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Tesla Reveals Charging Station Sites In 3 US States

Posted by timothy on from the ok-just-make-texas-next dept.

locallyunscene writes "Tesla has created the first solar charging stations for its Model S and plans to offer free charging. Is free fuel enough to for the electric car to finally gain traction? 'The technology at the heart of the Supercharger was developed internally and leverages the economies of scale of existing charging technology already used by the Model S, enabling Tesla to create the Supercharger device at minimal cost. The electricity used by the Supercharger comes from a solar carport system provided by SolarCity, which results in almost zero marginal energy cost after installation. Combining these two factors, Tesla is able to provide Model S owners free long distance travel indefinitely." The "free charging" part applies at least to Model S owners, and will be available first from a network of charging stations in California, Arizona, and Nevada, to be expanded nationwide over the next 2 to 4 years; Engadget features a video of the announcement.

28 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obligatory "People who can afford a Tesla aren't bothered by the price of gas"

    1. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is how everything works. The first airline passengers could have easily taken a week off work to travel from NYC to London.

      I am glad rich folks are buying teslas for vanity, hopefully that will fund a car I can afford. Then hopefully my purchase will help to create a car everyone can afford.

    2. Re:Had to be said by captainpanic · · Score: 4, Informative

      That was true of the Roadster, but the Model-S is much cheaper.

      Don't bother. Some people will just keep screaming that electric will never work. They will always find something else.

      Range already increased so much that you need to take a break before you're empty anyway. The time loss while charging went to an acceptable amount of time. Prices have steadily gone down. Battery life increased. And now charging stations are appearing everywhere... so the skeptics complain about money.

    3. Re:Had to be said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have it all wrong. We need to tax all that extra income and so it can be spent on subsidies for companies to build cheaper models that no one will want.

    4. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Model S is only about 1 second slower to 60 than a vette.

      The Model S is an attractive car, looks actually a lot like an Aston Martin to me.

      The old roadster was a slower Elise, the Model S is a big improvement.

    5. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

      Define acceleration needs please.
      Is 0-60 in 5.6 not good enough? What would be?

      The Tesla S looks very nice. So it looks like range is the last remaning issue.

      The cost is comparable to other comparable luxury sedans.

      Hydrogen is absolute bullshit, it embrittles metal, it escapes through everything and the fuel cells that use it need platinum which means the fuel cell costs more than the car you want to buy. Hydrogen was the fossil fuel industry just blowing smoke up your ass. This is because hydrogen comes from steam reformation of natural gas. It is not produced in any "green" way industrially.

      The recharge time is not 30 minutes for 100 miles. It is 30 minutes for 80% of 300miles. This will only get better.

    6. Re:Had to be said by bobbied · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Range Anxiety" is still a real issue, even with the most advanced totally electric cars. It's very hard to get the same energy density of gasoline in to batteries. Electrics will just not go as far per "fill up" as their fossil fueled siblings. That does not seem to be changing anytime soon. So, you can add more batteries to the car, increasing its weight, cost and lowering it's efficiency to get more range, but who wants to drive around an SUV sized battery pack with one seat and a price tag that is measured in fractions of GDP?

      Charging stations are *not* showing up everywhere. In fact I've heard that there are places where they have been slowly disappearing because they are not being used. See: (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/citing-a-lack-of-usage-costco-removes-e-v-chargers/). It's all been a bit more hype than actual progress.

      When electric cars make sense by the numbers, when they are overall cheaper than their fossil fueled counterparts, they will be built and bought by the millions and charging stations will show up everywhere. Until then, the totally electric car will be a fringe market limited to the rich and hobbyist. I expect that Tesla's will continue to be hugely expensive toys, and not much more than that, for a LONG time yet.

      How long? Until it makes sense in Europe and they start driving more electrics over there, forget it in the states. Just not going to be viable here. Now if you want to start talking about CNG fueled cars... We might have a viable option to help reduce gasoline use...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    7. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What are these other easy ways this sort of thing could be funded?

      No one said rich people are doing anything good, merely that their money is being used to do good. If they are buying it just to support tesla, then I would think they are doing something good though.

      While extreme inequality sucks, I don't see any possible solution to that particular issue. No society has so far been able to solve it or even come close.

