California Supercharger Queues

[The Wookie]

ColdoRS said:

The real test will be when there is 50%+ adoption of EVs and we realise just how many people cannot charge at home and will thus rely entirely on a public charging network. My prediction is that the public charge options will be well up to speed by then though, because of the wonderful economic system that is capitalism.

That is my worry, that we go from sub 1% up to mass adoption in the space of a handful of years and for the vast majority of journeys where EV is actually an improvement things are absolutely fine, but in certain situations and occasions there will be absolute meltdown

[The Wookie]

JD said:

https://electrek.co/2020/11/14/tesla-opens-worlds-...

Great stuff but I'd still ask a couple of questions, firstly is it the right solution for the long term and secondly are similar developments planned for here?

On the first one, what's the better solution, 56x 100kW fast chargers or a purpose built EV car park at a shopping centre with 200x 11kW chargers for example?

Just to make it 100% clear on my position, I work in EV technology and I love my IC cars. I accept that for mainstream stuff the debate is over, EV is happening and it is coming fast. I just want it to work properly for my customers and for when I buy one!

[Richard-D]

The Wookie said:

Are people daft enough to spend 50-100grand on a Tesla isn't daft enough to sit in a queue for the same amount of time they could pay a few dollars, leave their car at a slower charger and go for a wander round the shops for a few hours?

Bearing in mind if the chargers aren't in the right places and don't have the power to avoid causing an inconvenience then it will force people into queuing at the fast charging stations.

The number of times that 'wander round the shops' is used as a solution by EV range/charging issues always amuses me. I can only assume that these people enjoy spending their lives drinking pretentious coffees and shopping. Sounds like a miserable existence to me.

[ZesPak]

Richard-D said:

The number of times that 'wander round the shops' is used as a solution by EV range/charging issues always amuses me. I can only assume that these people enjoy spending their lives drinking pretentious coffees and shopping. Sounds like a miserable existence to me.

What about the people that hate EV's and feel the need to go on every thread to announce said hatred?

[The Wookie]

Richard-D said:

The number of times that 'wander round the shops' is used as a solution by EV range/charging issues always amuses me. I can only assume that these people enjoy spending their lives drinking pretentious coffees and shopping. Sounds like a miserable existence to me.

Whether you or I like it or not it's a typical use case! Plus I prefer sitting having a pretentious coffee to inanely wandering round the shops with the mrs!

Plus it ultimately just an example of a 'mission'. The use case for driving to a meeting or parking up in a national trust car park and going for a hike would look pretty similar.

[Richard-D]

ZesPak said:

Richard-D said:

The number of times that 'wander round the shops' is used as a solution by EV range/charging issues always amuses me. I can only assume that these people enjoy spending their lives drinking pretentious coffees and shopping. Sounds like a miserable existence to me.

What about the people that hate EV's and feel the need to go on every thread to announce said hatred?

Any examples?


I suspect you are confusing 'can see that there are drawbacks' with 'hates EVs'.

Edited by Richard-D on Tuesday 15th December 17:24

[ZesPak]

Richard-D said:

Any examples?


I suspect you are confusing 'can see that there are drawbacks' with 'hates EVs'.

"people that go shopping and have an expensive coffee have a miserable existence imho"

Thanks for your contribution to this thread and alerting us to the drawbacks of EV's.

[Richard-D]

ZesPak said:

Richard-D said:

Any examples?


I suspect you are confusing 'can see that there are drawbacks' with 'hates EVs'.

"people that go shopping and have an expensive coffee have a miserable existence imho"

Thanks for your contribution to this thread and alerting us to the drawbacks of EV's.

Interesting that you choose to pretend I've said something I haven't to try to make your point. Quite clearly, that isn't the same as needing to wander around the shops/sit in cafes to wait for your car to charge.

It's comments like that that mark you out as someone who can't differentiate between 'can identify drawbacks with EVs' and 'hates EVs'.

edit: Which is a shame as I don't doubt you have some good knowledge on the subject. Unfortunately your keenness to sweep anything that isn't a ringing endorsement as 'EV hating' makes you so ludicrously biased that I can't trust any claims you make.

Edited by Richard-D on Tuesday 15th December 17:45

[ZesPak]

You're delusional if you think that what you said came across as anything else.

Richard-D said:

The number of times that 'wander round the shops' is used as a solution by EV range/charging issues always amuses me. I can only assume that these people enjoy spending their lives drinking pretentious coffees and shopping. Sounds like a miserable existence to me.

Richard-D said:

edit: Which is a shame as I don't doubt you have some good knowledge on the subject. Unfortunately your keenness to sweep anything that isn't a ringing endorsement as 'EV hating' makes you so ludicrously biased that I can't trust any claims you make.

