Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/tesla-supercharger/

by dave1619 • 14 years ago

457 268 14 years ago

engadget.com

spullara4• 14 years ago

So painful that the actual article was buried because they used a different link:

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

sbierwagen8• 14 years ago

I wonder why they used CGI renders if there's supposed to be actual stations already in operation.

marshray6• 14 years ago

One plausible explanation is photos of the actual stations are filled with lots of background clutter that just doesn't suit the mood of the presentation.

dave1619• 14 years ago

I was looking forward to this announcement and watched the live announcement. The most interesting/surprising parts of the announcement to me was:

1. Superchargers are already deployed in California. Nice work, Tesla, for building it out and proving it works.

2. The whole U.S. will be covered in a few years. Great for traveling cross country.

3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup... probably, my guess. But still impressive.

4. It will be FREE for Tesla owners. I don't know how they're pulling this off. To me, this was the most shocking part. How are they going to pay for construction, rent, etc, and still afford this? It's a great extra benefit for Tesla owners... to travel around the country for free (of course you need to buy the car and maintain the car, but still).

I wonder if the extra electricity generated from the solar panels will go into paying the rent for the spaces.

trafficlight• 14 years ago

It won't be free forever, but it's one less barrier to buying buying a Tesla.

timdorr3• 14 years ago

No, Elon said free for life on the the announcement.

jws2• 14 years ago

3. It's solar-powered. I wonder if they have a electricity backup...

It's grid electric powered. The canopy doesn't do much.

Let's calculate:

  Guess that the canopy for each bay is 7 by 4 meters, 28m^2

  Sunny spots receive about 4kWhr of solar power per square meter per day.

  Solar panels might be 25% efficient.

  Total daily power: 28m^2 * 4kWhr/m^2/day * 0.25 = 28kWhr/day

  Model S has an 85kWhr battery, half charge is 42kWhr.

It is going to take about two days to charge off the solar.

uvdiv• 14 years ago

The press release makes a seemingly absurd claim:

Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger.

wtf?

schiffern6• 14 years ago

>It's grid electric powered. The canopy doesn't do much.

They're sizing the installations in partnership with SolarCity, one of Musk's other start-ups. They claim they'll be sized such that it will generate as much energy over the course of the year as the vehicles consume. Meanwhile, you're estimating power output from a CG rendering on a marketing page.

You could argue whether or not they're lying, but they're certainly not incompetent. SolarCity's sizing calculators take these (and many more) variables into account.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Right, so if you think of it as a grid tied system it will generate power when ever it can, and people will charge on it. I've got 5.2kW of panels on my roof and can verify attest to the fact that even though I might use 28kWh in a day I can generate 34kWhr (during the summer, during the winter my best days are about 20kWhr) I would guess that as long as the duty cycle on the fill up is small they will consume net zero power.

The SunTech panels [1] produce a nominal 295W and are 2 x 1M so in your 6 x 4M square you can put 12 panels, nominal output 3.5Kw, my system is 90% "efficient" (5.2 kW Panel rating, 4.7kW delivered to the grid) assuming the same that is 3.15kW delivered to the grid. over a nominal 6 hr solar 'day' that is about 18kWhr/day. So the duty cycle on a power station would need to be one fill up every 3 days. If the travelling is mostly on weekends I could see the stations getting a couple of fillups on the weekend and having 5 days of no visitors. Time will tell. It is handy that Elon's the primary stockholder of Solar City :-) Good discount on panels.

[1] http://www.solarsystemsusa.net/solar-panels/by-brand/suntech...

sbierwagen8• 14 years ago

You'll only collect the total insolation if you use two-axis solar panel pointing. Fixed panels are less efficient. Depending on latitude, sometimes much less efficient:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/08/solar-data-treas...

padraigm• 14 years ago

"I wonder if the extra electricity generated from the solar panels will go into paying the rent for the spaces."

The article definitely made it sound like that would be the case. They might also be counting on charging people in cars other than Tesla ones.

sliverstorm6• 14 years ago

In regards to #4:

1) Tesla isn't making money right now, so what's a little more money they don't have?

2) If Tesla goes bankrupt, what do they care about promises about free charging? If they don't go bankrupt, they will make it big, so what will they care about a few free charges? Practically zero-risk.

datapolitical• 14 years ago

It's this kind of hybrid (paid/free) model that solves the chicken and egg problem; the more common the fuel pumps, the easier it is for people to switch to electric.

JohnsonB2• 14 years ago

30 minutes to charge...still puzzled why Tesla has gone with the recharge model rather than the battery swap model ala Better Place.

revelation2• 14 years ago

Because the battery swap model doesn't exist. It's a cool idea, but it's not right here right now.

JohnsonB2• 14 years ago

You can build swap stations incrementally though just like they are building these supercharging stations, so I don't see what the difference is, other than swapping is quicker/better.

recuter• 14 years ago

I've been in a Better Place car here in Israel and experienced the swap, it works. Also, Shai Agassi recently completed a full cross country trip (North to South). Small country, but still.

