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.

Comments

That's not quick?

[maliqua]

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

Re:That's not quick?

[theheff]

The Goodland, KS site was actually one of the fastest sites to go up- 11 days is very quick. The supercharger in Indio, California, for instance, was started months ago and still isn't online.

Re:That's not quick?

[Firethorn]

Agreed. They're looking into running natural gas through my area. It's going to be at least a 10 year process.

under two weeks for running relatively high capacity power lines to the supercharger station and getting everything hooked up?

As an AC mentioned, I'm pretty sure that building a paved level parking lot takes longer. Building any sort of structure generally takes far, far longer.

Re:That's not quick?

[PPH]

California

Permits, environmental impact statements, public hearings. And heaven help you if construction frightens a kangaroo rat. The entire project will have to be abandoned.

Re:That's not quick?

[mikeiver1]

Having just completed a 6 charger installation I can tell you that the digging is the hard part. In our case it was a little over 3 weeks start to finish due to allot of landscaping and blacktop work as well as installing a dedicated half mega Watt transformer complete with piping to the utility service box some 90' under a road that we could not disturb. On the technical side, the prints are fairly detailed and the charging stations and controllers (one charge controller per pair of stations) are well engineered. The insides are modular and have a liquid cooling system for the 12 charge packs. Each charge cabinet is fed with 3 phase, 480VAC at 175Amps. The output of the controller can be as high as 410VDC at 120Amps per charge station. Of course I doubt it ever really gets there. Ultimately, for the electrician, it is a simple install and nothing to technical.

Re:That's not quick?

[Rei]

Not to mention that building a gas station takes a heck of a lot longer.

It's one thing I don't get about EV opponents. Not only are EVs supposed to not have any new inconveniences relative to gasoline vehicles, and not only do inconveniences that gasoline vehicles have that EVs don't have not count toward EVs, but EVs aren't even allow to have the inconveniences that gasoline vehicles have. It's always stuff like "EVs suck because it takes 11 days to build a fast charging station, but don't bother checking into how long it takes to build a gas station!" or "EVs suck because batteries are flammable (Ed: even though most EV battery types aren't particularly flammable), but don't bother asking about the flammability of gasoline!" or "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!" or "EVs suck because batteries are toxic (Ed: Actually, most types nowadays have little toxicity), but don't bother asking about the toxicity of the several tonnes of gasoline the average driver puts into their car every year, their filling spills and fumes, their oil leaks, etc, and the massively dirty industry that produces all this!" Etc.

I don't get these people.

Gas station

[evilviper]

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.

And for comparison, just how long does it take to build a gas station?

Re:And how long does it take...

[brambus]

As far as I could discern, in the 11 days listed here all they did was install the charging ports at a place which already had suitable electrical infrastructure (at a hotel parking lot). It wasn't a full service station in the middle of nowhere. Also, look at service capacity. It takes ~30 minutes to "refuel" a Tesla Model S with 150 miles of extra range. A gas station, meanwhile, will easily do 400+ miles in less than 5 minutes, so it has about 16x higher overall throughput - for a single gas pump you'd need to install about 16 charging stations. Now of course gas stations don't always have fully occupied pumps and that's the point, so that almost whenever you arrive, there's a free pump available. Replace all the cars on the long-distance highway with EVs and you'll need a service station about an order of magnitude larger in size (i.e. your typical 12-pump gas station becomes a parking lot with over 100 chargers). Hydrocarbon fuels have their advantages and high energy density is one of them. The problem isn't the fuel itself, it's the source. If we made hydrocarbon fuels (e.g. dimethyl ether) from electricity in a carbon-neutral way, you could view them as a very dense chemical battery with pretty much infinite cycles, no charge loss, insanely quick recharge times and all support infrastructure already in place.

Recursive Presumptions

[fyngyrz]

If you thought it was a quick process to build a Supercharger station, you were clearly wrong.

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.

Re:And how long does it take...

[evilviper]

Replace all the cars on the long-distance highway with EVs and you'll need a service station about an order of magnitude larger in size (i.e. your typical 12-pump gas station becomes a parking lot with over 100 chargers).

Complete brain-damaged nonsense. With fossil fuels, you HAVE TO fuel-up at a station, every single time.

With electric, MOST people will fuel up, slowly, overnight, at home.

In addition, gas stations MUST be large and separate facilities you have to go out of your way to drive to/from.

EV charging stations can be (and ARE) just regular parking spaces with a small device at one corner. That means you just stop for your normal food and restroom breaks, and incidentally, your vehicle is getting fueled up with no extra time or effort from you.