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Tesla currently has 400 supercharger sites in Europe, 2400 bays in total, by 2020 Ionity, which is a consortium of Daimler, BMW, Porsche, Ford, Audi and VW, is

Tesla currently has 400 supercharger sites in Europe, 2400 bays in total, by 2020 Ionity, which is a consortium of Daimler, BMW, Porsche, Ford, Audi and VW, is planning to build 400 sites, 2400 bays total, most with a 350kW charging capacity, which is double the power of Tesla’s chargers. There are also about 5000 CCS chargers already existing in Europe, lower power but ‘destination chargers’ will probably be valuable as well. Tesla plans to double its network over this time frame, but Ionity is just one organization, there will be many smaller players as well, both commercial and government. It seems very likely this advantage will be commodified as the market emerges.

mlindner 8y ago
All chargers are not created equal. "Planning" to build something is not building it. 350kW is a lot of energy and you need to pay for all the power electronics to run that much DC power. I have no doubt the'll start building chargers but I think the ramp up will be slower and the power levels will be lower than what people think. Most cars can't even charge at 350kW because their batteries are too small. You'd damage the batteries.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; you need twice that plus a battery bank to operate at night. You might want a grid tie only so you can do net metering. At current prices for Chinese panels (not counting the Trump tariff) that's on the order of a million dollars. Now double that to pay for the electronic chargers themselves. So $2 million in capital costs and no recurring costs except maintenance. That's almost certainly cheaper to build and permit and operate than a petrol station, and those seem to pop up everywhere. I don't think it will take more than a couple of years for well-maintained superchargers to be ubiquitous, and that's if you give away the power for free with government subsidies. If you charge customers for the energy, it might happen even faster.
  - consp 8y ago
    > 350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; Or about 1/7th of a windmill.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Windmills require good locations to be cost effective, solar works almost anywhere.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  You can track Ionity‘s progress here: https://ionity.evapi.de/#/ https://ionity.evapi.de/#/ I have no doubt that they are serious and ambitious, but they are so far behind Tesla that it‘s not likely that they will catch up until 2020. Also, they are planning to place their fast chargers only 120 Km apart to accommodate for a wider range of vehicles, which puts them at a disadvantage too.
dpkonofa 8y ago
I would love to see them do that. I traded up from an electric Focus that uses the standard chargers and they suck balls. The Tesla is amazing in comparison. Ionity can plan to have all these by 2020 but that doesn't mean they will. Meanwhile, Tesla is already planning upgrades to the Supercharger network and is also constantly adding new locations. I think Tesla will be the one that other EVs turn to and they'll probably have to license the standard.
- labster 8y ago
  Licensing the standard has likely been the long-term plan. Since Tesla bought SolarCity and built the gigafactory, Tesla must think of itself as an energy company.
  - dpkonofa 8y ago
    I hope so. Someone needs to invent some goddamn self-contained solar covered parking spaces. I live in the Southwest and I can't believe that we're in 2018 and no one is tapping into solar power for everything during the day.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Tesla has always thought of itself as an energy company. Electric cars were to bootstrap battery manufacturing capacity (typically low margin, made high margin by Tesla through selling luxury vehicles). Who would've given Tesla funds (through bonds) to build Gigafactory 1 with no proven demand for those cells produced? It is why teslamotors.com is now tesla.com
nickik 8y ago
So they say that in a couple years in a time the market is moving fast. Given Tesla experience with these chargers, its quite difficult to handle the whole cycle of regulatory approval, build and operation. So far I have heard a lot of announcements about great cars and great charging networks from these companies but nothing they have actually done gives me any confidence. People also said that the other car makers will switch the electric and start building electric cars in mass easily and quickly. So far however most of these projects have seen delays and other problems. I would also say that all the 'lower' level chargers will benefit Tesla equally to everybody else, so its no intensive to buy a non-Tesla.
Latteland 8y ago
Don't forget tesla's can charge on ccs in europe too.
- pwagland 8y ago
  Only on the low power "AC" version of CCS, this is limited to 17KW, and so is quite slow in comparison to the high power DC CCS-2 adapter, which can (at least in theory) pump out 350kW. There are quite a few 150kW stations already available, but the Tesla can't use them either.
  - Robotbeat 8y ago
    Tesla’s can use CHAdeMO with an adapter. In the States, there are still more Chademos than CCS, and most new DC Fast chargers have both CHAdeMO and CCS. CHAdeMO is the better standard for fast charging, IMHO, since it allows bidirectional charging.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      I've never heard it was bidirectional use, are there any vehicles that support that? The main negative against chademo (besides the huge plug format) is that it's not Hugh enough power in practice.
      - Robotbeat 8y ago
        There is 100kW Chademo available. The protocol is the strong aspect of it; everyone should just use Tesla's much better plug.
      - Robotbeat 8y ago
        Almost all leafs support bidirectional charging. I think some of the very earliest ones didn't.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    Tesla could use DC CCS-2 with a software update an adaptor. They choose not to make such an update though...

