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How Does Tesla Build a Supercharger Charging Site?
cartechboy writes Tesla's Superchargers are the talk of the electric car community. These charging stations can take a Model S battery pack from nearly empty to about 150 miles of range in around 30 minutes. That's crazy fast, and it's nothing short of impressive. But what does it take to actually build a Tesla Supercharger site? Apparently a lot of digging. A massive trench is created to run high-capacity electric cables before the charging stations themselves are even installed. A diagram and photos of the Electric Conduit Construction build out have surfaced on the Internet. The conduits connect the charging stations to a power distribution center, which in turn is connected to a transformer that provides the power for charging cars. It took 11 days to install the six charging stalls in Goodland, Kansas. If you thought it was a quick process to build a Supercharger station, you were clearly wrong.
It took 11 days to install the six charging stalls in Goodland, Kansas. If you thought it was a quick process to build a Supercharger station, you were clearly wrong.
seems quick to me
process by just plugging it into the dryer plug at the station. I was clearly wrong.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
i think it takes longer than that to build a flat parking lot.
to build a gas station? 11 days seems easy-peasy.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
These charging stations can take a Model S battery pack from nearly empty to about 150 miles or range in around 30 minutes.
And the Nissan Leaf can do about 80 miles in 20 minutes. Seems pretty part for the course from a L3 charger. For the premium you pay I hope that you're not totally flabbergasted by the numbers.
Profit?
Not entirely sure you know how foundations work.
A foundation is a legal categorization of nonprofit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes. This type of non-profit organization differs from a private foundation which is typically endowed by an individual or family.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And for comparison, just how long does it take to build a gas station?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If you thought it was a quick process to build a Supercharger station, you were clearly wrong.
Was someone suggesting anything to the contrary or did you just needed an excuse for the post?
... I think the record for a large project is 6.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Heh 30 minutes .. remember that next time you fill your car up in 5 minutes (how many times a week you do that ?? and isnt that for 300 miles worth of gas?)
Anyway power cables mishandled equals fires and electrocutions etc...
Lets not forget how large these 30 minute parking lots (assuming you get a spot in 0 time before that) will have to be (compared to a gas station)
What do you do for 30 minutes. Will safety requirements (insurancecompany involvement) require you to sit in a safety bunker for that time while your wheeled bomb is being filled up??
Lots of practical issues that will be lots of money making fodder for insurance companies (and government meddling) -- add that to the eventual costs of this technology (and you trendy people at the front end will get it in costly spades).
Im sure all you using such things for your businesses will pass on the added expenses to your customers.
It took a well known petrol station company in a busy part of town in Perth,WA 11 weeks to change out the petrol tanks underground. 11 days seems fantastic to me to build an entire depot.
If you thought I thought it was a quick process to build a Supercharger station, you were just as wrong. If you thought I cared about how long it tool them to build such as station, you were wrong about that, too. And if you thought I liked java over c, you were still wrong. I could go on -- likely longer than even I, in the name oif pushing a point until it is completely blunt, am willing to do so, but I will refrain in the interest of keeping the peace.
Anyway, as it turns out, TFS serves as a veritable smorgasbord of potential if-then-huhs that can only be explained by somewhat bemused turtles all the way down.
At this time, I'd like to take a moment to thank my dear friend Yurtle.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
whatever, i've played plenty of Dune II. you just build a concrete slab and put it wherever you want.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
When you say "wheeled bomb" I assume you've gone back to talking about gasoline (and diesel) fuelled cars. They're the only one you fill with an explosive substance.
"It took 11 days to install the six charging stalls in Goodland, located in the northeast corner of the state." 1) Did they bother to look up Goodland KS? 2) 11 days seems fast to me. 3) What would anyone expect in the way of cabling? To quickly charge something like that is going to take cables with some girth
these "safety bunkers" are called "lobbies" by normal people. you know, how gas stations have air-conditioned stores inside where you can buy coffee and soda? you can still afford gas, can't you?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Yeah, just drop them in from high enough, and they even dig themselves into the ground.
Meanwhile I can put 500 miles worth of fuel in my car on almost any corner of the city in about 4 minutes.
