Thank you for clarifying. This is info people need to know before deciding to buy one.
Aside: I find that the “Miles of Charge Per Hour” info is the most relevant.
What kind of voltage (or wattage?) are the Tesla Superchargers pumping?
Or, I can google the wiki: 480V! Nice!
So (asking for a friend, legitimately!), would a Tesla car owner need a fancy Tesla home charging station, or can it simply use a cord to the nearest 220V outlet, using an adapter? Again, that is more for overnight stuff, not long-haul trips.
Also, how about all the companies agree on their plug shapes??
Public charging stations typically use DC charging. Two main non-proprietary standards are CHAdeMO (started in Japan) and CCS (started in Europe) (Tesla having their own). CHAdeMO v1.2 has a 200 kW max charge rate, with 2.0 upping it to 400kW (3.0 in development towards 900kW). CCS has up to a 350 kW max charge rate. Note that the vehicle communicates back to the charging station and limits that based on what the battery can safely receive. So if you have a 70 kWH battery pack using 350kW CCS doesn’t mean you can go from 0% state-of-charge (SOC) to 100% in 12 minutes. Car manufacturers try to differentiate themselves based on charge times. CHAdeMO might be on the way out in the US and Europe though. The Nissan Leaf uses CHAdeMO, but the upcoming Nissan Ariya for the US will use CCS.
Home chargers on AC power, called Level 1 (L1) or Level 2 (L2), runs from 3.3kW to 18kW. There are some public AC charging stations.
There is no need for a Tesla owner to have one of the fancy charging stations at home. There are some features like constant monitoring of the charging or something that are of possible benefit. You can simply install a 220V outlet in the garage and use the Tesla provided “emergency charger” to plug in. Either the Tesla charger or the 220V outlet would be considered level 2 charging. You could also just plug into a normal 110V outlet as well and let it charge. That is way slower and if you drive a significant number of miles daily, you won’t be able to recharge fully overnight in this way. My folks stayed in Florida last winter for three months and took their Model 3. The only charging available in their rental house was a 110V and it worked for them but they weren’t really driving anywhere on any given day. Superchargers are nice to use when you need them but for most people you really don’t need them.
A universal standard for charging would be nice. It kind of looks like the world is moving towards the CCS but CHAdeMO is the most common in the US. Tesla had offered their charging tech free to anyone who wanted to use it but nobody took them up on the offer.
That’s a big “if.”
Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be a car manufacturer’s issue. Seems more a recharging station issue. Why are so many of the stations broken, and why is the motivation to fix them lacking?
I take it there is not that much money in recharging stations. I think gas stations need to start adding them, since they will be, in theory, getting replaced.
In California it’s a certainty, given the mandate. Well, unless you’re placing odds on the mandate being repealed or extended ad infinitum… which actually may be fairly likely once reality sinks in for Californians. Especially once the blackouts happen and they have to walk everywhere.
Yeah, considering the service time and market demand gas/vs electric there isn’t much of an economic case to take expensive real estate and open your own charging station. That is why there will have to be different business models and possibly govt subsidies to get the infrastructure installed.
Interestingly, more EVs would cause more frequent blackouts. 'cause, they run on electricity.
Looking up some stuff:
CA has 600,000 EVs and plugin hybrids (not sure how much of each) at the end of 2019.
In 2020, about one-fourth of the nation’s public access electric vehicle charging stations, and almost one-third of the charging outlets, were in California.43
I don’t own an EV and don’t know much about them, so a simple question.
If I can fill my car’s gas tank in 5-10 minutes and get 300-400 miles of travel out of that fill up, what would be something equivalent for an EV? I think I saw something about a full charge from near empty was 20-30 minutes and you might get 150-200 miles. All my figures could be way off, so just looking for perspective. What is the margin for a gas station in terms of $ per minute of pumping gas? How does that compare to electric? As Steve points out, this may be a big issue with the value of real estate.
I like to think of mileage in an EV in terms of time. On a full charge, I can drive about 3.5 to 4 hours. That’s probably about 200 miles or so. It depends on weather conditions and accessory use of course.
Charging is a little more complex. There is an efficiency curve in recharging a battery. The sweet spot is between 20% and 80% of a full charge. My experience is that a 15 minute stop will give me back 20-30% of my charge. Based upon my parents experience, a 40 minute charge gets you back up to 80%. That will translate into another 2-3 hours of travel time.
In my opinion, gas stations won’t be converting into energy stations. The model is pretty different. Stopping to recharge is typically a rare event and most charging is done at home. So for full charging, you need to provide some sort of waiting option, like a restaurant or movie theatre or something. My favorite superchargers are located a grocery stores. I can plug in, go inside and use the head, peruse the shelves for some snacks, spend some time saying “my store doesn’t carry this!”, grab a drink, and head back to the vehicle. It fits in with some convivence stores in some respect but not really with the gas fill up model. Recharging an EV battery is a slow process and an infrequent event which makes for a difficult business. It makes more sense for a restaurant to install a charging station than it does for a gas station.
Some EV manufacturers are developing a battery swap out concept. That model fits in much better with a gas station model as it is stop and go.
I read an article that stated that Tesla would be ineligible for the tax credit due to not being unionized. The vehicles or batteries or something like that would need to be built in the US but there was a five year exemption. The UAW and Ford were helping to write the bill.
So like Blue Rhino for propane tanks? Interesting idea if the battery you get in the swap is of equal value and will hold a charge for the same time.
Thanks for the education on charging batteries as well. Makes sense that a gas station approach wouldn’t work due to the charging time. I guess if you just need a top up to get home, then it might be possible.
The problem is distance driving though. And if you live in California you can’t just “that’s not what EV is for” this issue away. You have to actually deal with it.
Like, my in-laws live 1,000 miles away. I do the drive in one day. Takes about 15 hours and I’ll stop for gas twice and food twice. Maybe one additional restroom stop (stops included in the 15 hours). Each stop is currently well under 10 minutes.
If I am forced against my will to buy an EV, this trip is going to become a major PITA.
This is the problem with mandating EV for everyone.
Just saw something like this today. I am interested, maybe in a few years:
Might not be available in the USA, though.
In 15 years, I might go to all-electric. Let others sacrifice their utility and time.
Here is the 2021 version (probably what I actually saw):
Um, some concerns about their numbers though:
According to Audi, the is capable of 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds, 282.5mpg fuel economy and CO2 emissions of 25-30g/km in both Sport and S Line trim. The more powerful 45 TFSI e, meanwhile, is capable of 0-62mph in 6.8 seconds, can return up to 235.4mpg and emits 29-30g/km of CO2.