California Supercharger Queues

[rodericb]

The Wookie said:

With the big shift to electric going on we're now out of the chicken and egg problem, EV is coming wholesale. I wonder if this issue will be recognised and headed off before we start seeing scenes like this on a regular basis.

Edited by The Wookie on Tuesday 15th December 14:59

The chicken and the egg are locked in a bit of a tango. As much as it's a thing now for people to consider that charging an EV is also the time to stop and do other activities while the car is charging, the rate of charging will eventually move closer to pumping liquid and the behaviour patterns of consumers (i.e. stopping for lunch while their car charges itself) might be the thing which keeps cars hooked up on charges while other customers wait. This might be why Tesla haven't gone all in for the roadside conveniences angle.

[The Wookie]

off_again said:

Stuff

That is interesting then, so despite more widespread uptake Tesla are doing a good job with forecasting demand, probably by exploiting the telemetrics and usage data they gather from customers

The electricity grid sounds shocking. It’ll be interesting to see if we have the same challenge over here though as while ours is old and flakey in places it’s generally pretty good. I’d imagine we’ve got less of an issue getting power to most locations but we’ll suffer more with old infrastructure limiting charge rates in some places locally

Edited by The Wookie on Wednesday 16th December 07:58

[The Wookie]

rodericb said:

The chicken and the egg are locked in a bit of a tango. As much as it's a thing now for people to consider that charging an EV is also the time to stop and do other activities while the car is charging, the rate of charging will eventually move closer to pumping liquid and the behaviour patterns of consumers (i.e. stopping for lunch while their car charges itself) might be the thing which keeps cars hooked up on charges while other customers wait. This might be why Tesla haven't gone all in for the roadside conveniences angle.

I think that’ll be a bit of a tango too to be honest. It’ll need whopping local power capability (or local storage capacity) to deal with ultra-fast charging a serious number of cars like a petrol station might at peak demand.

Larger numbers of lower power charge points would be much cheaper to implement, so it’ll be interesting to see if people’s habits change before the fast charging arrives, and which concept ultimately ‘wins’

Personally I think we’ll end up with a bit of both

[The Wookie]

jjwilde said:

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...

Don’t get a persecution complex, it was a link I spotted while reading another article and to be honest I didn’t realise it’s a year old

Anyway I don’t see a dog pile in here, seems like a pretty sensible conversation for the most part?

[DuncanM23]

Someone mentioned Bicester Village. I don't go there, because I hate window shopping and I'm not going to buy from the majority of their shops, but a quick google shows that they have 2 locations with charge points and there are others nearby if those are full. Zapmap shows that there are 14 points in Bicester village, with 4 at Tesco and 5 at the Holiday Inn. That's probably satisfactory for now, but will need significant expansion over the next few years.
Westgate in Oxford has 50 EV charge points in a 1000 space carpark - actually pretty decent for now, but will need expansion in the near future. 7kW is fine at these sorts of locations, so the power requirements aren't absurdly high and it shouldn't be a problem to add more capacity.

I've made the trip to Cornwall and had reasonable success charging at Exeter services. As range gets better, that will stop being such a bottleneck for travel to/from Cornwall. On the way out of Cornwall any modern car will have enough range to get 2 or 3 services beyond Exeter at least. There are other chargepoints at pubs on Exeter and on the A30/A38, and I'd anticipate that if you have the DNO connection that would be a great opportunity for a pub - lease a bit of land to the local network (or BP/Ionity/whoever) and get a captive market for holiday makers looking to stop on their way. Even 7kW points are probably worth the install fee if it means that more people will stop at your place for lunch.

[ZesPak]

DuncanM23 said:

Even 7kW points are probably worth the install fee if it means that more people will stop at your place for lunch.

7KW points are cheap as chips to install.

But they're hardly a solution when you actually want to get somewhere imho.
I don't think 30 min of stopping for 3h of driving is any problem, but you're talking about 3h of charging for 1h of driving...

[sjg]

DuncanM23 said:

Someone mentioned Bicester Village. I don't go there, because I hate window shopping and I'm not going to buy from the majority of their shops, but a quick google shows that they have 2 locations with charge points and there are others nearby if those are full. Zapmap shows that there are 14 points in Bicester village, with 4 at Tesco and 5 at the Holiday Inn. That's probably satisfactory for now, but will need significant expansion over the next few years.
Westgate in Oxford has 50 EV charge points in a 1000 space carpark - actually pretty decent for now, but will need expansion in the near future. 7kW is fine at these sorts of locations, so the power requirements aren't absurdly high and it shouldn't be a problem to add more capacity.

Better still Bicester Village actually have someone manning them and making sure they don't get ICEd.

What's odd though is no rapid charging in Bicester town itself - I visit a mate there quite a lot. Need to go up or down the motorway quite a way to get to one.

[ZesPak]

sjg said:

Better still Bicester Village actually have someone manning them and making sure they don't get ICEd.

