a considerable accomplishment

[lorenfb]

They obviously need to considerably increase the number of SCs to handle the Model 3s, but I suspect 150 in the U.S. this year would be a considerable accomplishment

Yes, that's key! But even no mention here:

Tesla will need billions to make US Supercharger network compete with gas stations, says analyst

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/tesla-needs-billions-to-make-supercharger-network-rival-gas-stations.html

Somewhat of a weak analogy, though.

[GRA]

Reports of both Cabazon and Indio SCs having been vandalized (cables cut) in the past few weeks. As they're fairly close, possibly the same people.

[GRA]

And now an entire TMC thread dedicated to recent problems with Ca. SCs, including lots of speculation as to possible causes:

Multiple CA Supercharger locations down in past 5 months: breakdowns, vandalism, or theft?

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/multiple-ca-supercharger-locations-down-in-past-5-months-breakdowns-vandalism-or-theft.87748/