mlindner 8y ago

All chargers are not created equal. "Planning" to build something is not building it. 350kW is a lot of energy and you need to pay for all the power electronics to run that much DC power. I have no doubt the'll start building chargers but I think the ramp up will be slower and the power levels will be lower than what people think. Most cars can't even charge at 350kW because their batteries are too small. You'd damage the batteries.

dreamcompiler 8y ago
350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; you need twice that plus a battery bank to operate at night. You might want a grid tie only so you can do net metering. At current prices for Chinese panels (not counting the Trump tariff) that's on the order of a million dollars. Now double that to pay for the electronic chargers themselves. So $2 million in capital costs and no recurring costs except maintenance. That's almost certainly cheaper to build and permit and operate than a petrol station, and those seem to pop up everywhere. I don't think it will take more than a couple of years for well-maintained superchargers to be ubiquitous, and that's if you give away the power for free with government subsidies. If you charge customers for the energy, it might happen even faster.
- consp 8y ago
  > 350kW is about 1800 m^2 of PV panels; Or about 1/7th of a windmill.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Windmills require good locations to be cost effective, solar works almost anywhere.
lazyjones 8y ago
You can track Ionity‘s progress here: https://ionity.evapi.de/#/ https://ionity.evapi.de/#/ I have no doubt that they are serious and ambitious, but they are so far behind Tesla that it‘s not likely that they will catch up until 2020. Also, they are planning to place their fast chargers only 120 Km apart to accommodate for a wider range of vehicles, which puts them at a disadvantage too.

dpkonofa 8y ago

I would love to see them do that. I traded up from an electric Focus that uses the standard chargers and they suck balls. The Tesla is amazing in comparison. Ionity can plan to have all these by 2020 but that doesn't mean they will. Meanwhile, Tesla is already planning upgrades to the Supercharger network and is also constantly adding new locations. I think Tesla will be the one that other EVs turn to and they'll probably have to license the standard.

labster 8y ago
Licensing the standard has likely been the long-term plan. Since Tesla bought SolarCity and built the gigafactory, Tesla must think of itself as an energy company.
- dpkonofa 8y ago
  I hope so. Someone needs to invent some goddamn self-contained solar covered parking spaces. I live in the Southwest and I can't believe that we're in 2018 and no one is tapping into solar power for everything during the day.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Tesla has always thought of itself as an energy company. Electric cars were to bootstrap battery manufacturing capacity (typically low margin, made high margin by Tesla through selling luxury vehicles). Who would've given Tesla funds (through bonds) to build Gigafactory 1 with no proven demand for those cells produced? It is why teslamotors.com is now tesla.com

nickik 8y ago

So they say that in a couple years in a time the market is moving fast. Given Tesla experience with these chargers, its quite difficult to handle the whole cycle of regulatory approval, build and operation. So far I have heard a lot of announcements about great cars and great charging networks from these companies but nothing they have actually done gives me any confidence. People also said that the other car makers will switch the electric and start building electric cars in mass easily and quickly. So far however most of these projects have seen delays and other problems. I would also say that all the 'lower' level chargers will benefit Tesla equally to everybody else, so its no intensive to buy a non-Tesla.

Latteland 8y ago

Don't forget tesla's can charge on ccs in europe too.

pwagland 8y ago
Only on the low power "AC" version of CCS, this is limited to 17KW, and so is quite slow in comparison to the high power DC CCS-2 adapter, which can (at least in theory) pump out 350kW. There are quite a few 150kW stations already available, but the Tesla can't use them either.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  Tesla’s can use CHAdeMO with an adapter. In the States, there are still more Chademos than CCS, and most new DC Fast chargers have both CHAdeMO and CCS. CHAdeMO is the better standard for fast charging, IMHO, since it allows bidirectional charging.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    I've never heard it was bidirectional use, are there any vehicles that support that? The main negative against chademo (besides the huge plug format) is that it's not Hugh enough power in practice.
    - Robotbeat 8y ago
      There is 100kW Chademo available. The protocol is the strong aspect of it; everyone should just use Tesla's much better plug.
    - Robotbeat 8y ago
      Almost all leafs support bidirectional charging. I think some of the very earliest ones didn't.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Tesla could use DC CCS-2 with a software update an adaptor. They choose not to make such an update though...