Tesla's largest charging station is powered by solar

[RodHower]

It didn't mention in the article if the charging cables would be compatible with other EV's, but I hope future installations will all have a long enough charge cable for normal parking.
https://insideevs.com/news/780042/tesla-biggest-supercharger-solar-powered-megapack-storage/

Sponsored

 

[ChrisO]

Hopefully it will stay open this time. Last Thanksgiving it opened when it was partially finished to catch the holiday traffic and then closed shortly after that. I stopped there in the summer to check it out but it was closed.

Cable length shouldn’t be a problem if that can be judged by some of the newer ones that are on I-5.

 

[RyZt]

hope future installations will all have a long enough charge cable for normal parking.

the picture shows v4. V4 cables are long enough.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I hope it proves to be a viable site. Could be a gamechanger for establishing or renovating rest/charging stops, particularly in the south/southwest. I get that not everywhere is going to have that kind of solar availability, but hopefully the lessons learned allow other sites to be scaled up or down accordingly

 

[ChrisO]

I hope it proves to be a viable site. Could be a gamechanger for establishing or renovating rest/charging stops, particularly in the south/southwest. I get that not everywhere is going to have that kind of solar availability, but hopefully the lessons learned allow other sites to be scaled up or down accordingly

One thing to understand about that site is that it has almost the perfect location. I-5 is the major highway between San Francisco/San Jose and down to the Los Angeles area. It is also pretty well situated as far as being a good stop when heading north from the LA area. There is just a small city on one side of the highway which evidently is big enough to allow for connecting to the grid (there are already 20 older Tesla chargers on that side of the highway) (even though the new site mostly gets the power from the solar panels). And on the side this site was built on is empty land for pretty much as far as you can see.

I doubt there are a lot of sites that have these good conditions.

EDIT: I forgot one of the most important things, sunny days almost every day of the year.

 

[gz3490]

I am planning a trip to NorCal this weekend and was looking at stops/chargers, it looks like this weekend this stop was VERY busy with long restroom lines. Also if you look at google reviews several Tesla vehicles were not getting fast charges, they peaked very low, I wonder since it is solely powered by what is in they battery banks, if those are low, would this cause the chargers to decrease the flow to attempt and save some power for the rest of the crowds.

has anyone experience anything like this or similar?

 

[ChrisO]

I am planning a trip to NorCal this weekend and was looking at stops/chargers, it looks like this weekend this stop was VERY busy with long restroom lines. Also if you look at google reviews several Tesla vehicles were not getting fast charges, they peaked very low, I wonder since it is solely powered by what is in they battery banks, if those are low, would this cause the chargers to decrease the flow to attempt and save some power for the rest of the crowds.

has anyone experience anything like this or similar?

Interesting question, and I think the answer is it is going to depend on the location and how many chargers are in use.

For instance, I'm not traveling at these busy times, but when I do travel, I tend to charge at Electrify America, which definitely has less chargers per location than Tesla. But I have seen the locations I go to be completely full and still deliver all that the Mach-E can take. So, the natural assumption there is that the input power is sized so that all the chargers can deliver full power.

Now with charging it is highly unlikely that all the cars will be asking for the full power. Just with the Mach-E it maxes out at about 150 so the 320 on the chargers is meaningless to a Mach-E, but even more important, most EVs drop pretty quickly in what they can use.

I think Telsa, especially at this site counts on the fact that not all of the chargers will be in use, and that on average most of the EVs won't be requesting their max power. Since this site is very newly opened for that many stalls I think this last week will be a good indication of if the site is actually under powered for peak times. I suspect it is. If you fill all the stalls, that battery/solar isn't going to be able to keep it up for the number of hours required especially at night.

The worse I have ever had was on an EVGO, it seems like if the location was full, they wouldn't give even close to their stated rating.

 

[gz3490]

interestingly enough, the week after Thanksgiving this site has been closed. I just returned from my road trip and the area, Central Valley has been cloudy. Again thinking the batteries may be "empty/low" and not able to currently accommodate the demand.

Just interesting observation and assumptions.

 

[ChrisO]

interestingly enough, the week after Thanksgiving this site has been closed. I just returned from my road trip and the area, Central Valley has been cloudy. Again thinking the batteries may be "empty/low" and not able to currently accommodate the demand.

Just interesting observation and assumptions.

Oh, they did again!

This is the same thing they did last year!

At this point all those chargers have been "holiday only".

 

[Mr. Toejam]

One thing to understand about that site is that it has almost the perfect location. I-5 is the major highway between San Francisco/San Jose and down to the Los Angeles area. It is also pretty well situated as far as being a good stop when heading north from the LA area. There is just a small city on one side of the highway which evidently is big enough to allow for connecting to the grid (there are already 20 older Tesla chargers on that side of the highway) (even though the new site mostly gets the power from the solar panels). And on the side this site was built on is empty land for pretty much as far as you can see.