No, it's useless statements like the one you made above that just doesn't bring the conversation anywhere.

"these people live differently than me, I have a much more exciting existence than that!"

[Richard-D]

ZesPak said:

You're delusional if you think that what you said came across as anything else.

Hang on, are you genuinely claiming that you can't tell the difference between:-

'regularly having to spend hours wandering around shopping centres/sitting in starbucks is miserable'

and

'people that go shopping and have an expensive coffee have a miserable existence'

I do not believe that you think those two things are the same. Come on, you're not an idiot.

[ZesPak]

I think we misunderstood each other indeed. I was talking about people that do it for fun, meanwhile charging their car.

You were talking about people being forced to do so.

[Richard-D]

ZesPak said:

I think we misunderstood each other indeed. I was talking about people that do it for fun, meanwhile charging their car.

You were talking about people being forced to do so.

I shall try to be more explicit in future.

[dvs_dave]

^^^ Get a room you two, wrestle it out....jeez!

[off_again]

That article was from a just over a year ago and yes it was true - I knew a few people who drove past it at the time and it was probably worse than what was reported. However, I have to say that it was a number of circumstances that lead to this. Thanksgiving is a big thing here in the US and on top of that, the wild fires from that season had lead to widespread electric grid shutdowns, which meant people couldnt re-charge at home. So a lot of people, Tesla owners included, decided to take a trip to see friends and family and charging was an issue.

What it did do is illustrate the fragility of what network is present and clearly the dependency on the grid as a whole. However, its a pretty rare situation and of course, you didnt need to travel anywhere, so was it really a big issue? Also, something that wasnt covered at the same time, with the grid shutdown, that meant that gas stations were also closed! So yes, the Tesla superchargers made the news nationally / internationally, but with no place to fill your car with fuel, the same was true elsewhere. Here, in the sticks where I live, we had hour long queues waiting or the Safeway gas station!

But, I would still say that charging networks need to be a lot more focused though. Most EV drivers, here anyway, still charge at home and almost always have some sort of driveway or garage. On a side note, you will find that many cities or communities will even have a limit with on-street parking, some even preventing it completely! A car can be considered abandoned after a relatively short period of time (30 days where I live) and can be asked to be moved in anything over 7 days! HOA communities are even worse! So the expectation is that most will have driveways or garages, so at-home charging is absolutely the norm here. Making sure there are sufficient destination and transit locations for charging is the key point. Tesla have been pretty good at building this out, but they arent finished by any stretch. Electrify America have also done a pretty decent job, but they are having to upgrade everything, so expanding it isnt as aggressive as it was, so lets see how that works. But when charging can take anything from 30 mins to 2 hours, having sufficient stations is the key. A gas station with 10 pumps is great and you can keep people moving quickly, but on a freeway or interstate, they MUST be big enough to be able to be used in even the most extreme of situations - which I dont think that many are. The latest Tesla supercharger in Las Vegas IS, which is good, but others are simply not setup for it, yet. Lets see how this pans out.

[The Wookie]

Thanks for that insight, so it was actually a wider grid issue that precipitated it into a massive problem?

How does the new bigger station manage with normal usage then? Is that sort of organic growth dealing with it adequately allowing for maybe a few bigger queues a year at peak times?

Also it might be a subjective answer but are there actually a lot of Teslas being driven around there?

[rxe]

ZesPak said:

No, it's useless statements like the one you made above that just doesn't bring the conversation anywhere.

"these people live differently than me, I have a much more exciting existence than that!"

I think there needs to be a level of realism here. Having to spend 20 or 40 minutes to fill up a car is not an advantage. Always starting the day “full” is an advantage. “Oh but you need a coffee after 200 miles” is trotted out, but in reality this is not true - I’ve never though “oooh I need a coffee and a wander round WHSmiths” on the last leg of my journey, I’ve always just gone home instead. And to be honest, ever since WHSmiths stopped stocking porn mags when I was about 14, I have less than zero interest in hanging out there.

It’s the edge cases that are the problem. Most people, most of the time will be fine. On some specific days of the year, they will not be fine, until an extraordinary investment in infrastructure is made, that will not be commercially viable because most of the time it will have zero market.

I suspect the first person to sort this on (say) the M5 into Cornwall will reverse auction priority access. As soon as there is a queue, you can pay to jump it. If there is a big queue, you will pay a lot to jump it, or you will sit there for hours. I don’t believe this investment will happen - sure there is lots of noise at the moment, but this is all investor money. When they have to make a return, it will all look rather different.

[anonymous-user]

rxe said:

ZesPak said:

No, it's useless statements like the one you made above that just doesn't bring the conversation anywhere.

