Tesla to blanket the US with supercharging stations in 2 years
 

http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla...pansion-2013-5



Tesla drivers will be able to drive from Los Angeles to New York using the electric car company's Supercharger network by the end of this year, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday night at the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital Conference.

The network, which currently consists of only nine active stations, seven of which are in California, was already set to increase to 100 stations by 2015.

Instead, Tesla is planning "a dramatic acceleration of the Supercharging network," Musk said at the conference. "It'll be tripled. We'll put the map live tomorrow."

As the network expands, software in the Tesla cars automatically updates, so drivers will be routed to nearby Superchargers when necessary.

That expansion will be a tremendous boon for drivers, as the biggest problem for electric vehicles is the lack of cheap, powerful battery technology. That shortcoming keeps ranges limited, charge times long, and prices high.

Musk acknowledged the power of range anxiety in making potential customers wary of battery-powered electric cars, saying, "when people buy a car they're buying a sense of freedom that they can go wherever they want and not feel fettered."

At Superchargers, Tesla owners can charge their car batteries halfway in 30 minutes, for free. If the network really expands at the rate and density Musk promises, it will be a tremendous advantage for his customers.




Map of where supercharging stations will be located:

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

So is Tesla poised to explode onto the market as a major player, or are they poised for a spectacular and highly visible collapse?

And who's the money behind Tesla? How did they get started?

They'd be smart to build travel plazas around them so that people could stop and eat, walk a dog, etc. Great news, though.

Ah. The money is the guy who grew PayPal. Interesting.

How long does it take to recharge one?

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Yea, Elon Musk is a rich mother****er.

I saw one a Tesla on the road this morning. Pretty sweet looking but it was kind of weird to see no exhaust pipes on what looked like a sports car. I think it may be the same guy who was driving an electric Fiskar a couple months ago. Same commute coming from the same area, hard to say.

And the sign says "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I put my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said you look like a fine outstanding young man, I think you'll do
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that, huh, me working for you"


Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs
****in' up the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

LMAO God I hate that band.

A charging station had better not look anything remotely like Hitler. That's all I'm saying.

Smartest thing they could do is to partner with a major gas station chain as the foundation is already built and all they would need to do is to outfit the existing stations with chargers.

Elon Musk is a badass that I hope to one day meet.

The founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

He is a B.A.D.A.S.S.

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It appears 30min on a supercharger gets you 200 miles but only 10-15 on regular chargers.

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

Yeah, I came here to make a "signs, signs, everywhere (road) signs" joke, but already done.

Great vid. Great ****ing vid.

Check out this one...

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/51873011?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/51873011">The Super Supercapacitor | Brian Golden Davis</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/focusf">Focus Forward Films</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Good luck with that. I have major pipeline about 3 blocks away...

It's amazing to me that Tesla has batteries capable of that range, yet GM can't figure out how to go more than 50 miles on a full charge.

yep

it will get the oil companies involved and part of the process instead of against it too

Thanks

I love technology. Elon Musk is a genius.

This reminds me of the Iridium satellite constellation. Revolutionary service heavily invested in that would bankrupt the original company and allow a secondary funder to turn a profit by buying the assets at a minimum investment. Iridium had to pay to launch 66 satellites just to reach IOC. They couldn't sell satellite based global phone service to many at $10/min so the Air Force paid something obscene like 7 cents on the dollar and still milks the system a decade later.

Can you imagine the inconvenience of being third in line for a "pump" on a sunny Saturday?

I can't even imagine the inconvenience of being 1st in line for the "pump". 30 min pitstops to get half a "tank" is not something I'm even remotely interested in.

An electric car for local driving that could be charged over-night could have some appeal, but this network of supercharging stations does nothing for me.

What they need to do instead, at least until they get the charging time down to 5 minutes or so, is have swapable batteries where you pull in and exchange your rundown battery for a fully charged one.