I doubt there are a lot of sites that have these good conditions.

EDIT: I forgot one of the most important things, sunny days almost every day of the year.

I agree that it is a great spot. Lost Hills (12 by Dennys + 164 east of the 5) and Kettlemen City (55 Chargers) are basically 1/2 way between SoCal and the Bay Area. I won't need it for this holiday season, but hopefully they will be open for all of the road trippers.

When I first got my Mach-e, there were 4 x EA chargers in Lost Hills. They were either not working, being used or ICE'd. When Tesla opened up, we could use the 12 chargers at the Denny's but they were often filled with Teslas. It was painful rolling up to a a station only to see 1-2 Bolts waiting to charge. So many people were road tripping in them. They would be at the chargers for 2 hours. and don't get me started with the VW and Hyundai drivers with free charging waiting for 100%.

From San Jose (heading to OC), I would be around 10-15% hitting Lost Hills. But if they were full or not working, I could not make it to the next chargers at Bakersfield off of Enos road (4 x EA and maybe 10 Teslas 2 or 3 accessible...Parking bumpers and very tall islands mean you can't get close enough to charge). So I would need to charge at Kettleman to 65-70% and then charge again in Santa Clarita (10-15%) to make it home. Now, an 80% (90% in the winter) charge at Lost Hills will get me home.

2022-2023, this was was a tough drive. I often changed 3-4 times because of the unreliability or unavailability of EA chargers, I would stop at every EA station and change to 80%. I would skip chargers if they were down or full. But if there was a space, I charged. It sometimes added 1-1.5 hours to my trip, but sometimes it saved me several hours waking for a charger. 24-25 became worry free when Tesla opened up. With these massive sights from Tesla, it is now convenient with multiple locations right off of the freeway and with accurate availability reporting.

As for sunny every day of the year...as a former resident of Visalia, the Central Valley can go 1-2 months where you don't see the sun because of clouds and our infamous Tule Fog. It is a gray, low-to-no energy haze 24/7. If you have never experienced Tule Fog, place a pare of eye glasses in the freezer, take them out, put them on and take a sip from a hot cup of coffee. If you can't see anything....you are experiencing Tule Fog. But I get what you are saying, the other 10 months is pounding sunshine and clean energy.

 

[ChrisO]

I agree that it is a great spot. Lost Hills (12 by Dennys + 164 east of the 5) and Kettlemen City (55 Chargers) are basically 1/2 way between SoCal and the Bay Area. I won't need it for this holiday season, but hopefully they will be open for all of the road trippers.

When I first got my Mach-e, there were 4 x EA chargers in Lost Hills. They were either not working, being used or ICE'd. When Tesla opened up, we could use the 12 chargers at the Denny's but they were often filled with Teslas. It was painful rolling up to a a station only to see 1-2 Bolts waiting to charge. So many people were road tripping in them. They would be at the chargers for 2 hours. and don't get me started with the VW and Hyundai drivers with free charging waiting for 100%.

From San Jose (heading to OC), I would be around 10-15% hitting Lost Hills. But if they were full or not working, I could not make it to the next chargers at Bakersfield off of Enos road (4 x EA and maybe 10 Teslas 2 or 3 accessible...Parking bumpers and very tall islands mean you can't get close enough to charge). So I would need to charge at Kettleman to 65-70% and then charge again in Santa Clarita (10-15%) to make it home. Now, an 80% (90% in the winter) charge at Lost Hills will get me home.

2022-2023, this was was a tough drive. I often changed 3-4 times because of the unreliability or unavailability of EA chargers, I would stop at every EA station and change to 80%. I would skip chargers if they were down or full. But if there was a space, I charged. It sometimes added 1-1.5 hours to my trip, but sometimes it saved me several hours waking for a charger. 24-25 became worry free when Tesla opened up. With these massive sights from Tesla, it is now convenient with multiple locations right off of the freeway and with accurate availability reporting.

As for sunny every day of the year...as a former resident of Visalia, the Central Valley can go 1-2 months where you don't see the sun because of clouds and our infamous Tule Fog. It is a gray, low-to-no energy haze 24/7. If you have never experienced Tule Fog, place a pare of eye glasses in the freezer, take them out, put them on and take a sip from a hot cup of coffee. If you can't see anything....you are experiencing Tule Fog. But I get what you are saying, the other 10 months is pounding sunshine and clean energy.

Yeah, I forgot about fog! We got trapped in that one time coming home from Las Vegas.

Sponsored