"these people live differently than me, I have a much more exciting existence than that!"

I think there needs to be a level of realism here. Having to spend 20 or 40 minutes to fill up a car is not an advantage. Always starting the day “full” is an advantage. “Oh but you need a coffee after 200 miles” is trotted out, but in reality this is not true - I’ve never though “oooh I need a coffee and a wander round WHSmiths” on the last leg of my journey, I’ve always just gone home instead. And to be honest, ever since WHSmiths stopped stocking porn mags when I was about 14, I have less than zero interest in hanging out there.

It’s the edge cases that are the problem. Most people, most of the time will be fine. On some specific days of the year, they will not be fine, until an extraordinary investment in infrastructure is made, that will not be commercially viable because most of the time it will have zero market.

I suspect the first person to sort this on (say) the M5 into Cornwall will reverse auction priority access. As soon as there is a queue, you can pay to jump it. If there is a big queue, you will pay a lot to jump it, or you will sit there for hours. I don’t believe this investment will happen - sure there is lots of noise at the moment, but this is all investor money. When they have to make a return, it will all look rather different.

Very good points, sir.

Seasonal demand in holiday locations and along the route is gonna be a bh beyond a certain uptake of BEV.
There's no two ways about it, IMO.
It's because people will be people and will all descend en masse on places like Cornwall, sharing very limited road networks and visiting places with massive seasonal demand.
I'm not sure private companies will see that seasonal demand as manageable or fruitful enough to really flood the services and destinations with enough points, notwithstanding the space-limited nature of many of these holiday destinations anyway.

[jjwilde]

Really? A year old DM article? Why OP? Tesla already doubled the chargers because of what happened.

Kinda sus posting a year old story to cause a pile on...

[Richard-D]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It just wouldn't make sense to, there wouldn't be a decent return on the investment for the majority of the year.

[off_again]

The Wookie said:

Thanks for that insight, so it was actually a wider grid issue that precipitated it into a massive problem?

Haha, electric grid in California.... now there is a joke.... who knew that a monopoly could be bad? PG&E sucks. Rolling brown-outs, power shut off situations and an almost impossible state process to get connected / upgraded from the system. And dont forget that they just came out of Chapter 11 because they burned down a number of towns and killed a bunch of people!

Last year was a nightmare but in general it did cope. But there were situations where they did have to initiate shutdowns due to overuse. Same happened this year, but thankfully only briefly. EV's havent impacted it though, its all around high usage due to aircon during heatwave periods. For most customers (including me), they have a tiered system for costs - an allocated amount per month, use over that and pay more. But there is a peak period, typically between 5-8PM which they can turn on for all, depending on demand.

So its safe to say that the grid is an issue. PG&E is a crappy company and its to be expected that in certain situations you can have no power for days or weeks. But this isnt driven by EV usage - this is a network and provider issue (and not forgetting the state doesnt help).

The Wookie said:

How does the new bigger station manage with normal usage then? Is that sort of organic growth dealing with it adequately allowing for maybe a few bigger queues a year at peak times?

Its weird - most supercharger stations in the Bay Area are well used, but have capacity. That means space and usually no limits on charging times. There have been a few times where they have introduced maximum charge times (and a fine when you exceed them) during certain high-demand periods, but its about access to the stations thats the issue. Smaller supercharging locations are limited by space, but thankfully Tesla has done a good job of making more available and usually close by. The problem is the larger locations on freeways and interstates - one of the things that the US has is space, and usually freeways / interstates dont have businesses or houses close, so there is space to build a large station. So there is space to expand and grow - and its usually not a problem to grow.

The problem is getting the power there - I dont know for sure, but I can be pretty confident to say that the largest cost for a supercharger is getting connected to the power grid, not in the land, equipment or servicing! There are so many limits on how much and where - and its limited - so at high usage periods, charging rates drop and time increases, causing further issues. This is exactly what I have seen - most cases its simple, easy and straightforward. But when they get busy or PG&E screws up, it exponentially gets worse.

And its not just locations like Kettleman, but in the cities too. Seen big lines in Cupertino, Palo Alto and others. But thats more likely to be issues with idiots and waiting rather than the supercharging network itself. But its getting worse, slowly.

The Wookie said:

Also it might be a subjective answer but are there actually a lot of Teslas being driven around there?

They dont call the Model 3 the 'Californian Camry' for nothing! They arent common, thats Accords and Camrys - but you absolutely will see more Tesla's on a daily basis than you would see an equivalent German sedan like a 3 or 5 series or A4/6 etc. Obviously more in certain locations, but you will see a lot. Even around me, where there are no superchargers for 45 miles - so its 100% home charging for all of the local owners, of which there are a bunch.