Supercharger | Tesla Motors Solarcharging the grid 24/7, Model S owners (with 85kWh packs) charge for free, and the superchargers will blanket the country in the next 4 years and cover the major interstate and highway systems in the next 2 years. Charge 50% in 30 min, 80% in 45 min. Zero Emissions. Near me on the 2 year plan will include St.Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa (or OKC, hard to tell on the map), Memphis and Little Rock, all the major cities within the driving radius of Springfield/Nixa where I live.
+1 Where are the locations on the two year plan. I only saw california on the link. If they cover I10 and I35 I am more likely to buy an S.
2 Year Plan Tesla supercharger 2yr by efusco, on Flickr 5 Year Plan tesla supercharger 5yr by efusco, on Flickr
While I agree that it's exciting (if they are able to pull it off) I've yet to see 24/7 solar panels ;-)
Most Tesla owners are going to charge at home at night, when the grid is not stressed. Plug-in owners can choose renewables or use regular grid power. This network is for long trips. In some areas it may stress the grid, but since the cars will be added slowly utilities will have plenty of time to adapt. The Solar is added to the grid during the day, when it will help balance higher demand. Tesla will provide more solar energy over the year, than the cars consume.
Hey guys, a great article on the Supercharger network, real world use, nice description of how it works, actual charging rates and how to use it. Good tech details as well. Inside Scoop on Tesla’s Super-Smart Supercharger Network | PluginCars.com
I am not optimistic about this roll-out happening on that timeline, but hopefully I'm wrong (honest!). Still, no love for Western NY From the article:"Others will follow. Solar energy will ensure that Tesla vehicles using the network will run on renewable energy, and it will reduce ongoing operation costs." I need not even bother with any math to see in that pic that those four cars would vastly out-drain anything that little solar array could possibly do, so these charge stations are absolutely going to be relying heavily upon the grid, that is unless they are generally next to a football field worth of panels.
Time will tell. In an ideal work franken plug or something else will be approved soon, and the tesla chargers work with tesla and the SAE standard. They could charge for the non-teslas. I think I tried clarifying this before. Tesla is going to build more solar than the chargers use. This means over a year period more energy will go into the grid from teslas solar than comes out of the grid to charge cars. While the cars are charging though more power will come from the grid than the solar provides. For areas with lots of ocgt or ccgt like california and Texas this will actually help the grid. In places like indiana where coal dominates this is a bad strategy, but I don't expect many will be quick charging in indiana.
Are they building them off site in solar fields in the middle of nowhere, or trying to put enough solar in close proximity to the charge ports themselves to net-produce? The latter seems far more difficult.
I believe the solar is physically close to the quick chargers, but I am not sure. There is some solar on the quick charger structure.
Just want to point out that as more solar panels are added, the cost of the charging station would increase.
Yes if more tesla's are being charged it will be more expensive, but then tesla is likely selling more cars. Since most charges will be done at home, this should be a very small cost, rack it up to tesla marketing. A quick charge is about 150 miles of range. The charger network will be close than that.