    8. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most people in the states do not drive that far. My daily commute is under 10 miles. I own two cars, one of them could easily be electric.

      I am sure my life is not unique and many american families would be fine with one electric car and one gas fueled vehicle.

      CNG has other problems. CNG cars exist but the range also sucks. LNG fixes the range issue, but handling LNG is not something the average moron should really be doing.

    9. Re:Had to be said by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm repeating myself a bit, but.... it seems these opinions just don't die.

      It has to have acceleration,

      The Tesla S handily beats anything south of a Vette.

      at least 500 mile range on a charge

      Not a single performance sedan has that range. Heck, not even the Golf TDi has that range. Why that requirement?

      and not look like a piece of crap.

      The Teslas are all hot.

      Oh and it has to at least be in the price ball park of my gasoline powered car.

      Define ballpark. It's in the range of the luxus import sedans, which is what the Tesla is competing against. It is not in the range of a Kia Rio, which is what I suspect you're thinking of.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    10. Re:Had to be said by flyingsquid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The long charging time (1/2 an hour to get enough charge for 3 hours of driving) still seems like a problem. The press release argues that it's not a big loss of time, since you probably want to take a half-hour break every few hours to get some food, go to the bathroom, etc. That's probably true, but it ignores the problem that your car is sitting at the charger for half an hour, so no one else can use it. A single gasoline pump can refuel your car in maybe five minutes, so you can service cars at maybe six times the rate of an electric charger. So if you get there just and there's a line, you could find yourself waiting a long time before you even start to charge.

    11. Re:Had to be said by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

      By the time there are enough of these things around to have a line, they'll already have more charging stations. It would be a lot easier and safer to put a charging station at each spot in a parking lot than it would be to fit a gas pump to each one.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    12. Re:Had to be said by jo_ham · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We're working on the hydrogen production and storage issues.

      Plants crack water at room temperature and pressure all day every day (well, for half the day, every day) and we're getting closer to being able to replicate that catalytic cycle.

      The storage problem is also being worked on with new materials to increase the energy density of H2 systems and to address the leaking.

      Hydrogen is not dead yet, it just has issues to solve... much like battery electric (which we're also obviously working on).

    13. Re:Had to be said by ryzvonusef · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Reminds me of something that Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame) once said: If you want to look at the future, you should look at the luxury goods today. He gave examples of how "luxury" features such as power steering, ABS, injection fuel etc that were once the domain of expensive cars are now a part of every ordinary car.

      Same is the case with Tesla and the electric systems; they will start with luxury, and soon (5-10 years?) become part of the ordinary cars.

      --
      I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
    14. Re:Had to be said by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree they are, and I even like their methods. Sadly most americans disagree with that.

      We are pretty culturally opposed to that sort of thing. Americans prefer decisions made not based on the result but based on "moral" grounds. This is why we don't offer free needles to junkies for instance. It would save us millions in ER costs and the like, but people think it immoral to aid the junkie in getting high, never mind that he will do it either way.

  2. Huge increase in total travel time by Orga · · Score: 4, Insightful

    3 hours of driving at 60 mph on the highway (which is dangerous IMO) and 30 minute fillup. More likely 70-75 mph, 2 hours of driving + finding a station? and then 30 minutes of fillup. 25% more travel time on a long trip. I don't know who has that kind of time on the road. Timing over lunch a great idea... what about at 3pm, not so convenient then is it. I think they have a lot of work to do

    1. Re:Huge increase in total travel time by Orga · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was referring to 60 mph on a major highway, a lot of states are 70mph speed limit which means travelers are typically doing 75-80. People doing 60 and beyond slow lane slow, you're going to draw attention and it won't be the friendly hey it's an e-vehicle kind.

    2. Re:Huge increase in total travel time by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not a lot of grass under the Nevada Desert.

      Perfect is the enemy of Good.
      Even killing a little grass is a hell of a lot better than burning gasoline.

    3. Re:Huge increase in total travel time by tilante · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For day-to-day usage, the idea is to have enough range to get you through the day. Then, once you're home, you plug the car in and let it charge while you're doing other things -- because unlike refueling with gas, where someone needs to be there in case there's a malfunction and fuel spills, you can let an electric vehicle charge unattended.

