First Tesla Superchargers with "Magic Dock" CCS Adapter are online... and charged up a Rivian

[Mach-Lee]

Almost all of the DCFC charging curve is 124 kW or lower. Mostly lower. So the total impact is very minimal. If the MME could keep a sustained charge rate of above 124 kW for 20 minutes I would be concerned. It can't.

I am so ready to buy my adapter!

With the 350A limitation, the Supercharger is only going to take a minute or two longer than a 350 kW/500A station. So yes, very minimal time impact.

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[dbsb3233]

I rarely charge above 60% when road tripping. Also try to stay under 20 minutes at each stop, unless we are eating. People that charge to 80% or more at each stop are the ones causing the lines.

Only if rolling the dice and making each one a do-or-die stop by showing up with 10% or less each stop. I charge to 80% nearly every DCFC, but I'm showing up at 30-40% on average so I have enough to make it to the next station in case that one is bad. Only adds about 2 minutes to the total charge, but it adds a ton of safety.

Also, even if someone does add 70% (10-80) instead of just 40-50%, it means they might be able to skip the next station. That may end up helping people at the next would-be station if it's the busy one.

 

[dbsb3233]

With the 350A limitation, the Supercharger is only going to take a minute or two longer than a 350 kW/500A station. So yes, very minimal time impact.

I calculated the time savings of that first 2 minutes where it peaks at ~163kw before dropping to ~120, and it came out to something like a whopping 51 seconds. Hardly even worth counting vs just starting at ~120.

 

[AZBill]

On one trip I took this summer, I needed to charge to 100% because my next stop didn't have any chargers and I planned to be driving around quite a bit. It took an hour.

Yes sometimes you have to go to 80% or higher. But many people always believe they have to charge to 80% at every stop. I had two situations this summer where I got to chargers that were full and outputting low power. At one I charged to 35%, because that was all I needed to get to a better functioning charger. When that happened again on another trip, I stopped at 45% to get to another charger. I saved a lot of time that way.

 

[dbsb3233]

Yes sometimes you have to go to 80% or higher. But many people always believe they have to charge to 80% at every stop. I had two situations this summer where I got to chargers that were full and outputting low power. At one I charged to 35%, because that was all I needed to get to a better functioning charger. When that happened again on another trip, I stopped at 45% to get to another charger. I saved a lot of time that way.

Saves time at the station you're just leaving. Costs time at the station you charge at next (unless it's the final DCFC of the day, of course.)

Unless you charge OVER 80% where the power drops significantly, the difference between doing more (or even none) at one station vs the other is minor.

But good luck showing up at that next station at 10% and finding it broken or full or significantly derated, without enough left to make it anywhere else.

 

[thekat03]

Currently a person is allowed to stay at most chargers as long as they want. On non-holiday weekends reservations are not needed. They are needs for the busiest holiday travel times. This probably will not be true after 2024. Ferries have reservatins. Trains have reservations. Planes and motels have reservations. Naysaying is not a reason against them.

Requiring reservations for a charger is going to suck with things like traffic throwing things off. Someone makes a reservation, then gets delayed by an unexpected accident. Someone else shows up at the charger wanting to charge but it's got a reservation. Does that mean they can't charge, because the reservation holder might show up in 5 minutes and take their reservation? Or can they charge because nobody else is, and who knows when the reservation holder actually will get there? Or do reservations re-calculate on the fly and allow someone to plug in if the reservation holder is delayed, but kick them off when the reservation holder arrives and checks in?

 

[ChehRob]

It sucks to want to travel on a holiday when there are critical shortages of charger. It will likely be two years before decent availability.

 

[AhardFSU]

It sucks to want to travel on a holiday when there are critical shortages of charger. It will likely be two years before decent availability.

It seems like some people on this message board forget that you're going to have an additional 15k Tesla chargers available to you at least by the spring of 2024. That will make trips much more efficient.

 

[21st Century Pony]

Fear is mostly "fear of the unknown / fear of anticipation". Classic psychology... it drives a lot of marketing campaigns, and unfortunately a majority of political campaigns.

