So redoing my figgerin’, they’ve currently built a 40 stall station that is the rough equal of charging the estimates of rapid charging two of these Semis at a time, not three. More maybe if they plug in at different points so one is on the slower draw part of the cycle as one is in its quicker draw initial phase. Certainly not a big leap to get to charging three Semis at a time anyway.
As to their algorithm for car charging - anyone know how far into the rapid charge process the battery’s SOC gets to the point that it can no longer pull at that 120W rate, and how far into the process until it is at the 25W rate that a second car pulling in empty would be able to get max power draw?
Deep-cycle lead acid batteries should solve that issue. They cost more than your typical starter battery, but that’s lost in the noise of the cost of the automobile.
It’s around 70 to 80 percent, but it is not based upon some fixed table of values. It’s done using an algorithm that monitors the voltages of each cell - or in the case of a Tesla, they monitor the voltage of every individual cell, and trigger a switch to shunt that cell out of a circuit when appropriate.
As you can see, the “1C” charging rate (this is where you’re at full supercharge, C is based on the specs of the battery) you can do for a while, but eventually it does ramp off.
Also, the 120 kilowatt supercharging is probably only available for the larger battery sizes. Model 3 owners who only have the base model battery probably will not be able to supercharge as quickly.
motor trend has an updated review out for the model 3. Appears to compare quite favorably in terms of handling & acceleration against cars in its category (audi A4 quattro, BMW 330i, Alfa Romeo Giulia, mercedes C300).
Downsides are stiff suspension, rear seat legroom and a lack of buttons/knobs.
I have no comment on the technology, but if the thing is marketed as being a 330i, A4, C300 equivalent that’s sure as hell not the “everyman’s electric car.” You’re still looking pretty far up the price/ snazz ladder. Not so far up the ladder in terms of MSRP, but in terms of how narrow the pyramid is there versus down at the actual midrange “ordinary car”.
I had gotten the idea this thing was supposed to be the electric Camry or Impala. Apparently I was confused.
What one can say is that it’s an impressive accomplishment for the price level and is closer to being everyman’s car than the model S or the $250,000 roadster Musk just announced. But AIUI even $35K is a bit of an artificial rock-bottom price, with practical versions clocking in well over $40K and as much as $50K. For comparison, a nice Toyota Camry with an enviable track record of quality and reliability starts with an MSRP under $24K to about $30K, and $35K will buy you the absolute loaded top-of-the-line, and the hybrid starts at under $28K MSRP.
If I had lots of money I’d opt for the Model 3 or even the model S because I think they’re great cars that would be fun to own and it’s an initiative that should be supported. I’d be like Bill Maher who has a Model S for daily driving and an Audi for long-distance trips. But reality being what it is, I can’t. I must say, though, that I see an amazing number of Teslas around here, mostly Model S but some Xs. It sure isn’t a status symbol any more when everybody and his dog has one!
That seems a bit unfair to me. The $35k model is still a damn nice car. The 2018 Camry does 0-60 in 8.2 s; the baseline Model 3 in 5.5. It doesn’t have the “EV premium package”; i.e. the quiet motor, smooth acceleration, and instant throttle response that all EVs have. The Camry’s infotainment system is way worse. Etc.
And you can’t ignore the fuel savings. How much this amounts to obviously depends on a lot of factors, but will probably be >$5k for most people. Possibly a lot more for some drivers in some areas.
For those that place 0 value on EVness (and I’m not talking about the environmental benefits here, but all the other stuff), and don’t trust future value calculations, then the Model 3 may not look so great. But I think that the (relatively small) premium is justified for a lot of people.
It may take some “practice” on a PHEV for some people. My parents are gas junkies but they recently got some plug-on Ford with about 24 miles of range. They’re turned into hypermilers! And brag about long they’ve gone since filling up the tank. I think they’ll be ready for a full EV on their next car.
The Model 3 isn’t quite an “everyman” car yet, but I suspect it’s well below the median cost when you take everything into account.
If I had a place to charge it I’d have seriously auditioned a Model S. Plus, as you say, maybe an older well-depreciated ICE SUV for hauling and for long trips. Sadly for me, charging at home is a non-starter and that’s my obstacle. That keeps Tesla off my list.
And yes, Model Ss are quite common here too.
I think this is real perceptive.
“Range anxiety” is mostly “range ignorance”, not real. And, just like most of us have learned we don’t actually need to drive a pickup truck every day just in case we might need to haul a refrigerator once a decade, folks will learn to recognize that while the no-notice 3000 mile road trip is a *conceivable *mission, it isn’t a *likely *mission. Or at least not one they need to spend an extra few thousand a year to protect against.