The second referenced article says that Goodland, Kansas, is in the NE part of Kansas. This town is in the North West part of Kansas only a few miles - about 20 miles - from the the Colorado Border. Maybe the authors can't count days as well as read maps, so the article may be wrong.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
The second referenced article said Goodland, KS, is in the North East part of Kansas. Goodland, Kansas, is in the North West part of Kansas and is about 20 miles from the Colorado border on Interstate 70. I wonder of these writers can count days as well as they read maps.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
You obviously do not realize. In this case, they do not have footings on those. Just a base. As such, they can do that elsewhere and bring it in via truck (have to reach the area via car, so, it is right on a parking lot). Taking this approach, they can cut the time needed in half, and possibly the money.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
but waiting for half an hour every two hours isn't very competitive compared to gasoline and diesel engines.
Do you realise that you actually *NEED* to to half an hour break after each two hours of driving ? You need to take breaks anyway, in order not to be too much tired and avoiding increasing your risks of accident due to tiredness and loss of concentration.
So, while you're relaxing, drinking a coffee, etc. why not charge the car, instead of just having it sit idle on the parking lot in front of the cafe/restaurant/park/rest-zone ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In high school (1996) I had a computer studies project on the efficiency of the gas pump. This was just before credit cards were used at the pump. Without using the credit card at the pump it took an average of 14min for a person to pump and pay for gas. With the credit card at the pump it took 3.5 min average. It all depends what you do with your time.
It takes me about an hour to do my weekly shopping for groceries. So an EV charging station beside a 24hr grocery store is a no brainier as everyone needs food and it's going to take 30-60min anyway to buy your food.
Thirty minutes is ridiculous. That is not "rapid" ANYTHING.
The only real solution is to streamline the process of swapping out battery packs, or, ideally, hydrogen fuel cells.
This is where hydrogen fuel cells really make sense. They are the ultimate battery pack. They are interchangeable modules. You stop at a filling station and replace your depleted fuel cell with a full one in fewer than five minutes.
I know Tesla has a battery pack replacement service, but it really needs to be affordable and streamlined and not require expensive robotics.
NOBODY wants to wait thirty minutes for "rapid recharge." The money spent on this infrastructure should, instead, be spent on optimizing the use of hydrogen fuel cells. They are the ultimate battery and they don't wear out.
Kriston
This is a straightforward industrial electrical installation. There's a pad-mounted distribution transformer and meter provided by the power company, a weatherproof load center provided by the customer's electrical contractor, and the Tesla supercharger control unit and outlet stations. No big deal to install. There's a comparable installation at every large standalone store.
That's a small charging station. Here's the build-out of a bigger one. Black and Veach, which does infrastructure construction for the energy and communications industry (substations, cell sites, etc.) is doing the job. They see it as a lot like building out cell towers. (If you watch that video, you may wonder why the transformers and switchgear are on raised platforms. Probably because there's a flood risk at that location.)
Installing a gas station's underground tanks, which today are dual tanks with leak detection, is a much bigger job. There's a big excavation, lots of plumbing and wiring, and several different trades involved.
If you are not insane you are going to take a break after every few hours of driving anyway.
Remember, this is only for long stretches. Most commutes go perfectly with overnight charging.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Thirty minutes is ridiculous. That is not "rapid" ANYTHING.
To be fair, the electric model is that most of the time you'll top up overnight (OK, that raises its own issues), and the only time you'll need a charging station is if you're on a road trip, in which case a 30 minute refreshment and potty break every couple of hundred miles isn't such a bad thing.
If, however, there is widespread uptake of electric cars, then it will start to become apparent that, even with demand reduced by home charging, you need one hell of a lot of 6-bay superchargers to match the throughput of a 6-bay gas station (especially since people who e.g. head off for a meal are going to leave their cars plugged in for more than 30 mins). You'd need entire parking lots kitted out with chargers - which, in turn, is going to start needing extra infrastructure to get the power to the site (...perhaps they could run a generator off those nice big tanks at the gas station? :-) ). The trick for the e-car industry is going to be to avoid the crunch point when people start to roll up at the supercharger and find all the bays in use (and no owners in sight) and don't have enough juice to get to the next one.
I know Tesla has a battery pack replacement service, but it really needs to be affordable and streamlined and not require expensive robotics.
I saw the video of Tesla's battery changer, and it certainly seems preferable to a 30 minute recharge. With the weight of battery packs, and the need to build them in to the chassis to save space, I think robotics is probably the only way. Also, its probably too soon in the development of battery technology to introduce a 'standard' pack - maybe a split system whereby part of the battery capacity is in a replaceable, standardised, pack, and the rest is built into the chassis...