That was pretty damned cool. Batteries that you could throw in your compost bin when you are done....wow. If we can manage to survive long enough as a species there are some pretty amazing things coming down the pike.

Elon Musk is an American hero.

Cool car. As for the man, the government is subsidizing his every move. I don't fault him for working every angle available, but I'm not going to buy into the hero bullshit.

EDIT: Yet. I'll give him the benefit if a "yet."

I've seen at least 20 Teslas in the last 3-4 months around the Northern VA, Southern MD, DC area. They are beautiful cars.

If they can finally make a battery and charger that gives you 150-200 miles range in 5-7 minutes on the charger, then it's game over for gas. :thumb:

I would buy one in a heartbeat

The batteries weigh over 1000lbs, so that would be quite a feat....

Maybe you should invest in the restaurant chain that will crop up adjacent to the charging stations...

"Free Recharge" my ass......

remake

ATMS were going to be free, too, because they were going to be saving banks money. People now paying $2 and more for ATM transactions likely had a different version of "free" in mind.

How is the electricity generated?

hope it works

just die

True, but I was also wondering why a company would give away free energy.


Out of the kindness of their hearts? LMAO

Pardon? I would think that should be a rather pertinent question. The vast majority of the electricity we consume isn't generated by hamster wheels and pixie dust.

well ... i assume that the free recharge would be more than made up for by a ton of people buying Tesla cars.

Then over time, if becomes the norm, the charging would start to cost

oh bullshit ... this is just you trying to turn this into another thread about oil. Nothing more.

die in a fire fueled by aids soak wood from an ugly tree

Got to read the fine print, I guess...

How much does it cost to use the Supercharger?

Supercharging is free for the life of Model S, once the Supercharger option is enabled.

Not at all. I love electric vehicles. But, I also realize that very few people realize that we don't exactly have a massive surplus of electrical generation in this country.

It's just the bait on the hook.

electricity is a universal form of energy that can be produce a variety of ways. That allows for competition in it's production. Going forward the amount of renewable forms of electricity production will increase which is a good thing. It's allows for a 'ramping up' of the conversion to renewable power transportation, which is probably the only way the country would ever embrace it.

it is ... but it still gets us headed the right direction so who cares.

Yes, I know. Renewable is great, but the ROI sucks (and most likely always will) compared to nuclear and fossil fuel generation. We could blanket every square inch of our country with wind and solar generation, and still not meet demand.

Right direction?

Speaking of not right decisions, your mom made the WRONG decision by not aborting you.

As is getting the charging time down to a reasonable time period.

It might need to be a motel.

oh look ... donger pimping oil.

better yet ... fail into a big vat of oil and die by drowning

I'm still not a fan of this 1/2 assed company using Tesla's name...

But his sig is a nuclear man! I'm so confused.

I doubt seriously this will ever happen. There is too much ****ing money to be made off combustion engines. A niche probably. But not widespread at all

Given that photovoltaic production has followed Moore's Law, they should be able to provide the majority of the world's energy needs within fifteen years. Supplement that with nuclear energy, wind energy, and hydrocarbons, and it seems like a wise investment to me.

We need to build a Dyson Sphere or GTFO.

First, anyone with a brain should care. Second, claiming that it gets us headed in the right direction is just hopeful thinking as opposed to factual speech.

Errr, I'm not pimping oil. Most of our electrical generation is created by burning coal and NG. And nuclear.

I myself find it SHOCKING!

That's not very nice. And rather unwarranted.

You must have hated that 80s band then.

U.S. use 25% of the world's oil
75% of the oil we import is used for transportation

U.S. stops importing oil then the price of oil will likely take a nose dive. That means less money for countries that fund terrorism. OPEC can go **** themselves.

so ........ yea, getting cars off oil/gas(heading that way) is the right direction. imo.

I'm holding out for a Mr. Fusion.

Best part is he's originally from South Africa. Living the American dream.

