Still No Fast Chargers for Consumer EVs on the East Side

paulgipe · Apr 14, 2015

Mojave Superchargers Go Live: East Side Now Wired for Tesla—Still No Fast Chargers for Consumer EVs on the East Side

Users of the Tesla Motors electronic forum announced that the Tesla Supercharger station went live in the Mojave desert crossroads on 27 March 2015. The station includes six charging stalls for the high-end electric vehicle (EV) in the Stater Bros parking lot off of the new Hwy.14 entrance to the town of Mojave.

Planning documents, http://psbweb.co.kern.ca.us/Utility...8-14 Tesla Motors, Inc. by Black & Veatch.pdf, indicate that Tesla planned to install a 500 kW transformer to power the chargers. The planning document also says that Tesla will install a “200 kW stationary storage unit.” What this means in practice is unclear. Battery storage is given in kWh not kW.

The supercharger station in Mojave follows the installation of a sister installation in Lone Pine on Hwy. 395 east of Mount Whitney. With the supercharger station in Truckee, Tesla drivers in Silicon Valley can now cross the Sierra Nevada and drive south on the east side of the Sierra all the way to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, there are no DC Fast Chargers in Mojave, or anywhere on the east side of the Sierra for drivers of consumer-oriented EVs, such as the Nissan Leaf. The nearest fast charger to Mojave is in Bakersfield or Palmdale. Bakersfield is beyond the reach of consumer-oriented EVs in Mojave.

There are no DC fast chargers on the entire length of Hwy. 58 from Paso Robles to Barstow. Hwy. 58 is a major east-west route that crosses the coast range and the Tehachapi Mountains before passing through Mojave.

Drivers of consumer-oriented EVs must resort to lengthy charging at Level 2 stations--where they exist—or even lengthier charging at improvised charging stations at Recreational Vehicle Parks and campgrounds.

Unlike California, drivers of consumer-oriented EVs in Washington State and Oregon can depend on a dense network of fast charging stations on both north-south and east-west routes. Outside of Tesla’s proprietary network, California remains woefully behind its EV friendly neighbors to the north.

This article is also posted at http://www.wind-works.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Paul Gipe

GRA · Apr 14, 2015

paulgipe said:
Mojave Superchargers Go Live: East Side Now Wired for Tesla—Still No Fast Chargers for Consumer EVs on the East Side

Users of the Tesla Motors electronic forum announced that the Tesla Supercharger station went live in the Mojave desert crossroads on 27 March 2015. The station includes six charging stalls for the high-end electric vehicle (EV) in the Stater Bros parking lot off of the new Hwy.14 entrance to the town of Mojave.

Planning documents, http://psbweb.co.kern.ca.us/Utility...8-14 Tesla Motors, Inc. by Black & Veatch.pdf, indicate that Tesla planned to install a 500 kW transformer to power the chargers. The planning document also says that Tesla will install a “200 kW stationary storage unit.” What this means in practice is unclear. Battery storage is given in kWh not kW.

The supercharger station in Mojave follows the installation of a sister installation in Lone Pine on Hwy. 395 east of Mount Whitney. With the supercharger station in Truckee, Tesla drivers in Silicon Valley can now cross the Sierra Nevada and drive south on the east side of the Sierra all the way to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, there are no DC Fast Chargers in Mojave, or anywhere on the east side of the Sierra for drivers of consumer-oriented EVs, such as the Nissan Leaf. The nearest fast charger to Mojave is in Bakersfield or Palmdale. Bakersfield is beyond the reach of consumer-oriented EVs in Mojave.

There are no DC fast chargers on the entire length of Hwy. 58 from Paso Robles to Barstow. Hwy. 58 is a major east-west route that crosses the coast range and the Tehachapi Mountains before passing through Mojave.

Drivers of consumer-oriented EVs must resort to lengthy charging at Level 2 stations--where they exist—or even lengthier charging at improvised charging stations at Recreational Vehicle Parks and campgrounds.

Unlike California, drivers of consumer-oriented EVs in Washington State and Oregon can depend on a dense network of fast charging stations on both north-south and east-west routes. Outside of Tesla’s proprietary network, California remains woefully behind its EV friendly neighbors to the north.

This article is also posted at http://www.wind-works.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Paul Gipe

Paul, IMO until BEVs other than Tesla have enough range to be really practical for road trips, there's little point in installing QCs on the routes to more remote destinations. Except for the few enthusiasts who are willing to put up with the time inefficiency, almost no one will use current affordable BEVs for long trips, and of those who do, most will only do so once, as an 'adventure'. Installing QCs to enable intra-regional trips between cities, e.g. along SR 99 in the Central Valley, as well as between metro areas and one-QC-away destinations, strikes me as a much better use of resources at this time. Once the 2nd generation BEVs with highway ranges of at least 100 but preferably at least 150 miles are in closer prospect, it will be time to install QCs on the more remote routes like 395. I say that as someone who's done the Bay Area to Lee Vining via SR 120 and then south on 395 drive quite a few times for backpacking or climbing trips, in addition to frequent trips to Yosemite and occasional ones to Tahoe. Providing still-lacking QC access to Tahoe from Sacramento makes more sense than worrying about 395 at this point.