What makes you think this is not a viable solution?

danboarder• 14 years ago

Drivers are already using battery swap stations in Israel and a few other test areas. Swap for a full battery takes less than 5 minutes. The cars built to work with this system are Renault and Nissan I believe. Check out the standardized batteries (drivers subscribe to a 'battery plan' so any full battery is works the same).

video: Drive Switch Go - Better Place

short video http://youtu.be/VR3oLV4fdcE longer video http://youtu.be/S3Os25gP4yA

//edited to add video links

sp332• 14 years ago

The battery pack weighs 1,000 pounds so it's not as simple as picking it up and taking a new one off a shelf. Also they would have to maintain a huge inventory of unused fuel cells at all these stations, each slowly aging into uselessness.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

The batteries are part of the frame. They add stiffness and strength. They're not removable. Not easily anyway.

benackles• 14 years ago

I agree. 30 minutes is too long to charge for any practical purpose. They're going to have to improve the wait time if they're going to break out of the uber EV geek community. The Better Place battery switching model, while it may not be feasible for current models it has to be the goal for future models.

It also seems as thought there should be more partnerships involved in reaching the type of scale there going to to want to achieve. It seems like there would be a perfect opportunity to team up with Better Place to scale there infrastructure. Tesla should focus on building the best cars possible while letting Better Place handle the charging and/or battery switching infrastructure. I love the idea of Solar City getting involved as well. Those three companies are on my list of the few companies to watch in clean tech.

jerrya2• 14 years ago

If it was safe and quick, I would prefer the battery swap model because as it is now, I am terrified (maybe ignorance) of getting a bum set of batteries or mis-charging them, and ending up with a $5 - $10K bill for new batteries for my car. It would seem the swap model would most likely spread the cost and maintenance to many users and leave charging to the experts.

zmonkeyz• 14 years ago

I always felt the Wildcats 3.0 comic was cancelled way too early. Now I get to see it played out in real life by Elon Musk.

revelation2• 14 years ago

Ugh, tech reporting. Is there a original source for this somewhere? Theres some limited info at http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger.

100 kilowatts good for three hours of driving

From the announcement video, it seems they are charging at 370V with a maximum of 225 amps = 83.25kW. So that 30 minute figure for half a charge is pretty real. The cost for one such charge would be approximately 3$ with industrial prices for electricity. Given that you can feed solar power back into the grid at rates above or equal to what normal customers pay for their electricity, I could see them making break-even on this when discounting the initial investment (which will pay back hundred-fold in adoption rate for their cars).

spullara4• 14 years ago

That page and the video are the source material.

ph0rque2• 14 years ago

I understood it to be free for existing Tesla customers, not new ones...

R_Edward• 14 years ago

Right, owners of the "S" model can charge free for life. No word on what owners of subsequent models will pay for it. I'm eager to see whether they can trim that 30 minutes down to, say, a max of 15. 30 minutes every three hours is too long, but 15 would work. Get out, plug in, go take a bio break, come back, wash your windows, and you're just about ready to hit the road again.

These are exciting times to live in.

felipemnoa2• 14 years ago

>>These are exciting times to live in.

I agree. This is the first time I actually believe we may become oil independent in the not so distant future (i.e. decades, maybe even in our lifetimes). As soon as the market realizes that a credible replacement to oil is here I expect oil prices to crash. I wonder what will oil companies do when they realize that their markets are about to evaporate?

Exciting times indeed.

3856682• 14 years ago

Living in the future is pretty awesome. I can't wait to see what even more future brings us.

jerrya2• 14 years ago

Is it outrageous to think that eventually this "gas" will be free because outlets will compete to have Tesla and other electric customers stuck at their restaurant, bar, store for a half hour?

ph0rque2• 14 years ago

Another possible revenue stream is free for Tesla owners, and not free for other electric cars that support the "nozzle" (if Tesla allows others to use the same nozzle design).

sbierwagen8• 14 years ago

The connector on the vehicle is proprietary, but there's an OEM adapter to use SAE J1772 connectors. (like the charging station near Google Kirkland: http://tmblr.co/ZStnmwKlXAF8 )

richardw2• 14 years ago

If Tesla doesn't let others to use their connector, they're doing themselves a huge dis-service. We need to start off with one standard. Imagine if every petrol station had connectors for different cars, or you had to look for a special station that fit your car? Nightmare.

spullara4• 14 years ago

That is actually pretty insightful — pretty easy to get back the $3 that it costs. I can definitely see "free charge with purchase".

Osiris• 14 years ago

At $0.11/kWh, the Roadster at 53kWh would take almost $6 to completely fill.

Though if these stations charge using solar power and store the power in a battery pack to discharge when a car hooks up, it could potentially cost them a lot less than $0.11/kWh, depending on the cost of building the station itself.

alexholehouse2• 14 years ago

I remember talking to a friend who worked for an oil company, who told me that the shops at gas stations actually make 2-3 times more than the revenue generated from the gas. If you were an oil company which dealt exclusively with the consumer (which of course non of them are) you would in fact be a catering business which sold gas on the side.

Danieru• 14 years ago

Slight pedantry note: revenue and earnings are not the same thing.

mistercow• 14 years ago

>I remember talking to a friend who worked for an oil company, who told me that the shops at gas stations actually make 2-3 times more than the revenue generated from the gas

That is completely impossible. Maybe profit, but not revenue. Even my sedan with a 17 gallon tank costs more to fill up than even a pack-a-day smoker with a lottery addiction and a love of energy drinks is likely to spend at the shop.

kamaal10• 14 years ago

Its not.

But at the most this is change in the revenue model for 'gas/electric' stations or whatever you would like to call it.

But at the present and things as they stay, no body is likely to compete with Tesla. They are only having this network so as to ensure people can roam around without having to worry about running out of fuel. Tesla itself may not offer free energy once their user base grows to a substantial amount.