Unfortunately that's not true, as much as I wish it was. PV cells have theoretical efficiency limits. It would take massive magical leaps in tech that no one has any clue about at this point for us to reach even 80%. That is just in THEORY... in real world production terms you will be lucky to see production of cells that can hit 60% in our lifetime. Of course that is a huge jump from what we have right now on the market.

So let's play with the numbers a bit... I'll give you a TRULY 50% efficient panel (which is completely made up and not likely to hit the market in any significant quantity for 20 years). Ok now let's look at how much energy is in sunlight. The best estimate for a sunny day is around 1KW/m2 per hour. So, now let's take into account the number of hours of sunlight per day average for an average American city.. about 5 hours(this varies WILDLY but mostly falls in the 4 to 6 range).

So that leaves us with a whopping 5KW/m2 per day. oops. but we need to cut that in half(50% efficiency) now we get 2.5KW/m2 per day.

Ok now let's go back to the Tesla. The average American drives 15000 miles a year. That comes out to 11 to 12 KW hours per day. So JUST to power your car you need about 5 m2 of solar panel (again, mythical super solar panels). 50 sq ft of panels just to run YOUR car.

I'm all about alternative energy and diversification... but solar is a really shitty source.

How efficient is the average panel right now?

That's hard to say. It can vary by A LOT from panel to panel. But 20% is a good guess for the very very very best shiny new commercial grade panels. And we are talking super high end crazy expensive stuff to get to 20%. Your average home panel is lucky to hit 16%.

This suggests the kind of exponential growth akin to Moore's Law:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...daily-chart-19

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that there is a theoretical limit to the efficiency of solar cells.

Now, if they are 20% efficient, does that mean that they are absorbing 20% of the incandescent energy from the sun? If so, how large of a panel would I need for a watt of energy?

Ahh Swanson's law, yes, I see no reason it won't remain true since it deals only in cost and not the tech aspect itself. I am not even looking at that side of things. Even if panels were super cheap they just don't provide much energy for the amount of space required and people don't consider that they have limited lifespans and other maintenance costs... but let's ignore that for now and focus on the tech.

The simple answer is that for 1 KILOWATT of energy per day(you can convert to watt if you want) you need 1 square meter of panel. Average solar energy for most cities is around 5KW per square meter per day. So at 20% efficiency you take 5 X .20 and get 1.

Now here is where it get's interesting.. let's give Teslas to the average two car family and add up their TOTAL HOUSEHOLD electrical energy usage per day. It comes out to around 60KWh per day. So you end up with 60 square meters or around 646 sq ft of solar panels to get to break even.

Learning the realities of solar panels is kinda depressing actually.

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30x20 of solar panels isn't that depressing. That would fit just fine on most roofs, wouldn't it?

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I wouldn't call 100 charging stations across the entirety of the US "blanketing". Two per state, really there will be entire states with no charging stations. This is whack.

If the cars prove popular those stations will grow like broadband and cellular coverage.

Given that there is no shade and the roof is entirely slanted toward the sun... maybe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against solar energy... but everything we are discussing doesn't take into account the install costs, the maintenance, the lifespan, etc etc

Now here you have a project that understands the scope of coverage required to get the kind of power needed. It's completely impractical on many levels but it shows the massive square footage you are talking about when you look at our power requirements.

The biggest issue is a simple one... we just waste too damn much energy. That isn't likely to change much. Which is why I am a huge proponent of funding fusion research. As "impractical" as it sounds, it is actually one of the most realistic measures we can take towards safe, clean renewable energy that would exceed demand such that it would drive down costs and could theoretically bring a boatload of manufacturing back to the US. As we move more and more toward automation, energy and transport costs not labor will be the deciding factor on where a factory gets built.

Yes this is whack, guys. I require instant gratification and do not ever think of things in a broad context and most certainly do not think in terms existing outside of my own lifespan. /america

All I said is they need to scale back the hype when they really aren't doing much. Hell, they won't even have one in every major city. KC probably won't see one.

What do you think it would take to initiate a self-sustaining and safe fusion reaction?