BTW, in addition to Mojave and Lone Pine, Tesla also completed an SC in Inyokern, which provides options for the other two and also access to Death Valley from the south. They also have plans for what appear to be SCs in Bishop, probably Lee Vining (could be Mammoth, but Lee Vining wins the informal polls), South Lake Tahoe and either Stateline or Minden/Gardnerville (too hard to tell from their map) this year. Negotiations in Bishop have apparently hit a snag, and we have no public knowledge on when the others might appear.

dhanson865 · Apr 14, 2015

The planning document also says that Tesla will install a “200 kW stationary storage unit.” What this means in practice is unclear. Battery storage is given in kWh not kW.

Tesla stationary storage is rated for both kWh and KW. It's not just a battery it also includes the inverter(s), fans, etcetera needed to allow the unit to be nearly plug and play.

if for some reason the insideeevs.com link goes dead the same pic is all over the net, another copy is at http://dqbasmyouzti2.cloudfront.net/assets/content/cache/made/content/images/articles/straubel3_582_426.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Since the ratio of kWh to KW is 2 to 1 for residential and is 2 to 1 or higher for commercial I'm assuming the commercial has optional aux storage that can be plugged in without expanding the electronics.

A 200 KW / 400 kWh unit could buffer the load for 3 or 4 Model S 85 cars supercharging at the same time (they may peak over 100KW but they'll settle down to under 60KW later in the charging curve). Overlapping curves will bring the average closer to 60KW but 4 at a time will draw at least some small load from the grid. If a site was busy enough to have 6 cars supercharging at the same time they could limit the load from the utility to 1 to 3 cars worth and recharge the pack(s) at a much slower rate after the peak congestion abates. They can pretty much guarantee with the storage buffer that they'll never pay the surcharge for hitting the max the transformer can provide them and can even use it to exceed the 500 kW limit of the transformer during the busiest time of the day.

This allows them to

A. avoid surcharges based on time of day or peak load
B. take advantage of solar cells if present to avoid the local electric company most of the time.
C. avoid putting in a bigger transformer if they want to use faster charging rate curves with newer cars

B would be much harder to do if the site had lots of activity but in remote supercharging sites that see less traffic it might be possible to cross the 50% mark.

GRA · Apr 14, 2015

BTW, the battery storage in Mojave wasn't activated when the SC was, as the photos of the site on the thread at TMC when it opened showed the 'storage' switch locked in the 'Off' position. Maybe that's changed.

Randy · Apr 14, 2015

Same as Barstow for the PV array at the Tesla Supercharger site. The PV canopy was installed awhile ago, but there is no meter in the socket, the inverter is powered down, and the disconnect switch is in the off position...Not sure what's happening there....

paulgipe · Apr 15, 2015

GRA said:
paulgipe said:

Mojave Superchargers Go Live: East Side Now Wired for Tesla—Still No Fast Chargers for Consumer EVs on the East Side

BTW, in addition to Mojave and Lone Pine, Tesla also completed an SC in Inyokern, which provides options for the other two and also access to Death Valley from the south. They also have plans for what appear to be SCs in Bishop, probably Lee Vining (could be Mammoth, but Lee Vining wins the informal polls), South Lake Tahoe and either Stateline or Minden/Gardnerville (too hard to tell from their map) this year. Negotiations in Bishop have apparently hit a snag, and we have no public knowledge on when the others might appear.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I was just through Inyokern a few weeks ago and didn't see that Tesla station--must have driven right by it.

Paul

paulgipe · Apr 15, 2015

dhanson865 said:
The planning document also says that Tesla will install a “200 kW stationary storage unit.” What this means in practice is unclear. Battery storage is given in kWh not kW.

Click to expand...

This allows them to

A. avoid surcharges based on time of day or peak load
B. take advantage of solar cells if present to avoid the local electric company most of the time.
C. avoid putting in a bigger transformer if they want to use faster charging rate curves with newer cars

B would be much harder to do if the site had lots of activity but in remote supercharging sites that see less traffic it might be possible to cross the 50% mark.

This must the same arrangement Tony Williams is planning for a DCFC station.

Thanks for the link.

Paul

GRA · Apr 15, 2015

paulgipe said:
Thanks. I was just through Inyokern a few weeks ago and didn't see that Tesla station--must have driven right by it.

Paul

You're welcome. Here's the Inyokern thread at TMC, if you're interested: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/40568-Supercharger-Inyokern-%28Went-LIVE-on-03-20-2015%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and here's the google map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/1353+Brown+Rd,+Inyokern,+CA+93527/@35.646639,-117.8126403,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c10c66973427c7:0xa7b997e7c25a826a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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