 

[ChehRob]

Charging network will not be adequate for long distance travelers for at least a couple more years. Fan boys notwithstanding. It is getting better month by month, that is not the same as saying it is a present reality. I still plan on buying early in '24, limitations and all.

 

[dbsb3233]

Charging network will not be adequate for long distance travelers for at least a couple more years. Fan boys notwithstanding. It is getting better month by month, that is not the same as saying it is a present reality. I still plan on buying early in '24, limitations and all.

Yes and no. We've done 35,000 miles of road trips across 14 states in our Mach-E so far. The DCFC network has been adequate for us.

But... it was more adequate when there were fewer CCS EVs on the roads a year or two ago. The risk of bottlenecks has grown with more EVs chasing the chargers, especially at EA that remains fixed at 4 chargers per station in most cases (with 1-2 often broken).

So yes, there can be bottlenecks, especially at peak times. That's just the inherent nature of DCFCing EVs. That will improve a lot next year with access to Tesla's 15,000 chargers, but lots more EVs are coming too so it'll be a challenge to keep up. Remember that Supercharger stations sometimes already see bottlenecks at peak times too, just from Teslas alone.

There's really no way around the increased risk of a lengthy bottleneck with EVs, as long as charging times average 10x longer than a gas refuel. The same thing would happen at the grocery store if the average check-out time were 10x longer. Or at a fast food drive-thru. A far longer transaction time means higher risk of bottlenecks. And with DCFC being VERY expensive to install, with poor economics for cost recovery, we're not likely to see a flood of overcapacity.

 

[dbsb3233]

With the risk of DCFC bottlenecks ever present, and the cost to build more DCFC capacity very high, two mitigating solutions come to mind...

First, end the practice of free, unlimited DCFC! It just incentivizes people that don't actually need to DCFC to tie up DCFC capacity and create more bottlenecks.

Second, we need way more hotel, apartment, and destination L2. It's way cheaper to install than DCFC. You can install more than 100 L2 chargers for the cost of a 2-post DCFC station. Start the day with 300 miles and most people don't need DCFC more than a handful of times per year.

 

[21st Century Pony]

With the risk of DCFC bottlenecks ever present, and the cost to build more DCFC capacity very high, two mitigating solutions come to mind...

First, end the practice of free, unlimited DCFC! It just incentivizes people that don't actually need to DCFC to tie up DCFC capacity and create more bottlenecks.

Second, we need way more hotel, apartment, and destination L2. It's way cheaper to install than DCFC. You can install more than 100 L2 chargers for the cost of a 2-post DCFC station. Start the day with 300 miles and most people don't need DCFC more than a handful of times per year.

^^ This. ^^

 

[AZBill]

Saves time at the station you're just leaving. Costs time at the station you charge at next (unless it's the final DCFC of the day, of course.)

Unless you charge OVER 80% where the power drops significantly, the difference between doing more (or even none) at one station vs the other is minor.

But good luck showing up at that next station at 10% and finding it broken or full or significantly derated, without enough left to make it anywhere else.

6 years driving EVs and never got stranded. I do a lot of planning and double checking along my route.

 

[dbsb3233]

6 years driving EVs and never got stranded. I do a lot of planning and double checking along my route.

Me neither, as I also do a lot of planning and double-checking. But I go a step further by leaving enough in the 'tank' to reach another DCFC station whenever possible. That's even better. It's not only safer, but it also gives me more flexibility and safety in case there's a detour, or an outage, or a heavy headwind, etc. Or I simply CHOOSE to get off the highway on the way and do something that adds a few dozen miles because I know I have that additional buffer to work with.

All the planning and double checking in the world can't tell if 5 EVs showed up ahead of you after you've committed to a do-or-die charge location without enough juice to make it to a backup. That may have been unlikely in previous years with very few EVs on the roads, but it's getting increasingly more crowded. A lengthy bottleneck might not be on the same level as getting stranded, but it's still a PITA. And those chances are easily minimized by simply driving in the 30-80% SOC area rather than 10-60%.

But to each their own.

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