He’s speaking Canadian, I mean Celius. We routinely hit 0 degrees F in these parts which is around -20C but doesn’t sound as dramatic. -40 is where things line up and that one is truly cold. I still ride my bicycle to work on -20C.
@Sam_Stone stop threadshitting in this thread.
Why they won’t work for you, more than once is seriously threadshitting.
Apologies to @puzzlegal, and fully agree with her modnote.
For those that have a Tesla, what do you think will happen as Ford and other EVs can use the Tesla Superchargers? Since we’ve owned one, we’ve used a Supercharger an entire three instances and they were not in the least busy. I hope that continues, but I don’t really know what other charging options are out there that Rivian, Ford, etc are currently using and if the ability to use Tesla will be more enticing. I never noticed charging stations, but the Tesla ones have all been very conveniently placed right off the interstates.
The last time I had to wait for a Supercharger was years ago, back when they were quite a bit less prevalent. At the time, there was still something of a friendly Tesla culture, and those of us waiting all formed an orderly queue, with no “cheating”. I’m not sure if the culture has changed, either with all the new drivers, or if it’ll change further with non-Tesla drivers, but I suspect it’s somewhat academic given how many stations there are now.
I-5 at least is the busiest route here and has literally hundreds of spots now. Not sure if those ever fill up even in peak conditions (Thanksgiving, etc.).
We’re in our 3rd year of ownership and are not concerned. It’s very rare that we find Superchargers that are busy, and Tesla is still rapidly expanding the network. For example, the station in Quartzsite, AZ is an important one for travel between Phoenix and SoCal. The original station has 8 chargers. Then they added 28 next door to it a few years ago. Last year they built another expansion a block away, which I used 2 days ago. It has 84 chargers and I was alone there.
It appears some vehicles might need to take up to the three charger slots to maneuver in since their charging ports are in the wrong locations. If they do become busy and have their capacity reduced in half, or more, things could become “interesting”.
They talk about a “virtual” line to help deal with potential issues around allowing other vehicles to use their chargers.
That one at Quartzite is the largest Supercharger station in the US. I understand there’s a larger one in China. However, it only has 4 more than the 80 stall Supercharger in Coalinga CA. These two are going to be eclipsed by a much larger one in Lost Hills CA. It’s not under construction yet, but it’s been permitted to have 164 stalls, including several that will be drive-through for cars towing trailers.
I heard Tesla is going to retrofit longer cables to Superchargers so other vehicles only use one space. This will take time, however. I did watch a Lightning using a Supercharger and the cable barely reached even using 2 spaces. Non-Teslas pay a 30% premium unless you subscribe, FYI.
I expect this will be a huge money maker for them. Adding longer cables makes sense but I hope they auto-spool to limit damage to them.
I’m going to pull the trigger and order a Model Y Long Range. It wasn’t even on my radar until a Wednesday night conversation with a friend of mine who convinced me that I haven’t been a starving student in 40 years, I would love the tech and the full self driving would be life changing for my particular use case. I have driven cheap economy cars my entire life and this is so damn weird. I’m anxious just thinking about it but YOLO. I’m getting the stock model (gray, standard tires, 5 seats) so I could have one in a couple days.
The big pain in the ass will be getting a 240 plug installed in the garage. The electrical panel is on the other side of the house so they’ll have to run a cable across the attic and maybe an entire new panel. In the mean time, the Tesla dealer and supercharge station is two miles away.
Congrats on the new car.
Why won’t Level 1 (110 volt) work for you?
Thanks.
My understanding is that it’s very slow. I don’t even have a quote yet for the 240 so I don’t necessarily have to do it.
Apparently 240 is from 3 to 10 times faster, depending on the installation amperage and the unit type.
That’s what we bought a bit over a month ago.
We have 220 in our garage but we didn’t have the appropriate adapter for a week or so. For our situation, 110 would work since we don’t use the car for a daily commute (if we did, it is 2 miles each way) and we normally take one big trip to a trailhead each weekend leaving an easy couple days to recharge. We found it charged about 1.3% per hour so it could take around 2 days to get to 80%. We did 110 destination charging last weekend and we had a couple days so it worked great.
With all that said, we have 220 and the correct adapter and can charge overnight if needed. We have 30A 220, so not the fastest, but plenty for our simple needs. I could easily put in a 50A service myself since the box is right there, but I don’t ever see the need.
I’ve heard it as a 30A charges 30 miles per hour, 40A 40 miles, etc. And that seems to be close. I think we get about 10% per hour but I haven’t paid close enough attention to really nail it down.
You might give it a try. It is slow, but you can restore 20-30 miles of charge overnight. If you typically drive less than that, Level 1 might be sufficient.
Most days I don’t drive at all or only a handful of miles around town. Once or twice a week I make a 60 to 200 mile round trip drive. I guess I could just hit the supercharger those days.
If I do it, I will do it right with a licensed electrician and permitting and as good as it gets.
You can easily charge using your existing 110V if that is your standard driving habits. If you ever do find the need to drive those longer trips back-to-back, hit the supercharger.
We prefer charging at home because it is nearly free. If we were to charge the entire battery, it is about $8. We just did a 400 mile each way trip with free destination charging at the end, and the supercharging costs were roughly half what gas would’ve been in our Subaru.
Thanks. Unless installing the 240 plug is relatively cheap, I’ll stick with 110 for a while. Ultimately I’d like to install solar if the economics make sense.
I get 35 mpg in my Civic. The dealer said electric will be a third the cost of what I have been paying for gas.