California Supercharger Queues

[The Wookie]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7755753/C...

Sorry for the Daily Mail link but does show the challenges that will be faced with wider adoption of EV without suitable investment in charging infrastructure. It sounds like Norway has seen a similar phenomenon too.

Even with that many charge points, if you have an influx of cars that exceed the number available in a given local area then it can be an instant log jam. One that potentially could take a lot longer to clear than a queue you'd find petrol station overwhelmed by panic buying for example.

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 Wookie]

dvs_dave said:

Yet this is actually a far more common scene

It might be now but to be fair it still isn't really a common scene and it typically clears quickly. Like I said before it might happen to the point of multiple hours of delays during panic buying episodes or fuel shortages but in normal circumstances there's typically enough infrastructure to avoid it happening endemically.

There could easily become hotspots at out of town shopping centres or at particular waypoints on common longer journeys. Most of it is going to be predictable, my question is whether there is enough being done to predict it.

Good example, Bicester. People will often travel over 100 miles to visit there, even with a long range EV with a comfortable 200+ mile range many will want 20-30kWh over a few hours shopping to avoid range anxiety, or the same amount with a quick coffee break on a fast charger on the way home.

Even without the issue of charging it can get massively congested around there, add in hundreds or thousands of people attempting to do the same thing with their EVs, it has the potential for an epic clusterfk.

[The Wookie]

Zcd1 said:

This was LAST December - hardly news, and isn't the case 99.9999% of the time.

That's my point, even with EV's currently being a niche choice with ample infrastructure for the limited number of vehicles and their typical use, it can still happen.

We shouldn't be burying our heads in the sand, it needs thinking about.

[The Wookie]

PixelpeepZ4 said:

you are making something out of nothing.

There are currently 908 tesla charging stations in the USA, compared to 25,000 in total (all brands & suppliers)

Tesla owners can use other charging points. Most will insist on using Tesla owned stations as some were offered free lifetime charging as a sales incentive for the car.

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 Wookie]

JD said:

Well considering the article was written last year, and there is no article from this year you might have already answered your own question!

I don't see why it's any less relevant to us than it was a year ago, even assuming that temporary changes in behaviour caused by COVID haven't stopped it from happening this year and that the problem has actually been solved then it's worth understanding what capacity was needed to solve it and whether our governments and local authorities are learning from others mistakes.

Or do we really need to wait for it to happen here first before we actually start planning for it?

[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!

[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.

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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!

[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