      Thus, you're not spending 180 minutes a week charging the car. The car is charging for that much time, but *you* spend about a minute per day total in plugging it in at night, then unplugging it in the morning, for a total of about 6 minutes a week of *your* time spent doing it.

      I'll agree that it's still a significant disadvantage on long trips, but for day-to-day use, it's actually more convenient than refueling a gas car, because you don't have to make a stop at a gas station -- you do it somewhere that you're going anyway.

    4. Re:Huge increase in total travel time by Cimexus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And where I live the median price for a home is ~$600,000 USD (which only buys you a very average 3-bedroom suburban home). $50k USD would be fairly typical for a 'medium-end' family sedan or large SUV here. So despite the fact that I'm most definitely not rich myself, the price of the Tesla doesn't seem too outrageous (though still a bit out of my price range ... another few models/revisions though and we'll see).

      Point is, Tesla doesn't have to come up with a good price point for every geography and every segment of the market - they just need to make it low enough so that a decent number of people in SOME markets will buy it. That should bring the prices down for future models and allow EVs to appeal to a greater number of people in the future.

  3. meh by MonoSynth · · Score: 5, Funny

    No wireless. Lame.

  4. The other important announcements by dnaumov · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the SEC filling:

    As our main focus is on quality, we have methodically increased our Model S production at a rate slower than we had earlier anticipated.

    We now anticipate that we will deliver between 200 and 225 Model S vehicles to customers in the third quarter and between 2,500 and 3,000 Model S vehicles in the fourth quarter.

    We anticipate, however, that manufacturing and supplier issues will continue to arise and need to be addressed in a timely manner.

    In the third quarter of 2012, we anticipate that our gross margin will be negatively affected primarily by the limited number of Model S vehicles we intend to deliver

    We also expect selling, general and administrative expenses for the third quarter to increase modestly over the prior quarter as we continue to increase our vehicle selling and servicing capabilities.

    We have now fully drawn down our $465 million DOE Loan Facility.

  5. Meanwhile, Toyota by Kupfernigk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    (Who know a thing or two) are abandoning pure electric cars because they can't make the engineering sums add up with present battery technology. They have even produced a hybrid (Yaris hybrid) that undercuts the cheapest electric cars without subsidy. Now that Mercedes is bringing out hybrids and are producing their first fuel-cell cars, meaning we have gasoline, diesel and fuel cell hybrids, it looks like Tesla and the other all-electric experiments are a dead end.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  6. Gene Pitney song by rossdee · · Score: 4, Funny

    He was only 24 hours from Tesla

  7. Abandoning? by SilverJets · · Score: 3, Informative

    By abandon do you mean rolling out an all electric RAV4?

    Sure, they're dropping one line of car, their little eQ minicar. But that doesn't mean they are dropping electric all together. They've just realized that the technology isn't there quite there yet. And they are planning on having 21 hybrid versions of their vehicles by 2015.

    In other words they moved too fast on the all electric cars for some markets and are backing off for now until the technology catches up with the ideas.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/us-toyota-electric-idUSBRE88N0CT20120924

  8. Hippy greens are not making what the world wants by Medievalist · · Score: 3, Funny

    I want all that stuff, and also a pony.

    No pony? Your products are crap!

  9. Constant Fill Up? by inhuman_4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One thing I don't understand, and perhaps someone on here can enlighten me, is why people always assume you will fill up only when the tank is empty? It seems to me that one of the big advantages of electric is that you don't need a speciallized fueling station. You should be able to fuel up all over the place (although perhaps not quickly) provided there were enough charging stations. For example charging while:
    At home.
    Parked at work.
    Out to dinner.
    Overnight at a hotel.
    At a movie.
    Shopping at a mall.

    The tank doesn't have to be empty, and the charging doesn't have to be to fill. But consistantly charging a little bit here and there should be one of the main ways to extend range. I realize that infastructure like charging stations need to be installed and the electrical grid must be able to handle it all. But other than that, what am I missing?

  10. Free electricity? by cellocgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK, I'm going to buy one of these cars, charge it up for free at the nearest station, drive home, and dump the battery into my house inverter.
    I'll get all the electricity for everything I own, for FREE!!!!!! Maybe I'll even dump some back into the grid and make money off whatever Con Ed is calling itself these days.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw