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Elon Musk Suggests Tesla Model 3 Won't Get Free Supercharger Use (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: In response to a question about how the company would handle an influx of Model 3s to its Supercharging stations, which are currently offered as a free service to Tesla customers, Elon Musk said at Tesla's annual shareholder's conference in Mountain View, California, "it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package." He did not specify what the "package" contained, nor did he say how much it would cost as an add-on with the purchase of a Model 3. His full quote reads: "Obviously, [free Supercharging] fundamentally has a cost. [...] The obvious thing to do is decouple that from the cost of the Model 3. So it will still be very cheap, and far cheaper than gasoline, to drive long-distance with the Model 3, but it will not be free long distance for life unless you purchase that package. I wish we could, but in order to achieve the economics, it has to be something like that." Tesla did recently announce their Gigafactory Grand Opening will be held on July 29, even if it isn't scheduled to begin production on lithium ion cells until next year.
From the article:
"Elon Musk addressed a question from a young Model S P85D owner about how the company would handle an influx of Model 3s to its Supercharging stations"
So basically some rich guy wanted to know if he had to share his charging station with the unwashed lower classes.
#DeleteChrome
Isn't this specified in the options when you pre-order a model 3? Why is this news?
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
And just how is this a con? Name me any other car manufacturer that gives you free energy for life.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Just put solar panels all over the car body. Problem solved, once and for all.
Sure, for trips to the mailbox and back.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Lower margins on a mass-market vehicle means there isn't enough money to pay the electrical bill for the lifetime of the vehicle.
Are people really getting worked up over basic and obvious economic decisions?
I know two people who own Teslas, and both of them bought the in-home charger regardless of the availability of "free" charging. Topping up costs way less than a tank of gas, and they don't feel like wasting time at the station.
The only reason Tesla could offer free charging in the first place is because the electricity costs so much less than gasoline. Their "free" fillup simply was not a large value to begin with---except for the convenience it offered on long trips.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
>"You'll be stopping a[t] filling stations, getting gas, etc. just like everyone else.. the only real difference will be the type of energy being pumped in.."
Well, no, not really. With my current car, a fillup takes about 4 minutes and then I have another 380 mile range. Electrically, I would have to wait potentially an hour or more and then have something like a 200 mile range.
Sure, it will get faster and more range, but that could take many years and it might never be as convenient as gas for trips.
The Tesla S is approx 2 meters wide by 5 meters long, about half of which is windows. If you covered the rest with solar panels (only projected area matters), that's 5 m^2 of panels.
Figure you use the commercial 150 Watt/m^2 panels, and that's a peak generating capacity of 750 Watts. Capacity factor for solar in the U.S. is about 0.145 (this accounts for angle of the sun, weather, etc.). So (0.75 kW) * (0.145) * (24 hours) = 2.61 kWh. In other words, if you left your solar panel-covered Tesla S parked outside for a typical continental U.S. day, it would generate 2.61 kWh.
Charging efficiency of the Tesla battery is about 80%. So only about 2.09 kWh actually makes it into the battery (the rest heats up the battery and charger).
The best EPA-rated Tesla S uses 33 kWh/100 miles. So leaving your PV-encrusted Tesla parked out in the sun all day will charge the battery enough to move you 6.3 miles.
How is Elon Musk any less of a con artist than Elizabeth Holmes? I fail to see a difference.
Oh come on. The problem here is that Tesla set up the expectation that if you buy one of their cars, you got free access to these charging stations. Now everybody expects this from Tesla because it was baked into the price of the car and Tesla wasn't really out to make a profit anyway. Well, now Tesla wants to become profitable so things will have to change and their cars will have to be competitively priced so some of their cost drivers need to be addressed.
It's obvious that Tesla *cannot* continue such arrangements unless they roll a significant cost into the cost of the cars they sell. The problem is Tesla needs to market this better, reset the customer's expatiations. If Musk has any issue it's that he didn't think though the PR of this before offering an answer to the question, not that it wasn't painfully obvious what the answer needed to be.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
To be useful electric cars REQUIRE home charging.
Or work charging. Or anywhere you can run a 2cm cable to. If every car took 20 min to "refuel" but a refueling station had the footprint of the head-on space between 2 parking spaces instead of massive underground storage tanks I'm sure someone could figure out how to avoid grinding to a halt.
Those numbers are somewhat exaggerated. My 85kWH battery takes roughly 1 hour, 10 min to get from 5% to 100% (I've measured). To get to 80% takes about 40 minutes.
The cabin conditioning is a tiny fraction of electricity used. Realistically, a 100% charge will net ~240 miles at 75mph (say, highway 5 in CA). The AC has relatively little impact on that range (maybe 5%). The biggest impact is if you live in a really cold area. That can get you down to 200 miles on 100% charge if you're at, say, 30F ambient temp or lower. I've driven in parts of Oregon during the winter and haven't really noticed more than a ~10% hit in range at 70mph cruising speed.
