Thoughts on TESLA

[ERD50]

Regarding the breaking news, is everyone aware that the President of France added carbon taxes to gasoline to " discourage the use of ICE's and promote EV's"? ....

Again, politicians, with implementation dates past when they will be in office. Doesn't mean a hill of beans, IMO.

.... If France is hitting ICE owners in the pocketbook (7 dollar a gallon gas, I read the taxes were 60%), you know it will be the U.S. "soon". ....

Most of Europe has had petrol taxes far higher than the US for decades. Nothing "soon" about it.

Funny thing, if EVs are so great, why do these politicians need to force us to buy them!

Remember when the government outlawed fax machines, in order to force us to use email? Me neither.

-ERD50

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

It's the fun of going new places. ("The charger's at Target, so I'll go there, though if I'd gone to Meijer I could have gotten everything on my list in one trip and paid less").



It's the lack of worry. ("Will that SOB with the red Model 3 be Bogarting the sole charger in front of the bookstore gain?")


It's the community spirit. ("I nod to my eco pals as we slip around the frozen charger area for our daily top-up charge. Sure, my hands get cold, but I need the juice! Cold weather kills our range, and if there's another pileup on the expressway, I'll be happy I have this Jon-E handwarmer. ")


It's the convenience. (" I do a dozen Level Two 15-minute top-offs and I can skip the 5 minute stop at the gas station I used to do once per week.")

What's the first sentence in Ready's post #1373 on this thread?

Those that are unhappy with the changes that are occurring can remain negative. Its not a healthy way to live however.

 

[gerntz]

Lithium batteries cannot be charged below freezing; irreversible damage will occur, and the batteries that are cold-charged may later erupt in flame. Hence, battery packs for consumer products all have electronics with a temperature sensor to block the charging when appropriate. Some special lithium batteries can be charged at 14F, and that's it.

However, I read that discharging is OK. And a battery in use tends to heat itself up.

About no ICE in 20 years, people in MN and cold climate will be in a lot more hurt than having no cars in the winter. What do they use right now for heating? Without burning something (no carbon, remember?), what will they use for heating? Solar power on cloudy and snowy days?

So how do you start a Tesla that's been sitting all night at -20? How do you charge it?

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Again, politicians, with implementation dates past when they will be in office. Doesn't mean a hill of beans, IMO.



Most of Europe has had petrol taxes far higher than the US for decades. Nothing "soon" about it.



Funny thing, if EVs are so great, why do these politicians need to force us to buy them!



Remember when the government outlawed fax machines, in order to force us to use email? Me neither.

-ERD50

"Nothing soon about it"...I'm referring to the day when gasoline is taxed much higher to motivate consumers to dump the ICE's and use emission free vehicles. Like what is happening in France. Right now.

"If EV's are so great"...President Macron says its to eliminate fossil fuel vehicles. You can fax or email the President of France ( or UK, Germany, Norway, China or India) for further information.

 

[NW-Bound]

So how do you start a Tesla that's been sitting all night at -20? How do you charge it?

An EV owner can consult his manual to see what the car maker recommends. However, just from the technical info regarding lithium batteries in general, I can see the following practices.

1) If the battery was charged before getting cold soaked, discharging (driving) is OK as long as the current demand is reduced. Remember that charging is a big nono, but discharging at a lower current is OK. The battery will warm itself up as it is being "worked". Or some of its juice could be used in a heater for self-warming, as the battery has a circulatory coolant system for temperature control. This could explain why the range of EVs is reduced in the winter, because not just the passenger compartment needs heat, but the battery needs to warm itself too.

2) If the cold-soaked battery is discharged and an AC outlet is available for charging, the car electronics will turn on an electric heater in the battery coolant system to heat up the battery with that AC power, then turns on the charger once the temperature is sufficiently raised.

 

[Texas Proud]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, Musk said that Tesla charging stations will eventually be solar-powered.

Sure, why not? But look at the drawing below. Can you see what's wrong?

Since nobody responded.... all the people are shadows!!!!








OK.. for real... the angle of the roof is wrong when looking at its shadow...