This is a incentive to get users to buys their cars, not a free energy give away drive. Once they have substantial customer base, free market dynamics will take care of the energy supply.

jnhnum1• 14 years ago

On the other hand, it could also end up like hotel phone calls or wine uncorking fees - ridiculously expensive just for a convenience.

samstave• 14 years ago

Well, honestly, offsetting the expense from "gas" to whatever products/entertainment/services/food that will be available is farking FANTASTIC.

Its not like they will be forced to buy whatever is in these stops - but the fact that the consumer can now actually CHOOSE what to spend those funds on is wonderful.

I HATE BUYING GAS

I currently don't drive at all (I bike to bart and bart to work) - and my car had its starter go out, so I haven't even been inside a car in more than a month.

I have always hated buying gas - I feel like I am being extorted every single time (and yes, I still harbor a grudge against bush/cheney whom I feel is largely responsible for this situation - whether this is unfounded blame or not, I still feel good about it :) )

SwaroopH• 14 years ago

World changing. Hats off to Elon Musk and his team.

Shenglong• 14 years ago

Tesla had a 250 million dollar operating loss in 2011 and 106 million last quarter. Add 700 million of debt onto that, and... I wonder how long they can keep up this kind of expansion.

This however, is really cool.

ricardobeat2• 14 years ago

Elon Musk alone has an estimated $2B fortune, so at least five years at that burn rate? :)

Facebook's IPO bled much more money out to bankers than all Tesla has spent so far, it's not like they are doing bad. Tesla has the potential to take over a sizeable slice of the (huge) automobile industry.

veb• 14 years ago

They also have on thing that I don't think Facebook has, an awesome leader with a great vision.

That goes a long way in todays world.

TeMPOraL4• 14 years ago

OTOH, from what I heard SpaceX recently became profitable; given that they are nowhere near the end of their plans to get spaceflight cheaper, maybe he could route some money to Tesla from there.

nicholassmith3• 14 years ago

It seems like they're taking the Amazon approach, going for super long term.

brc3• 14 years ago

Personally, I get annoyed when a company takes an existing term with a defined definition, and then decides to change the meaning.

A supercharger is a mechanically driven air compressor which forces air into an engine. For a car company to take that name and redefine it into a marketing effort, well, it's annoying. Kind of like those 'turbo' buttons that used to be on the front of a PC.

evride• 14 years ago

Maybe they should have called the 'original' supercharger a "mechanical air compressor" instead of supercharger since the connection between the term and the definition is pretty weak, while Tesla's supercharger is an actual charger that charges more quickly than your average charger... making it 'super.'

sliverstorm6• 14 years ago

Maybe they had more reason to call it a supercharger than you think. Supporting evidence-

A turbocharger, or turbo (colloquialism), from the Greek "τύρβη" (mixing/spinning)

Turbochargers were originally known as a turbosuperchargers when all forced induction devices were classified as superchargers

-- Wikipedia

In other words, the turbocharger was actually the origin of the concept of "turbo" meaning boosted speed/power.

I'm still looking for the origin of the "super" part.

brc3• 14 years ago

'air charge' is a specific term meaning the air entering the combustion chamber.

So 'supercharge' is a term for 'bigger air charge'.

However, when you deconstruct it, it is a bit silly. I dislike the addition of 'super' to things anyway, it's a very lazy way of coining a term.

Maybe we should all just adopt Kompressor like the Germans. And leave supercharge, supercharger and supercharged for the marketing folk to devalue to oblivion.

Edit : I just thought of a much better name. Who wouldn't want to connect up their Tesla to the ... wait for it..:

Warpcharger

Yeah, Warpcharger stations. Much cooler, and probably able to be trademarked as well.

zevyoura2• 14 years ago

I understand your frustration, but I think "supercharged" and "turbo" have entered the popular lexicon.

Andrenid• 14 years ago

This annoyed me a bit as well. I really wish they'd chosen a unique name so people wouldn't get confused.

Just like Ducati with the "Streetfighter", using an existing name from the same industry just leads to confused customers and even more confused readers-of-articles.

svmegatron• 14 years ago

If these become as popular as they seem like they should, I foresee long lines at the supercharging stations. I'm sure that 1. Tesla have thought of it and 2. They will milk the positive publicity from such an occurrence, but it could still be a PITA for, eg., folks who want to get home from Vegas.

felipemnoa2• 14 years ago

I actually expect higher adoption to drive improvements in charging technology. Of the top of my head a naive way to make batteries charge faster is that that they could make the individual cells as smallest as possible therefore reducing the amount of time that individual cells need to charge[1]. The batteries would be made up of thousands of these cells that could then be charged in parallel.

If they can make it so that each cell can get charged in only a couple of minutes then one of the major hurdles of electric cars will be gone.

[1] I'm assuming that the smaller the cell the faster that it can be charged. Anybody knows if this is true?

danenania• 14 years ago

It doesn't seem like there would be much barrier to simply adding more charging outlets if needed, would there?

eric-hu2• 14 years ago

What's to keep Tesla from partnering up with major supermarkets and malls?

Tesla could offer free covered parking spaces to the building owner-operators and free (or metered) charging to the customers.

The owner-operators get free 'green' PR, and could see increased business as customers have an incentive to stay in the stores longer.

Tesla sees a real-estate free way to offer more charging stations, a marketing cost for their vehicles that also adds value to their product.

veemjeem3• 14 years ago

Yeah, I feel like charging stations of tomorrow will be advertised in the same way "free wifi" is advertised today.

blrgeek• 14 years ago

Unlike gas stations, electric charging stations can be trivially distributed anywhere there's a parking lot.

Fast-food chains, Super markets, Offices, Malls, Any parking lot!!

