Tesla Reveals Charging Station Sites In 3 US States

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.

Comments

Had to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Had to be said

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[captainpanic]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[flyingsquid]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[somersault]

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.

Re:Had to be said

[ryzvonusef]

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.

Huge increase in total travel time

[Orga]

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

Re:Huge increase in total travel time

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Huge increase in total travel time

[tilante]

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.

meh

[MonoSynth]

No wireless. Lame.

The other important announcements

[dnaumov]

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.

Gene Pitney song

[rossdee]

He was only 24 hours from Tesla

Constant Fill Up?

[inhuman_4]

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?