I don't know about that location, but the problem is that they are often closest to the door.
The reason for that is usually that it's easier to pull the cables.

[The Wookie]

ZesPak said:

I don't know about that location, but the problem is that they are often closest to the door.
The reason for that is usually that it's easier to pull the cables.

You mean someone walking along and unplugging the car on charge? Is that actually a thing?

[DuncanM23]

The Wookie said:

ZesPak said:

I don't know about that location, but the problem is that they are often closest to the door.
The reason for that is usually that it's easier to pull the cables.

You mean someone walking along and unplugging the car on charge? Is that actually a thing?

I think he just means that they install chargepoints in the car park closest to the building so they don't have to run the cables to the chargepoints further.
And yeah, 7kW are dirt cheap and should mainly be used as a destination type charger, but if you are a pub that serves food, someone can get a reasonable number of miles during a longer lunch stop. It certainly beats queueing for a while so you can use a faster charger.

[ZesPak]

The Wookie said:

You mean someone walking along and unplugging the car on charge? Is that actually a thing?

Virtually impossible as the cable locks on both ends, so it usually requires at least the car key to get it out.
It has never been a thing with anything other than the daily mail spouting their nonsense for people who are afraid of EV's.

DuncanM23 said:

I think he just means that they install chargepoints in the car park closest to the building so they don't have to run the cables to the chargepoints further.

As you can even tell from this forum, there's a lot of opposition against EV's. Putting their designated parking spots way up front doesn't help palliate that hate imho. Also EV drivers might leave the car there longer than the bare minimum (maybe doing multiple shops in the neighborhood without moving their car for example).
As an EV owner, I'd like to see them way at the other side of a parking lot, it would also lessen the being "ICE'd" by a considerable margin, but would usually mean breaking up a lot more pavement and laying down a lot more cable.

DuncanM23 said:

And yeah, 7kW are dirt cheap and should mainly be used as a destination type charger, but if you are a pub that serves food, someone can get a reasonable number of miles during a longer lunch stop. It certainly beats queueing for a while so you can use a faster charger.

7kW gets me about 35km/h. So about 22 miles. Which is the UK's average daily driving, but I wouldn't call it a "reasonable amount" during a lunch stop.
22kW is still feasable though and that sounds a bit more like it, but you can't run multiple of those without some serious cabling.

[The Wookie]

Ahhh I did think that sounded unlikely! My old Panamera PHEV was reluctant enough to let me have the plug from time to time even when it was unlocked!

[off_again]

The Wookie said:

off_again said:

Stuff

That is interesting then, so despite more widespread uptake Tesla are doing a good job with forecasting demand, probably by exploiting the telemetrics and usage data they gather from customers

The electricity grid sounds shocking. It’ll be interesting to see if we have the same challenge over here though as while ours is old and flakey in places it’s generally pretty good. I’d imagine we’ve got less of an issue getting power to most locations but we’ll suffer more with old infrastructure limiting charge rates in some places locally

Edited by The Wookie on Wednesday 16th December 07:58

Spot on! Most, but not all, Tesla customers share data to understand demand, location and improve mapping - and they actually do a pretty good job of utilizing this to drive infrastructure roll-out etc. Sometimes they make decisions that arent data driven, such as the new supercharger in downtown Las Vegas, utilizing the 'if we build it, they will come' approach and its broadly worked too! I think Kettleman is the biggest with the LV one second, but I am happy to be corrected.

And while I do know a few Tesla owners, most dont have issues charging. And where they have struggled (the SF to Sacramento routes being one that was terrible a while ago), Tesla have been pretty quick to respond and improve. But as Tesla owners go further and buy more, this is only going to force more prioritization. Though, to be fair, their app provides pretty accurate wait times & charging times (two different things remember), so a little planning and you will be fine. If range is an issue though, just get an L2 charger for home and make sure you charge before you leave, if it looks sketchy. Dont forget that the standard 2/3 pin socket here in the US is only 120v and if you want L2 charging you need 240v. Most US homes have a couple of circuits for this for their dryer and potentially a cooker / oven, but here in CA thats typically a $500 charger and a $500 installation bill from an official electrician! But its a small price to pay if you are really going to use an EV heavily.

As for PG&E - there is so much on the internet about them. I have sympathy for the line workers, engineers and grid maintenance people - they are trying with minimal investment and effort, but the senior business leaders and CEO etc, yeah, no sympathy there. Its a complex issue here (fires, line safety, aging infrastructure, poor design, regulation etc), but lets not forget that this is a company that has killed people - 2010 with a gas explosion that killed 8, 84 in the Paradise fire in 2018 and anything up to 117 in the last decade alone! These are accidents or fires directly caused by their distribution network and not house fires caused by incorrect usage. This is a poor record and it means they arent investing in developing the network to support demand. Though they are up to 39% renewable generation in 2020, so thats something I guess.