So if they tie up with a dine-in restaurant chain to offer 10 charging spots at every highway restaurant - BOOM - you just got recharge facility with a 3min wait [30m/10] all across the country.

Cost of this compared to setting up a gas station would be minimal - only capital cost of charging station - looks like one-time $15K or so per station.

vinhboy• 14 years ago

As a plugin prius owner. I find it a bit annoying that they don't just work with existing charging networks like ChargePoint to help expand the accessibility of electric car charging.

schiffern6• 14 years ago

They already support ChargePoint on all their cars.

As for making Supercharger compatible with the SAE J1772, somehow I doubt Tesla wants a plug-in Prius lazily charging its battery for hours while a fast-charge compatible vehicle waits its turn.

kevinpet• 14 years ago

I notice that they have multiple stations along the 5 between SF and LA, but nothing between Gilroy and Los Angeles, which is around 350 miles. Why not a stop in Santa Maria or similar?

I suspect the problem is no where isolated enough that they won't have to worry about large numbers of local residents choosing to just go to Supercharger station rather than charging at home. As an occasional use to make people comfortable with a Tesla (long trips are possible), this is probably well worth the money. But it's unlikely to sustainable if owners choose to forgo the home charger.

andyl• 14 years ago

Between SF and LA, highway 5 is faster than 101. From SF you'd go thru Gilroy, then over to 5 via Pacheco pass, then south to LA.

surrealize3• 14 years ago

Making a "charging station" that could take the place of an existing gas station would be huge feat of engineering.

When I go from the SF bay area down to LA, I get gas at kettleman city (because of the in-n-out :) and I go to the chevron station there. From google street view, it looks like that station can fuel 12 cars at a time. And when I'm there, there's often a line for a pump.

A gas stop takes, say, 2 minutes. A tesla charging stop takes 30 minutes. So serving the same peak flow of cars would take 15 times as many car spots: 180. Land looks cheap in that part of the central valley, so it might be feasible to have that much space. But 180 chargers, peak, each using 100 kilowatts would use 18 megawatts.

Great scott! That's a lot of power. So it looks like this is still in the range of luxury-car, low-volume stuff. I can't imagine what it would look like as a mass-market thing.

Homunculiheaded• 14 years ago

As far as mass market goes I think you're forgetting why we have gas stations in the first place. Gasoline is highly flammable and toxic so it needs to be stored properly and regulated closely. Because it's a special trip most people drive until empty and then stop by the gas station.

But with charging stations every grocery store could have them in the first few rows of parking. They could waive the charing fee if you spend X amount on food (I already get gas waivers from my grocery store). As this type of thing proliferated you wouldn't charge your battery when it was almost empty but rather be continually topping it off. Only on long trips would you consciously time things like stopping for lunch so they give you enough time to charge.

justincormack2• 14 years ago

In London there are electric car chargers all over the centre in parking bays. People have them at home too. Some people just seem to use cables out of the window.

You can drive without paying the congestion charge so they are quite popular.

kiwidrew• 14 years ago

> But 180 chargers, peak, each using 100 kilowatts would use 18 gigawatts.

Hmm, I think you mean 18MW, not 18GW... sure, it's still a huge amount of energy, but your typical data centre can easily consume 10MW or more. And 18 megawatt-hours is equivalent to... just under 500 gallons of gasoline.

surrealize3• 14 years ago

Crap! You're right, how embarassing. I edited my comment.

ericd6• 14 years ago

The interesting thing is that people will mainly be charging at home, though, and will never need to visit a charging station - the car will be topped up every morning when you leave for work. So the number of fillups needing to be done at a station should be much lower. But an interesting point otherwise! I'd guess that the marginal cost of the plugs is low enough that it's feasible, though.

lgbr2• 14 years ago

But the number of people needing to fill up at this station and others just off of major freeways wont change. The people filling up/charging at these stations are in the middle of a trip and probably did charge while they were at home.

Furthermore, the range on even the Tesla Model S is half that of your typical car, so fillups are even more frequent. This could mean that highway stops have twice as many people needing to recharge.

surrealize3• 14 years ago

Right, I guess I should have said, replacing a mid-long-haul gas station (like the kettleman city one) would be a substantial effort.

If this type of electric car becomes a mass-market thing, there would be less of a need for gas stations near home (as you say). But the number of cars needing fill-ups on long haul routes would be just as large, so the gas stations on those routes would have to be much larger if the occupancy time at them is that much higher.

darrinm• 14 years ago

Let's keep in mind that electric car owners "fill up" their cars at home. Unlike gas stations these charging stations are only for unusual situations. Most the people you see at gas stations aren't on 200 mile plus trips.

marshray6• 14 years ago

I've met guys who'd built their own electric cars. Apparently there are spare utility outlets in quite a few parking garages. :-)

veemjeem3• 14 years ago

When it hits mass market, there will be charging stations at every metered parking spot. You can pay 25 cents for 15 minutes, or $1 for 15 minutes and a battery charge. Parking meters already draw power from the grid, so all they need to do is slap on a measurement tool and an electrical socket.

The only reason gas station exists is because one needs to store a great amount of gasoline in a container, but power lines are pretty much everywhere. Gas stations of tomorrow will be like the coin operated telephones of today. Most will become toxic barren shells, but few will be converted into toxic waste storage units.

Getting gas is an extraneous hassle that people in the future won't need to do anymore. Brick and mortar stores will all advertise "free charging" the same way they advertise free wifi today.

kamaal10• 14 years ago

>>I can't imagine what it would look like as a mass-market thing.