NOBODY wants to wait thirty minutes for "rapid recharge." The money spent on this infrastructure should, instead, be spent on optimizing the use of hydrogen fuel cells. They are the ultimate battery and they don't wear out.
Except you can't refill your hydrogen fuel cell at home - so you're going to be straight in to the chicken-and-egg problem of needing the full refueling infrastructure in place before people buy the cars. Unless maybe you have a plug-in/fuel cell hybrid?
Lets face it - the ideal use-case for an electric car is as a and still need another one for long trips. I quite like the look of the BMW i3 (it would probably suit my purposes, as the UK range-extender version hasn't been gimped to suit CA law) but, again, you could buy 3 small city cars, or a fully tricked-out Mini with gold-plated hubcaps and unicorn-fur upholstery for the price of the basic model.
Meanwhile, I've done my bit for the promotion of electric vehicles and bought one of these.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
"EVs suck because batteries are heavy and bulky, but don't bother asking about the weight and size of internal combustion engines vs. electric motors!"
There is a bit of a point to this one, in that the weight savings from getting away from a multiple hundred pound engine to a ~70 pound motor is outweighed by the weight gain to put in a battery powerful enough to utilize that motor over a reasonable difference.
The Model S is notably heavier than it's conventional peers, and the Roadster as well. They carry the weight well, but it's still there.
Otherwise I agree with you. The only thing holding EVs back in my mind is the cost of the battery.
I don't read AC A human right
...and do what in the meantime? Hydrogen isn't piped around the city or country *at all*, at least electricity is - so right now, today, you can use it. You could be waiting 5 years, 10 years or longer for the hydrogen economy to be properly viable. Besides, it's not like doing any of this slows down any of the work on getting fuel cells to work sensibly.
I agree the tech has a while to go before it fully replaces petrol/diesel, but it's a good enough option for a lot of use cases. Therefore, for people who fall into those use cases, they get to use a fossil fuel free solution for $n years until the hydrogen solution gets worked out. When it does, Tesla will have all the real estate and mind share to take advantage without having to spend millions on getting the basics in place. Seems like a pretty sensible way to go to me...
If these hydrogen fuel cells are so wonderful and practical, where are they? The first production fuel cell vehicle is still on the horizon. Also, please explain where this hydrogen is coming from, since our present production is typically very dirty.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you're trying to engage in some against-the-rules sort of moderation, at least try to select a mod that makes sense. In this case, you would have wanted "overrated", which is always bullshit but much more likely to make it through metamod.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually no ... the underground storage tanks are very large and necessitate a relatively large footprint for the station (the tanks cannot be under a road or building) ... regardless of the presence or absence of any kind of retail space.
NOBODY wants to wait thirty minutes for "rapid recharge."
How long does it take to gas up? I'd say about 15-20 minutes when you add in paying, going to the bathroom, or buying a coffee. These rapid recharge stations are for long trips. An additional 10-15 minutes isn't really all that bad.
Having just completed a 6 charger installation I can tell you that the digging is the hard part.
I've found that in construction, digging a/the hole tends to be "surprisingly" expensive and takes a large chunk of time.
Once you start poring concrete / putting up frames, things tend to go quite quickly.
11 days for this kind of operation is stupid fast. Get city workers to do it and it would become a 6 month mega-project.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I would gladly wait 30 minutes. My problem isn't with the charge time, it's with how ridiculously priced Tesla vehicles are in the first place.
Although, I do wonder what happens when electric vehicles go mainstream, and the demand for a charging port gets to the point where the stations can't keep up with it and lines form. Right now it's not a big deal because most electric cars either can't replace a gas powered car due to range issues, or are so expensive they're out of the reach of anyone except the rich.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Try driving past a traditional gas station site breaking ground.
I kind of doubt that high-capacity electric cables displace as much earth as digging up holes to fit 10,000-gallon tanks into.
I also seriously doubt it would take them 11 days to install one. It would probably take longer than that to pull the damn EPA permit to put fuel tanks in the ground.
But hey, let's make more sensationalist BS surrounding Tesla. Anything to like a spark under this highly charged political topic, amirite?
Diesel's actually pretty hard to get lit.
