4 ms·

All of this going on the assumption that the charge station is not fully occupied at the time you want to recharge, which with 30 to 60 minute recharge times is

by w0utert 14y ago

All of this going on the assumption that the charge station is not fully occupied at the time you want to recharge, which with 30 to 60 minute recharge times is going to get improbable pretty fast when electric cars become more popular. Imagine everyone at the local gas station leaving their car at the pump for 60 minutes... I think we can safely conclude that unless there is going to be a huge breakthrough in battery technology really soon, EV's that run on batteries alone are not going to be a success for anything but short-distance commutes. I'm still hoping for breakthroughs in other technologies that would make generating electricity so cheap that we can afford to waste a lot of it producing hydrogen. That would instantly obviate the need to lug around heavy batteries that take long to recharge, run out fast, require a lot of energy to produce, and are full of nasty chemicals that pollute the areas where they are mined. Battery-powered EV's simply aren't all roses and sunshine, and I'm frankly quite amazed how easy the negatives are papered over.

klinquist 14y ago
I've stopped by one supercharger station (Tejon Ranch) and I believe they had 6 charging spots.
MertsA 14y ago
The big thing that you're not accounting for is that the majority of charging is probably going to be done at home just letting it charge overnight. Also, you don't need a huge, expensive, and maintenance intensive gas pump at every station, you just need a power cord and some way for someone to swipe a credit card. No more having huge gas tanks buried beneath the pavement, just have an extremely beefy electrical hookup and you're good to go. Everything is all solid state with no moving parts, heck you could even disable the car while it's being charged to prevent idiots from taking off without unhooking first.
- jonknee 14y ago
  The Model S won't move while plugged in, no need to worry about idiots.
  - zanny 14y ago
    You could do that with any car with a pressure sensor on the gas intake. Though thumbs up for Tesla adding that feature.
dredmorbius 14y ago
Superchargers are intended for on-the-road, long-haul recharge. While your local gas station is used by everyone in the neighborhood, most Tesla drivers, most of the time, will be charging overnight or during work hours at home, work, or a dedicated car park. Which should reduce demand somewhat. From Google Maps, the Harris Ranch location is presently a single charging station. That is something which should be readily scalable as demand rises. Your usage pattern at a given Supercharger station would be a factor of total traffic on nearby highways, Tesla ownership, and recharge needs. Present stations are at highway plazas -- not necessarily in high-ticket areas (hello, Harris Ranch and Barstow), but given the vehicle owner demographics and minimum 30 minute linger time, they'll likely offer typical captive-audience amenities, so the time won't be a total loss. And charging is possible from other outlets, though at 5 miles/hour from 110AC, that's a good (or bad) 60 hours to recover full range. More likely you're getting sufficient charge to get to a higher-rated output. Further though: so long as queuing depth is one vehicle (that is, you arrive, all chargers are filled, and there are no vehicles in front of you), the mean wait time assuming a 50% charge is 30/n, where n is the number of stations. So, 6 stations, queue depth of 1, you'll wait on average 5 minutes for someone to pull out, extending your total recharge time to 35 minutes. If Tesla strives for this as a 95%+ level of service, it should be tolerable, though high-travel periods (holiday weekends in particular) would tend to be worst-case scenarios.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Correcting myself: mean wait time would be 30/(2*n). As on average you'll arrive when another car is halfway through its charging period. So for a 6-charger station, 2.5 minutes wait time. On average.
ZoFreX 14y ago
> unless there is going to be a huge breakthrough in battery technology really soon, EV's that run on batteries alone are not going to be a success for anything but short-distance commutes I don't think that's the only option, battery swapping springs to mind as an alternative to beat the problem.

by w0utert 14y ago

klinquist 14y ago

I've stopped by one supercharger station (Tejon Ranch) and I believe they had 6 charging spots.

MertsA 14y ago

The big thing that you're not accounting for is that the majority of charging is probably going to be done at home just letting it charge overnight. Also, you don't need a huge, expensive, and maintenance intensive gas pump at every station, you just need a power cord and some way for someone to swipe a credit card. No more having huge gas tanks buried beneath the pavement, just have an extremely beefy electrical hookup and you're good to go. Everything is all solid state with no moving parts, heck you could even disable the car while it's being charged to prevent idiots from taking off without unhooking first.

jonknee 14y ago
The Model S won't move while plugged in, no need to worry about idiots.
- zanny 14y ago
  You could do that with any car with a pressure sensor on the gas intake. Though thumbs up for Tesla adding that feature.

dredmorbius 14y ago

Superchargers are intended for on-the-road, long-haul recharge. While your local gas station is used by everyone in the neighborhood, most Tesla drivers, most of the time, will be charging overnight or during work hours at home, work, or a dedicated car park. Which should reduce demand somewhat. From Google Maps, the Harris Ranch location is presently a single charging station. That is something which should be readily scalable as demand rises. Your usage pattern at a given Supercharger station would be a factor of total traffic on nearby highways, Tesla ownership, and recharge needs. Present stations are at highway plazas -- not necessarily in high-ticket areas (hello, Harris Ranch and Barstow), but given the vehicle owner demographics and minimum 30 minute linger time, they'll likely offer typical captive-audience amenities, so the time won't be a total loss. And charging is possible from other outlets, though at 5 miles/hour from 110AC, that's a good (or bad) 60 hours to recover full range. More likely you're getting sufficient charge to get to a higher-rated output. Further though: so long as queuing depth is one vehicle (that is, you arrive, all chargers are filled, and there are no vehicles in front of you), the mean wait time assuming a 50% charge is 30/n, where n is the number of stations. So, 6 stations, queue depth of 1, you'll wait on average 5 minutes for someone to pull out, extending your total recharge time to 35 minutes. If Tesla strives for this as a 95%+ level of service, it should be tolerable, though high-travel periods (holiday weekends in particular) would tend to be worst-case scenarios.

dredmorbius 14y ago
Correcting myself: mean wait time would be 30/(2*n). As on average you'll arrive when another car is halfway through its charging period. So for a 6-charger station, 2.5 minutes wait time. On average.

ZoFreX 14y ago

> unless there is going to be a huge breakthrough in battery technology really soon, EV's that run on batteries alone are not going to be a success for anything but short-distance commutes I don't think that's the only option, battery swapping springs to mind as an alternative to beat the problem.