Things are likely to change in the future. Better mileage, more space for batteries and faster charging times might mean you charge fewer number of times for more mileage.

philhippus• 14 years ago

When every car on the road is electric, it will be feasible to have special "charging lanes" on the highways. In fact the whole road network could eventually be made to safely deliver charge to moving vehicles. Perhaps without the need to use the battery at all on these roads.

w1ntermute6• 14 years ago

Come on, 30 minutes for a charge that'll get you just 180 miles? I just checked the 2012 Honda Civic specs[0], you can fill up with 13.2 gallons in 2 or 3 minutes, and that'll get you 13.2*32 mpg combined = 422 miles. There's no way this is gonna work unless the charging process is much faster or they swap batteries instead.

0: http://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/2012/road-test-specs.html

ericd6• 14 years ago

Are you comparing charging stats unironically and saying it's a dealbreaker if it's not just as good as the incumbent in this category? It's really not that terrible to stop for 30 minutes after 3 hours of driving. Long road trips just went from wildly impractical to almost convenient, assuming the chargers are well distributed.

You could compare the 0-60 times of the Civic and say it's unacceptable that it takes the Civic twice as long to get to 60 mph, or that it only seats a measly 5 people, uncomfortably at that, or that it only has one trunk.

w1ntermute6• 14 years ago

> Are you comparing charging stats unironically and saying it's a dealbreaker if it's not just as good as the incumbent in this category?

Yes, I can guarantee you that the layman doesn't give two shits about electric cars. Until it's cheaper and/or more convenient for him than gas cars, he won't switch. And until laymen switch, you won't get the economies of scale necessary for a vast charging network.

> assuming the chargers are well distributed.

That's a pretty big assumption. First of all, Musk said there are charging stations in several cities in California, but exactly how many are there in each city? Do you have to go to one particular location in each city for charging? Because that's DOA. There's no such thing as one convenient location for everyone.

And don't forget that right now all the testing is being done in California and Nevada, both of which are well known for their plentiful sunlight. But how much energy will the solar panels be able to contribute back to the grid when installed in a place like Seattle? Far less, I'm guessing.

ams61103• 14 years ago

It's really not that terrible to stop for 30 minutes after 3 hours of driving.

Depends on the driver I guess. When I'm driving I want to get where I'm going. I stop only for fuel and bathroom breaks (ideally these are combined). If I'm driving more than 8 hours I might stop for a meal. Stopping for 30 minutes ever three hours is not something I'd find acceptable on a long trip.

That said, it does seem that Tesla are getting ever closer to making a practical (if not affordable) commuter electric car (for reasonably short commutes).

wmf3• 14 years ago

Tesla never said it's as good as gas, just that it makes long trips possible.

toomuchtodo3• 14 years ago

Get that Honda Civic then; I'm going to hold onto my Model S reservation. I have to drive more than 180 miles in a day? Oh no! I'll have to rent a car from Enterprise or Zipcar!

Fueleconomy.gov says it costs $3,550/year to fuel my 2008 Infiniti G37 (at $4.75/gal, premium), and $400/year to fuel my Model S (assuming 15K miles/year). That's a savings of over $15750 over 5 years (assuming the price of petroleum-based fuels doesn't go up, which it will).

The end of oil is near, not just because we're running out, but because we can do better.

w1ntermute6• 14 years ago

> Fueleconomy.gov says it costs $3,550/year to fuel my 2008 Infiniti G37 (at $4.75/gal, premium), and $400/year to fuel my Model S (assuming 15K miles/year). That's a savings of over $15750 over 5 years (assuming the price of petroleum-based fuels doesn't go up, which it will).

Don't be absurd. Getting either an Infiniti or a Model S makes absolutely no sense if you're interested in saving money. The base model MSRP for a 2013 G37 is $36,900, and for the Model S it's $49,900. The MSRP for a base Civic Sedan? $15,955. This debate was never about what's the most economic option.

rayiner• 14 years ago

Can you fuel your Honda Civic at home while you sleep?

aik• 14 years ago

New entrants into markets with innovative new technologies often have products that are worse off in many areas than existing companies (ie. existing gas car companies), however are vastly superior in some specific new way(s).

That is true for this product. The expectation I bet is that the technology will continue to evolve, and will over time improve to the point of overtaking the incumbents on more and more key metrics until gas cars just won't be able to compete any more. Tesla is betting on the fact that their value proposition is good enough today (or within 3-5 years) to allow them to gain enough market share in whatever vertical they're starting with (e.g. luxury every-day sport vehicles) to really cause a major disruption -- and expand from there.

Key reference from: The Innovators Dilemma

cloudwalking• 14 years ago

When will they include a solar charger with the vehicle? "Buy a Tesla. Drive it for free, forever."

Add to that an engine that requires /a magnitude/ less maintenance than a gas one.

sixQuarks• 14 years ago

I would say Elon Musk is the greatest entrepreneur of the past century - even more so than Steve Jobs. He simultaneously created three separate companies, all in extremely complex industries, and combined all of them into one overall strategy.

The precision manufacturing they learned with Space X is incorporated into the Tesla S. Their aim is to make the Model S the most reliable and problem-free vehicle due to this precision.

Now they are incorporating SolarCity technology into the entire system. This is absolutely brilliant!

obilgic• 14 years ago

Interestingly I was expecting him to have much better presentation/communication skills though. I guess being an successful entrepreneur has nothing to do with that.