On a related thing though - I dont know who actually powers the superchargers in California though. Its pretty much a monopoly with only a couple of providers who have sole operational control of specific areas. PG&E does the wider California but there are a couple of smaller ones, such as Cupertino, San Diego, SoCalEdison etc - I suspect they buy from whoever gives them the best price, but I did remember reading an article that Tesla arent opposed to running high power lines from other areas, just to bypass certain power districts, providers etc. Kinda interested to know....

[PBCD]

The Wookie said:

That is interesting then, so despite more widespread uptake Tesla are doing a good job with forecasting demand, probably by exploiting the telemetrics and usage data they gather from customers

It's arguably their main USP, so I think they put a lot of effort into getting the supercharger network right.

In fact I read a post of the UK section of the Tesla Motors Club forum earlier today which said that there
there are now exactly 600 Superchargers in the UK (across 71 sites), which puts us ahead of most other
European Countries, including 'Teslatastic' Norway!

[ruggedscotty]

56x 100kW fast chargers or a purpose built EV car park at a shopping centre with 200x 11kW chargers....

So person parks up plugs ion and goes walking - say shopping mall was the desination roughly how far from home and how long to replenish the battery ?

Or are they doing a full charge and how long ? Issue is taking up the space - how many parking bays in use and demand ? and are they taking up spaces and preventing others from being charged up.

This whole charge thing is what causes the issues, how to better organise that and ensure that we see thouse needing charging get charged and those that have completed a charge dont take up a space that another car needing a charge can use.

1. Telephone notification to move car ? punitive charges to user if car is there pluigged in and not being charged ?

2. can the wiring be arranged that a number of cars can be plugged in and the charger can be electronically switched between cars on first come first served basis. fairs fair and all that ?

[The Wookie]

PBCD said:

It's arguably their main USP, so I think they put a lot of effort into getting the supercharger network right.

In fact I read a post of the UK section of the Tesla Motors Club forum earlier today which said that there
there are now exactly 600 Superchargers in the UK (across 71 sites), which puts us ahead of most other
European Countries, including 'Teslatastic' Norway!

It's going to be interesting to see how the other charge point suppliers respond. Unless the bigger car manufacturers team up with some of the bigger charge point suppliers in a significant way to harvest data then it's hard to see how they can do anything other than just watch for where Superchargers or queues start appearing and react!

During the limited time I had a plug in hybrid the charge points seemed to be pretty well scatterbombed and looked to me like it was reliant on either partnerships with bigger companies like supermarkets just doing the 'green thing' without a coherent strategy.

Eventually charging points will be ubiquitous enough for hit and miss strategies from competing companies to work but the interim period might be interesting in places

[The Wookie]

off_again said:

On a related thing though - I dont know who actually powers the superchargers in California though. Its pretty much a monopoly with only a couple of providers who have sole operational control of specific areas. PG&E does the wider California but there are a couple of smaller ones, such as Cupertino, San Diego, SoCalEdison etc - I suspect they buy from whoever gives them the best price, but I did remember reading an article that Tesla arent opposed to running high power lines from other areas, just to bypass certain power districts, providers etc. Kinda interested to know....

With the general climate and space available in the more remote areas in the US it'll be interesting to see if local generation can be successful!

[The Wookie]

ruggedscotty said:

56x 100kW fast chargers or a purpose built EV car park at a shopping centre with 200x 11kW chargers....

So person parks up plugs ion and goes walking - say shopping mall was the desination roughly how far from home and how long to replenish the battery ?

Or are they doing a full charge and how long ? Issue is taking up the space - how many parking bays in use and demand ? and are they taking up spaces and preventing others from being charged up.

This whole charge thing is what causes the issues, how to better organise that and ensure that we see thouse needing charging get charged and those that have completed a charge dont take up a space that another car needing a charge can use.

1. Telephone notification to move car ? punitive charges to user if car is there pluigged in and not being charged ?

2. can the wiring be arranged that a number of cars can be plugged in and the charger can be electronically switched between cars on first come first served basis. fairs fair and all that ?

I think the ultimate answer is that unless you're going to guarantee as many 'slow' charging points as vehicles in an area that many people want to be in at the same time it might have to be both.

Even with legitimately parked cars you can still run out of car park slow charging capacity and create a very static queue and the potential for stranded vehicles elsewhere

If there's nearby fast charging capability as well then some people will top up and park somewhere else

[PixelpeepZ4]

dvs_dave said:

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

[DaveCWK]

Isn't this reported every year around Thanksgiving? I agree with what a previous poster said in that it's just the equivalent of an M5 services bank holiday rush.

There is a serious point though; A big fuel station like Beaconsfield services on the M40 has I think around 30 pumps; theoretically capable of delivering a total *quick maths* 769GWh of 'energy' if all the petrol pumps were running constantly; ~20 times the current demand on the national grid.

EV charging density isn't that scalable really - Lifestyle change will be mandated with the EV uptake.