I really enjoy this article and hope tesla succeeds, but I am always turned off by plug-in EVs. Say for example, he does achieve 30 minutes charging for 3 hours driving. And say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? in off hours of the day, those will not all be utilized, thus lose money. It seems like a terribly inefficient way to power cars. Even gas stations get lines on 5 and 101, and it only takes like 3 minutes there. EVs will always be niche until you can 'refuel' in 3 minutes or less, and you can't do that with 'chargers' because people will die. Swappable packs is the only way to go, and I hope that Tesla is at least thinking of that.
> ... say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station?
That's a legitimate issue. There's talk of eventually having battery-swap stations -- you drive in and your battery is swapped out for a freshly charged one. There are obviously practical difficulties, not least of which is the size and weight of EV batteries and the fact that there's no standardization right now. But it's expected that these issues will eventually be addressed as the system's advantages become obvious.
You'll probably be able to reserve the SuperCharger from your phone while you're driving, or even from your Tesla dash. That way, when you arrive, you're all ready to charge. If when you try to reserve a charging space from your phone, there aren't any spots... I guess you'll have to reserve the next available time then... unless they do something creative.
When there's a much smaller number of electric cars you can get away with a much smaller number of recharging/swapping stations and "pumps". They can incrementally add more stations as more electric cars are operating. Swapping stations would probably take a greater real estate footprint and require more human staffing than a charging station, which can be fairly small and automated (picture a coin-operated tire air machine). I would not be surprised if somebody at Tesla has already put R&D time into the idea of not only setting up a swapping station, but also automating it and designing a car model that works well with it. But it takes time, and devil in the details. As Elon (or any good engineer would say), there are a lot of constraints and trade-offs involved. For now, for launch, they're confident a network of roadside charging stations will suffice for the number of vehicles they expect, at least the first few years, and for the kind of buyer who will be buying early -- folks that have the most wealth and/or most want the shiny and/or most are about having an electric car rather than having everything work exactly like a gas car. As Elon has said too, I think, they'll have to deliver different features and tradeoffs in long run to be able to sell to a broader mix of customer types. But never let the perfect be the enemy of the better than what you have today. Sell to a certain customer segment. Ship product. Then later expand to other segments with different products. They could launch with what they have now, then later create new models or variants designed to allow battery swapping. That is not mutually exclusive with the charging approach, strategy-wise.
Also since they're following a "we only build what people have actually ordered" approach, they also have the opportunity to forecast, much more accurately, where there's going to be increased demand for charging/swapping stations. But regardless, they can do the cow pathing technique. (Or MIT sidewalk laying technique.) Watch where the cows/students go. Add sidewalks there. More students/cows? Widen paths or add more paths. Put one station in each major city. Add more stations and more nodes to match demand. Add stations along journey mid-points (bisections). Rinse, repeat, scale up.
I disagree. I've modeled it. If 500+ of these cars go from SF to LA on a weekend, it's going to be utter chaos. One pump at one service station servicing 500+ cars is barely a win on the SF to LA route for gasoline, so it's beyond incredulous to think that charging stations that take at least 10 times longer are going to change that or make the economics even remotely desirable from a business standpoint.
I am a firm believer in "the medium is the message." For 15 years before the iPhone, Microsoft parroted your comment above almost exactly about smartphones and tablets, needing to hit "critical mass". It didn't happen. They had a shitty UI, and people didn't want to develop for it, and so people didn't buy their hardware.
Simply. Batteries are very expensive. They are not going down in price like transitors, not even linearly with a reasonable slope. We are already at 'economies of scale,' due to the electronics industry. ( you can think of the electric packs, as N MBP batteries strung together ) Batteries will always be the most expensive part of the car ( it's like buying 80% of all the gasoline your car will ever need when you purchase it initially, rather than incrementally over the life-time of the car ). Charging stations are both too dangerous and too expensive to implement for even 1% of vehicles to be electric. It will be like parking spaces, but much more expensive. The only solution for EVs, on technology even on the horizon, is battery exchange systems.
I believe Elon could do it, if anyone can, but not with how Tesla is set up now.
>When there's a much smaller number of electric cars you can get away with a much smaller number of recharging/swapping stations and "pumps".
No they don't, and this is a big catch for them. This is a chicken and egg problem. People will be reluctant to buy electric cars until there are fast recharge stations everywhere around, because home charging takes a lot of time, and needing to travel far away you're essentially stuck. These charging stations are not quickly appearing because there are too few people with electric cars to use them. This will fix, but much, much slower than technically/economically possible.