It's definitely less convenient than a gas car by far. But not insurmountable as you make it out to be. On my route from SF to LA, it adds about 1 hour of drive time for a 7 hour drive. That was when there was ~150-200 miles between chargers. Now, on highway 5, there's a charger every ~100 miles. Some even less (Harris Ranch -> Buttonwillow -> Tijon -> Burbank is about ~50 miles each hop).
Trying to drive long distance without Supercharger access is a terrible idea (though I've done it for the lawls).
If the OP undersold the difference, you're definitely overselling it.
The supercharger charges at a maximum rate of ~400V and 300A (~120KW). The reason it takes an hour is because that rate slows down significantly as you approach 100%. Limitations on the Li-Ion battery and all.
At full 120KW, it'd take exactly 30 min to fill up a 60KWh battery. And 45 min to fill up a 90KWh battery.
Running the AC does not cut your range in half, that's just made up. At most there's a 10% effect on range (heat or AC), and that's under pretty extreme conditions.
On a Tesla Model S you get an 80% charge in 40 minues, not a 75% charge in 45 minutes.
Why even bother with talking about the time to charge to 100%? Noone would do that on a long trip, you charge to 80% and then go.
Why even bother talking about a 15A extension cord? That's the EV equivalent of walking down the highway with a gallon jug of gasoline--something that would happen only under extreme emergent conditions (or charging at night or something).
Seriously, does the existence of EVs challenge your lifestyle sooo much that you feel the need to unleash FUD as a defense mechanism?
Or the cost that is cut is you, the expensive developer.
My company provides free sandwiches because we have found that people that eat at their desk are back to coding within 20 minutes, while those that go out to eat are unproductive for an hour or more. The cost of the sandwich is far less than the value of those extra 40 minutes. So if anyone is going to be cut, it is going to be the slackers that paid for their lunch, not the people that got the free lunch.
Unless your sandwiches are made by a 5 star chef to my dietary requirements and liking, I'll go out to eat. that 40 minutes is $40 of my time and if you don't provide me a $30 sandwich, the CEO can stuff it.
Companies that do this provide garbage sandwiches. I've been at those places, the catering sounds great to the new kiddies, but those of us that value our health will not touch the 60grams of carbohydrate and 600 grams of sodium $0.90 sandwich.
Anyone worth their salt uses that lunch hour to reset and be far more productive in the afternoon. monkeys that band out garbage? they eat at their desk and stay "productive"... which is why their code is usually crap.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I've argued with a number of people on the Tesla forums on how stupid this is.
Covering every horizontal surface other than the windows on a car would be frightfully expensive and it would add more weight. The body under the cells would need to be more rigid to prevent the cells from cracking, plus since cars are rarely perfectly flat there would have to be an expensive cover over the cells. It would have to stand up to rocks and other things as well as the flexing a car normally has while driving. If you think denting a normal hood is expensive, imagine how expensive it would be if it were covered with solar?
It's far better to instead install solar on your roof rather than the very limited return one would get with solar added to a car.
I know someone with a Fisker Karma which does have solar on the roof. From what I have read it costs around $5000 to add the solar to the roof of the Karma for a very limited rate of return. It's not going to be as efficient as a normal solar panel since it will not be aimed towards the sun, plus it needs a much thicker coating over the panels in order to protect them. Additionally, it adds weight to the car as well as the extra support for those panels to prevent cracking or damage from various things encountered while driving. Someone ran the numbers and figured out the rate of return is around 500 years until the panel pays for itself. It barely adds anything to the range of the car and is mostly used to keep the 12v battery topped off and to help cool the interior. It's also going to be expensive since you want to try and keep the solar panels from getting too hot. The solar panels on my house are quite light with plenty of air circulation under them. They're also perfectly flat and aimed at the sun so they're a lot more efficient and a lot cheaper.
For my Tesla I much prefer having the panoramic roof where I can just open it a bit to help keep the car cool. On top of that, the panoramic roof adds additional head room and it's nice to open when the weather is nice. The glass used is amazing in that it does not let much heat into or out of the car.
Solar on the roof of a car might generate 100 watts. It would take around 3 hours of sun to add one mile of range since my car (with my driving and sticky tires) typically takes almost 300Wh/mile.
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Here, the lunch break does not count to your work time. So take whatever time you want, but bill it accordingly. Only restriction: You have to have at least 30 min of a break after 6 hours of work. A coding slave with a 9-5 job thus clocks up 7.5 hrs per work day. If you want that two hour lunch break, that's fine. But you have to come in at 8.30 am and leave at 6.00 pm to get the 7.5 hrs scheduled worktime.