Ran out of time on edit. Oops. Continuing from where I left off …
The interesting thing to me is that the changeover will be exponential. On some randomly selected day in the future it’ll suddenly click for a hefty fraction of new car buyers. Everyone in the entire automotive & support ecosystem will be scrambling to keep up with the rate of change in demand for gasoline, electricity, ICE engines, EV motors & batteries, repair services, charger installations, etc.
Gonna be fun to watch. Gonna be a headache for executives & corporate finance types.
Many people don’t have a garage and for those who do they don’t want to have to wire up a $5,000 charger for daily use.
Also, a 500 mile trip is highly likely for many people on a regular basis. You’re just hand-waving away a significant problem with EV’s as a stand-alone vehicle.
Until the fast-charge battery makes it into EV’s they will not have the same utility as an ICE vehicle.
You are glossing over that to get simple things like heated seats or wireless phone charging, you have to buy an M3 options package that pushes the cost of the car over $40,000. You can get those things on a $25,000 Camry.
The Model 3 appears to be a quite aggressive challenge to BMW 3 series and so on. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla starts to eat Audi and Mercedes’ lunches, as well. But come on, comparing a Model 3 to a Camry is pretty silly.
Where the hell did you get $5,000 from? Did you price out the Trump-brand guilded EVSE powered exclusively from nonrenewable unicorn farts?
I had a 50 amp charger installed in my house last summer for $600, all in. And I got a tax credit for something like $200 of that, so my out of pocket cost was literally 12 times less than your estimate.
To put it another way, if I overestimated the cost of gasoline by a factor of 12, I would be telling people that it costs roughly $275 every time someone wanted to fill up a Prius at the gas station.
Installation costs will vary. When I was considering 220 service for my Fusion Energi, I was looking at about $1200. Hardware was cheapish at $500 or so, but there wasn’t a readily-accessible 220 VAC source in my garage. I’ll have the same problem if I ever want to do some welding or add a 220 VAC compressor.
You can buy a Camry right now. Toyota is well known for producing quality cars and there is ample service available if it’s needed. As it stands now, I’d rate a Camry as a much better car and expect much higher sales figures compared to a Model 3.
Setting aside the already addressed issue about charger costs.
You’ve made this point several times in this very thread. Plus in innumerable others. The rest of us understand and accept that for some fraction of the population, including that Magiver dude, EVs are a poor fit now & probably will be for decades to come. OK. Granted. But …
Porsche & BMW sell very few cars in rural Montana. Doesn’t mean they don’t sell millions of them in the big cities where almost all the population lives. The error each of us are prone to making is assuming our life is the typical USA experience. Unless you live in a suburb and drive <40 miles to work 5 days a week, and don’t take long road trips but maybe annually, that’s a bad assumption.
For me personally an EV doesn’t work. Yet. As I’ve said up-thread unless I move I won’t be able to install a charger for years, if ever. When the exponential demand hits the rest of urban/suburban society I expect that will change. So I won’t be an early adopter. I’ll be a very late adopter.
That doesn’t prevent me from seeing that for millions of Americans, the time is aaaalmost ripe for these things. And when it hits, it’ll be a tsunami. Not one that reaches very deep into ruralia, but one that washes over much of comfy suburbia across the land. Which is the vast majority of the new car buying population.
And I would add that there is a much smaller population of Americans for whom owning a car at all doesn’t work. If you live in Manhattan, who wants to pay many thousands of dollars a year for a garage for your econobox? Nobody has to beat that point like a dead horse – everyone knows that car ownership is not for every American.
There’s also quite a few more Americans for whom owning a large F-150 or whatever is just impractical. Nobody has to beat that point like a dead horse – everyone knows that full size truck ownership is not for every American.
There’s even more Americans for whom owning a sports car with no practical back seat doesn’t make any sense. Nobody has to beat that point like a dead horse – everyone knows that Corvettes are not for every American.
I’ve said in several of these threads that if someone doesn’t have easy access to charging at home, they are almost certainly fooling themselves if they think: “Hey, isn’t a supercharger network pretty much like a gas station? I could buy a Tesla and find street parking every night somewhere in my neighborhood and then just go fill 'er up every once in a while!”
Which reminded me of a recent rant we had about people who write tests, such as IQ tests, where the “right” answer isn’t really, but the test author is too dull or blinkered to see that. They’re stuck in their mental rut that choice “C” is the only possible correct answer.
You’ve brought the point home neatly just above as it relates to automobiles.
A current-tech EV is not a drop-in replacement for an ICE. It has a different mix of benefits and drawbacks. There’s lots of overlap, but also some non-overlap. Just like a Suburban and a Corvette are both automobiles. They have a lot in common, but there’s a lot that each can do the other cannot, or at least not very well.
Insisting that a Corvette is crap because it makes a lousy Suburban (or vice versa) is not logical.