Hydrogen fuel cells aren't going to be good for vehicles ever, as far as I can figure.
Let's build some hydrogen stations. Gotta bring that hydrogen in somehow, or I suppose electrolyze it on site (and that sounds expensive). How do you store it? Those molecules are awfully small, and they will harm any metal tank that tries to hold it. Further, they're awfully light. While the energy per kilogram is very good, energy per liter isn't.
So, you pull in and exchange fuel cells. How big is the tank on that fuel cell? If I go to Wikipedia's energy density page, I find that, at 70 MPa pressure, it's 5.6 Mj/liter, as opposed to gasoline's 36 or so. Now, 70 million pascals is about 690 atmospheres, so there's going to be significant costs in pressurizing it and significant dangers in mishandling it. I don't know how heavy the tank would have to be, but I imagine substantial. Figure 9 Mj/liter for gasoline at 25% efficiency (probably the minimum for modern cars), and even if a hydrogen fuel cell has absolutely perfect efficiency in converting hydrogen to motion, the hydrogen vehicle is going to have 2/3 the range of the gasoline one for equal-sized tanks (and that seems unlikely).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Swapping places every 1-2 hours is normal.
Yup. Either swap between driver, or taking breaks. But indeed, a single driver shouldn't drive more than 2 hours straight any way.
And to come back to the argument I was giving to the parent poster (arth1): if you're taking breaks anyway, why not plugging the car into the charging port, instead of complaining that a charge is slower than a fuel tank (or a battery swap, for that matter).
Unlike a gaz station, you don't need to hold the the charging cable during the whole procedure. Just plug the car, go make a nice break, drink a coffee, and go back to your electric-car once it alerts you on your smartphone that the battery is nearly full again.
DOT has rules. Lots of them. You probably don't know any of them.
Well, of course I don't know the rules of DOT, because I happen to live on the wrong side of the Atlantic pond.
Ever filled out a log book?
Well, I happen to have a military driving license and I had to fill this stupid paperworks (or at least, the local equivalent).
And yup, here around too, the drivers are required to keep their tiredness in check and take the necessary breaks.
But most sane people about to get into that situation (4+ hour drive) would decide that just getting on a plane is cheaper, faster, and easier overall.
Depends. Here around, planes tends to be expensive if you don't plan your trip well in advance and buy your ticket while still cheap.
If you want to last-minute travel, trains can be cheaper.
If you're part of a small group, doing a road-trip can also be economically intesting.
Also not every destination is easily reachable by train or airplane.
(During autumn, we need to drive around 3hours to reach ski-resort which are already open for pre-season skiing. Car is the only single way to reach them)
I happen to be the only driver in my group, so I'll have to drive the whole trip both ways. And yes I *do* take breaks mid-way and make sure to be rested enough. And yes, my car is also equipped with collision-avoidance systems, just to have extra safety.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yeah, for about as long as it takes to fill up my car with fuel and then use the restroom..about 10-15 minutes.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Part of that problem is location of the battery. In a roadster it's essentially in the trunk over the rear axle.
Picture of a Roadster's battery location.
Picture of Model S battery placement.
With the ability to start 'from the ground up', the model S relocates the battery from a box in the rear to more of a flat sheet covering most of the undercarriage. They couldn't do this with the Roadster's Elise frame because it wasn't designed for it.
This change evens out the weight distribution and helps with stability, to the point that in rollover tests they had to resort to 'extreme measures' to flip the test car. Well duh, obviously it's not going to want to flip when approximately half the weight is UNDER the axles!
Model S totals 4,647 pounds:
1323 lbs - Battery
350 - Motor/Inverter(per diagram it's under the axle height as well)
Stuff above the axles - computers, hvac, seats, glass, etc...:1360 pounds.
Thus a Model S, while perhaps not as 'nimble' as a lighter vehicle, still performs much better than you'd expect from a car of that weight.
I don't read AC A human right
Please note that I said 'notably', not 'vastly' or 'slightly'.
Model S: 4647 pounds with the 85kwh battery.
2014 Mercedes E350: 4100-4350
BMW 5 series: 3737 - 3825
I'd say that ~600 pounds heavier, on average, is 'notable'.
Of course, the Model S went very far into lightening the car other than the battery.
I don't read AC A human right
Still explodes nicely though. That's how a diesel engine works.