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Tesla To Blanket US With Superchargers In Two Years
dublin writes "Electric car manufacturer Tesla is planning to triple its construction of "supercharger" rapid charging stations, with a trail of stations in place for L.A. to New York trips by the end of this year. In addition to the east & west coasts, islands in Colorado, Illinois, and Texas will grow together to cover nearly the entire continental US by 2015. The two biggest obstacles for electric cars are high cost and range problems. Cost is still a problem, but this move to blanket the US with supercharger stations could fix the range half of the e-car equation."
I feel like this is trying to force the current gas station paradigm (refuel, adding 300-500 miles of range in 5-10 minutes) onto EVs, when that paradigm doesn't really fit well.
Based on a little Googling, Tesla's Superchargers can apparently charge 50% of an 85 kwh battery in about 30 minutes. Not bad (a bit over twice the charge rate of DC fast charging on a Leaf), but based on the EPA estimated range of 265 miles, that gives you about 130 miles of range. So every 130 miles, you stop for 30 minutes - more if all Superchargers at a station are in use. While I'm all for taking frequent breaks on long trips, this is a lot more than the usual 10 minutes every few hundred miles.
To match gas station refuel times, the power requirements get ridiculous pretty fast. Superchargers put out 120 kw according to Tesla. Let's say we have a hypothetical battery that can take a full 85-kwh charge (265 miles) in 5 minutes like a gas pump. That's 12 times faster than the Supercharger rate of half-capacity in 30 minutes, or 1.44 MW per car! By way of comparison, most (many?) homes in the US have 240-volt, 100-amp service, or 24 kw maximum available power. 1.44 MW is equivalent to 60 homes all maxed out and about to trip breakers! If a typical charging station will service a similar number of cars as a gas station, multiply that by maybe 10 - or 600 maxed out homes. For one refueling station. Insanity. It gets even worse if you want more than 265 miles of range in 5 minutes.
The bottom line is that even if battery technology gets there, how will the grid handle such quick charging? I see that being the bigger obstacle to EV road trips as convenient as gas-powered trips are now.
The easier solution is to shift the paradigm - how we think about and use our vehicles. Everyone could have an EV for commuting and regular driving within its nominal range. You charge at night or any other time when you're not using the car anyway - NOT when you are on a trip and just want to keep going (but can't, until you wait to recharge). If/when you need to take a long road trip, you take a gas-powered car. Either an extra car in your household, a rental, borrowed from someone you know. Whatever. Or if you're not hauling a bunch of stuff, maybe it makes more sense to fly.
As a current EV owner (Nissan Leaf), I've already made the switch in paradigm - and I love it. I'm saving tons of money on fuel costs, driving my Leaf over 16k miles per year. Pretty much every trip within its range will use that car, because it's cheaper and fun to drive. Going to Vegas (from SoCal)? We use the other car. Or any longer trip. Most multi-driver households have multiple cars, so road trips shouldn't really be an issue. I think this kind of strategy makes way more sense than seriously increasing travel time (waiting to charge) or the failed battery swap idea.