RutZap• 14 years ago

I noticed that... he does lack some communication skills but .. in the end, the important thing is what you say and what you do, not how you say it. There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there with very good presentation skills and use a lot of buzzwords and get everybody excited but in the end, they don't produce anything. Facts before words do it for me and this guy won me with his presentation :D

breckinloggins2• 14 years ago

He's actually gotten better over time. But there's another side to this. He has this kind of humble "aww shucks" way about him that I and I suspect many people find endearing.

I've said this before, but I think Mr. Musk is one of a handful of "altruistic capitalists" that, if we are to stay with capitalism as a system, we desperately need more of. His somewhat awkward but "gee I could imagine playing XBox with him" style goes well with that image.

Keyframe2• 14 years ago

While I agree that his moves (he) are brilliant, we still have to see widespread impact of his companies apart from PR waves. What I like most about his companies is they share a common vision that, at least to us outsiders, gives a notion of futurism combined with altruism and hardcore business. Rare event.

tinco• 14 years ago

Ehh no. Paypal obviously had and still has a huge impact on global ecommerce. SpaceX launched a rocket into space and landed a contract with Nasa. And Tesla set up a factory line producing fully electric cars for (rich) consumers. Elon Musk is without a doubt one of the greatest entrepreneurs ever.

sgk284• 14 years ago

I'm hoping his next big project, HyperLoop, lives up to his ambitions for it. Being able to travel to any city in the continental U.S. in about 30 minutes will permanently change the entire economy and daily life for everyone.

breckinloggins2• 14 years ago

I have some thoughts on this. They don't really have a central theme but I love to think about this stuff:

- Pneumatic / maglev hybrid seems like the optimal choice. With magnetic levitation and no air resistance, extreme speeds are possible.

- Initially I thought that the ideal mass transit system would allow people to carry their cars with them. The idea is that people often have to choose between the benefits of mass transit and the loss of freedom that comes with not having their car once they reach their destination. But recent innovations lead me to think this won't be necessary. I can easily see a time when all cars are autonomous and you can call one up on demand (as others in this thread have pointed out as well). Therefore, it's easy to conceive of a time when you can hop on the HyperLoop, pull out your smartphone, pick the destination, and tell the system you want a (semi-)autonomous vehicle waiting for you when you arrive.

- To make this feasible, we HAVE to get the cost down. It shouldn't take a trillion dollars or more to build this network across the US. The rest of the points will be about that.

- The system should be built, as much as possible, out of a series of standardized components that "snap together". I'm envisioning a "series of tubes" sections that are straightforwardly snapped end to end with standard mounts to hang them or put them on pylons. There would be different lengths, curve radii, etc depending on how you needed to route the track.

- These "tubelets" themselves should be constructible on-site or close to it, similar to how concrete for roads is made on-site. The idea is to minimize shipping costs as much as possible.

- Ultimately, it would be nice if we could employ molecular nano-assembly and have the tubes build themselves, but as a compromise, many parts of the construction could be handled by autonomous or semi-autonomous moving construction rigs that can set themselves up, perform most of the construction work, then tear themselves down and drive off. Again, the more standardized and "Lego like" you can make the components, the easier this would be.

- Each section should have solar panels, a way of storing energy, and a way of giving or receiving energy to nearby sections. Ideally, this would all be connected with a "master bus" that would, when necessary, send power to sections of the loop that haven't had decent sunlight in a while, etc. In general, the idea would be to keep the system as self-sufficient as possible, but have full failover when needed.

- We'd also need to solve the cultural-political problems involved in getting all the landowners to agree to run elevated track over their property.

Thinking about the last two problems, an interesting solution presents itself:

- Why not partner with the power grid organizations and use the existing transmission line right-of-way to run much of the "long haul" routes? They already have the land, they have made wide "lanes" through brush and other unforgiving terrain to run the lines, and there's the power when you need it!

- You might even consider slowly replacing many of the transmission lines with just the tunnels. These tunnels would transmit the power and also help generate it with solar panels, taking only what the need to run the line and giving back everything else. This SHOULD be a massive net positive gain. The only downside I can see would be people that consider two sections of elevated tubes to be a massively worse eye-sore than the existing wires. But surely that would be solvable?

loceng2• 14 years ago

It's synergy. I am working the same way with my own plans.

rossjudson• 14 years ago

I'm waiting for Musk to take the first Tesla car ride on the moon. Solar powered.

jwr• 14 years ago

I find it rather amazing that a single entrepreneur takes on a task normally expected from governments.

nicholassmith3• 14 years ago

I agree, and I think we'll see more of it as we go along.

aidenn02• 14 years ago

Would that task be supplying the international space station, or building an EV charging structure?

Dinoguy1000• 14 years ago

I think we finally know the real purpose behind the Dead Space Markers...

kamaal10• 14 years ago

The arguments in this thread are amusing to say at the least. 30 minute charging times, high prices of Tesla cars. Yes all that is true. But this was never about 'Electric cars are awesome now'.

I'm pretty sure cars during and before pre Henry Ford times were not very great in terms of their overall affordability, total cost of ownership and availability of fuel all around the country. You could trust your horse to drive you back home on any day more than a car. Similar to that, the IBM computers during their early days. You mobile phone is likely to have more computing power than all the computers IBM sold a few decades back, they were highly painful to use, maintain and use. Needless to say all these things had huge maintenance issues.

But these things have caught on. So have automation, productivity and so many other new things that eventually people show friction towards but later take them to be fate accompli and learn to move forward.

Electric cars, self driving cars, wearable computing(like Google glasses) well these really might look to be unfeasible at this time. But please, these are just ideas which are waiting for their time to come, with a little push they will eventually catch on.

justincormack2• 14 years ago

Electric cars are 100 years old and have not improved much, bizarrely http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/05/the-status-quo-of-ele...

kamaal10• 14 years ago

Well mechanical engines were there from a couple of centuries in fact. The steam engine was invented a ton lot of years before fuel driven cars caught on.

s_henry_paulson• 14 years ago

Electric cars have improved immensely.

- Better battery performance and lifespan. - Improved charging time and technology. - Distance cars can travel in a single charge. - Increased torque and horsepower. - Affordability and increases is mass production.

And most importantly, increases in the necessary infrastructure to support long-distance travel (exactly the topic at hand)

Your comment is very uninformed.

Retric• 14 years ago

They have twice the range, are more than twice as fast, charge in 1/10th the time, AC, power steering, etc.

But, yea then again by your estimation internal combustion cars have not improved either as they still use fire.

aidenn02• 14 years ago

Hmm The lowest end Model S vs. Fritchle Victoria Phaeton

* Similar cost, adjusted for inflation (49k vs 48k)

* 1.6x range compared to Fritchle (160mi vs 100)

* At more than 2x the speed (25max vs 55(speed for quoted range))

* With climate control

mtgx• 14 years ago

This is obviously a very "disruptive" technology and/or business model, from every point of view, both positive and negative. Just think about how all disruptive innovations come to be. They are awesome and game-changing from a certain point of view (free charging/"gas"!) but can also have some big downsides (30 minute charging, only half a charge - at first).

But the part you should be focusing on is the first one, the positive one. Because that will change everything and to some people, the second part, the negative one, will be irrelevant just long enough for Tesla to work on improving it and years later making it "good enough" for most people.

Remember how the iPhone was awesome at user interface and interaction? But sucked at battery life (compared to other smartphones), had only a 2 MP camera, no video recording, only 2G connection and no MMS? That may not have been good enough for 90% of Nokia or Blackberry users back then, but the iPhone is good enough for almost everyone today, and the iPhone changed the entire industry. That's how disruptive innovations work, and I believe that's exactly how Tesla's new model will work.

Also, do you know how everyone says I wish I would've bought Apple stock when the iPhone first appeared? Well, if I was into stock, I'd probably start buying Tesla stock just about now.

loceng2• 14 years ago

The positives are enough of an incentive to have people change their behaviours in order to compensate for the 'negatives' of using such technology. If you know you'll have 30 minutes minimum to kill then you'll plan for it. Lunch time, work time, walk around a park time, meetup and chat with other people who are waiting time, walk your dog time, mini-yoga class time, etc.. Throw in self-driving cars into the mix and the break activities will likely be more social and physical things, and less high mental activity time - unless you're a workaholic.

Swizec• 14 years ago

From what I understand 30 minute charging is amazing.

To paraphrase Richard Hammond: "Forgetting something at home when I go to work would be a 2 day round-trip because it's so far no electric car has the range. I would have to spend one night recharging the car somewhere in the middle"

His problem has just been solved. Sure, it might take him 3.5 hours (random number) instead of just 3. But that's insanely better than having to stay the night to recharge your car.

jaggederest2• 14 years ago

Honestly, electric cars are never going to be completely practical for people with a daily commute beyond 150 miles or so.

But if you're commuting 3 hours a day total, you have bigger issues with your life, to be honest. Move closer to where you commute!

nancyhua2• 14 years ago

30 minutes is already a vast improvement over the old technology which took hours, maybe 6 hours if you weren't on the fast connection, or I heard days if you were stuck using a normal outlet.

stcredzero4• 14 years ago

> friction towards but later take them to be fate accompli

Two malapropisms in a row, or an iOS autocorrect?

TeMPOraL4• 14 years ago

Here's a thought (disclaimer - IANAEE):

Could we charge electric vehicles while driving? Could we bury, say, some coils under the highways and have cars have a transformer on board to draw power from the road? That would remove the need for charging stations on a long-distance trips almost completely.

mburns• 14 years ago

http://www.gizmag.com/kaist-olev-electric-vehicle/12557/

lloeki• 14 years ago

You're looking for an induction system here. At speed you may encounter some unwanted force effects (think maglev).

jlebrech• 14 years ago

another option would be to have a laser receiver and have laser turrets along the motorway blasting energy at them.

gaius• 14 years ago

Yes - those are called trams :-)

kokey• 14 years ago

I think electric cars will only really flourish once self driving vehicles become more practical and common. That convergence, along with civilian drones, will expand and improve our options for transport immensely, while also improving efficiency dramatically. It's still a long way to go, but the technologies to make it happen exists today. It's going to be more of an infrastructure change, for example to provide specially marked routes and stopping points for self driving vehicles. The benefits of implementing this is going to take a while for people to realise, but doing so will be comparable or cheaper than current mass transit projects, while offering significantly more flexibility regarding routes and capacity. It will allow people to improve the mobility they have with their own cars now, while improving efficiency so people can live better in and around bigger cities.

For example, instead of bus routes, you can have a car come to pick you up at or near home at a scheduled time, or on demand, to take you to the train station to make a scheduled train on time. When the train arrives in the city you can have a similar car take you to the office. The cars can manage stopping to recharge by itself. The car routes can be updated and optimised based on demand or congestion, new routes can be added easier than bus routes. Software can manage your individual trips so you only have to make decisions based on time and cost. Deliveries can be done with automated cars and flying drones, and this can be adapted much quicker based on demand.

confluence4• 14 years ago

This is it - the tipping point has finally arrived.

This is a killer combination of rapidly falling prices in solar PV (thank you China/Kyoto protocol/Global warming), meeting the falling prices of Li-ion batteries (thank you astonishingly successful decade of laptops/smartphones/tablets), meets a cyclic economic boom (thank you GFC), meets rising gas prices (thank you OPEC/cheap oil/peak oil), meets anti-carbon incentives (thank you IPCC), meets autonomous cars (thank you Google), meets the development of nuclear fusion (thank you ITER) all combining into one massive tailwind for the one company just on the cusp of absolutely crushing it.

It's a complete clusterfuck of fortune, falling costs, converging secondary technologies and economic forces concentrated in one company protected with monopoly pricing, akin to those found by Apple, Google, YouTube, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, Facebook and many other tech giants.

TSLA will go 10x within the next 20 years (or get bought out before it - unlikely) as it rides these convergent waves of progress.

Please for the love of capitalism short the crap out of it and don't buy it! I need to get as much of this stock as cheap as possible over the next 2-3 years of savings :D - you'd be doing me a favour!

Full disclosure: I have a significant amount of my net worth in TSLA stock and have done so on and off for 2 years (riding cycles for fun). I used to own AAPL - until relatively recently - whereupon I transferred all holdings to Google/Tesla. I may be exiting Google within the next 6 months due to rapid appreciation.

ams61103• 14 years ago

You are smart enough to know the risks of having a significant fraction of your net worth in one asset, so I'll spare you the lecture there.

Tipping point? No, I don't think so. It's progress, and it's good news, but 30 minutes to recharge is still a LONG time compared to the two minutes a petroleum-fueled vehicle takes, and the best of those can go several multiples of the Teslas range between fuelings.

confluence4• 14 years ago

I'm obviously biased - so please take everything I state with a grain of salt.

My tipping point is not a "singular moment" or "lightbulb" - but merely the slow agglomeration over the next decade of multiple convergent waves that just happen to put wind in the sails of the only company able to execute on this plan at this point in time.

Diversification is overrated. When crises happen - all correlations go to one - everything goes down simultaneously. Also my returns are cut in half :D.

freehunter3• 14 years ago

On my morning commute, it's important that fueling be quick. I have to stop at a station and fill up, something I can't do at home. However, if I were in an EV, I could fill up at home, while I slept. It'd be fully charged when I got in to go to work. If I could charge 30 minutes to half at home, charging time is nearly insignificant.

I would still love to see hydrogen cars instead. I think Honda has it right.

chucknelson• 14 years ago

How about diversification?

confluence4• 14 years ago

Diversification doesn't work. It not only leaves your risk essentially the same in case of catastrophic market failure (see GFC/debt crisis - bonds are safe RIGHT?).

It also cuts your returns in half and brings you down along with everyone else - and gives you a false sense of security - nothing is safe - not even shorting the world (end of the world/counter party/regulatory risks).

As an investor you must think long and hard about the future/companies/investments make very few super high signal, super high impact trades/positions/companies that you know inside and out (financials/GDP winds etc).

I'd rather invest in 20 companies I know inside and out than 500 mediocre ones that I know nothing about. But that's me - most people don't know anything and they SHOULD diversify.

If you don't know anything - the best thing you could do is assume no better than random.

ZoFreX2• 14 years ago

So why wasn't the 2 minute full charge time that Better Place unveiled several years ago the tipping point?

This is an incremental development and nothing more.

tocomment• 14 years ago

I'm not clear on where they're putting the solar panels. Are they storing the electricity? Can it charge more than one car at once?

debacle• 14 years ago

The 30 minute charging time kind of sucks, but it's a small price to pay for owning a completely electric car, and I'm sure it's probably up there as far as improvements go on the priority list.

protomyth2• 14 years ago

So, at what point does the local government slap a tax to pay for the roads and how much will it be?

MikeCapone• 14 years ago

A lot more slides and details here:

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/tesla-unveils-its-supercharge...

sbouafif• 14 years ago

This is a very disruptive technology. I am wondering how much surface of solar panels (and "solar power") do they need to charge to answer to all the demand on a daily basis. And by extrapolation is this can be done widely (for buildings, universities, homes...)?

The oil industry should rethink its business model. And we should buy Tesla's stock right about now.

at-fates-hands• 14 years ago

I think its interesting to hear people constantly challenging this technology.

Fist it was it couldn't be done. An electric car? No way.

Then Telsa Motors comes out with an electric sports car. No way! Too expensive! Top Gear made a mockery of the car. Not feasible, what happens when you run out of charge?

Then Tesla Motors figures out a way to create "re-fueling" stations for their cars. No way! 30 minutes to charge my car? WAY too long! Stupid.

Whether you know it or not, each step this company takes, it's answering every one of the doubts people have about this technology. Affordable completely electric cars are a lot closer than most people think.

gubatron• 14 years ago

I think this conversation should be less about the electric vehicles and more about the idea of creating a decentralized solar grid. And one that will encourage existing gas station owners to do the same and bank on all that lost solar energy.

scottmcleod• 14 years ago

I'm glad theres at least one entrepreneur whose denting the universe versus profits, Musk for president.

omegant• 14 years ago

Why not a small trailer with battery packs for long trips? or if you don´t want-need to go green, it could go with an engine and a generator. You connect it to your car and that way you can add range in an easy way. It´s also fast to swap at the e-station, just 2 min...

Tesla reveals Supercharger network, Free Fill Ups

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