 

[ERD50]

Since nobody responded.... all the people are shadows!!!!


OK.. for real... the angle of the roof is wrong when looking at its shadow...

I overlooked the shadow people, kinda creepy!

I think NW-Bound is looking for a more technical answer. I'll see if any of the fans can come up with one before I post my thoughts.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

I think the "shadow" people were intentional to show that this is an artist conception.

Nowadays, computer-generated graphics is quite good that without the "shadow" people, I would think it were a real photo on the 1st glance.

Yes, the problem I have with this is more technical. Hint: think about how well this is going to work. You need a calculator handy.

 

[Popeye]

I think the "shadow" people were intentional to show that this is an artist conception.

Nowadays, computer-generated graphics is quite good that without the "shadow" people, I would think it were a real photo on the 1st glance.

Yes, the problem I have with this is more technical. Hint: think about how well this is going to work. You need a calculator handy.

There’s no way to hit all those cars with 1.21 gigawatts at precisely 88 mph!

 

[Lakewood90712]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, Musk said that Tesla charging stations will eventually be solar-powered.

Sure, why not? But look at the drawing below. Can you see what's wrong?

Looks OK to me. In the edge of the picture I can just barely see the cooling tower for the Nuclear Power Plant that provides the electricity for the supercharger station.

PS IMO that is currently the best way to provide the juice for a massive fleet of EV's. Solar and wind are great , but they will not feed the bulldog anytime soon.

 

[JoeWras]

One of the frequent topics that pops up around here is "Condo Association Fees." Especially with regard to special assessments, or not properly funding the capital reserve funds.

The discussions about the new fees required to build out the EV stations should be interesting.

 

[Blueskies123]

Looks OK to me. In the edge of the picture I can just barely see the cooling tower for the Nuclear Power Plant that provides the electricity for the supercharger station.

PS IMO that is currently the best way to provide the juice for a massive fleet of EV's. Solar and wind are great , but they will not feed the bulldog anytime soon.

Solar during sunny days, nuclear on cloudy days and at night equals no oil/coals fired power plants.

 

[ERD50]

Looks OK to me. In the edge of the picture I can just barely see the cooling tower for the Nuclear Power Plant that provides the electricity for the supercharger station.

...
Yes, the problem I have with this is more technical. Hint: think about how well this is going to work. You need a calculator handy.

I'll still wait a bit to see if the fans can use critical thinking, but in the mean time, can we agree to some assumptions before I go to a calculator or envelope-back?

I see 9, maybe 10 cars - say 10 for easy math.

I see 14(?) car spaces on each side? Say 15 x 2 = 30 for easy math.

The solar panels are 5 deep, with the angle, it's hard to say how many across. If I estimate the half-way point, I count about 15 panels, so 30 across? 30 x 5 = 150 panels?

Estimate 250 w peak for those panels? Or 300?

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, some engineers here quickly figure out that this Tesla charging station is so far from being off-grid, that if I were an engineer working there I would be ashamed that the company puts out something like this.

Here are some numbers that I ran, using real data.

Assuming a really generous parking spot of 10 ft x 20 ft per car, I can put the very best solar panels in that parking space for each car, and get 3.7 kW of max power production. You immediately see the problem, as each supercharger takes around 100 kW.

The sun does not shine 24 hours either. If you leave your car plugged in all day, using data from NREL (www.nrel.gov), here in Phoenix, a Tesla Model 3 with the long-range option battery of 75 kWh will take 3.3 days to charge. And that's in the middle of the summer. In mid-winter, it will take 6 days.

And that again is in Phoenix. In Southern California, the power production will be 9% lower, so you can count on 9% longer time to wait to charge.

Note that NREL real-life measured data includes effect of cloudiness, air particulates, etc..., that reduce the sunlight, in addition to temperature effects on the solar panels (which counts against Phoenix).


The drawing of that Tesla charging station shows 28 charging slots (14x2), plus some more parking slots behind the building. How big a solar installation is needed?

Again, figure on a rough requirement of 100 kW per slot. You are talking 3 MW of power. A football field of 160 ft x 360 ft covered with solar panels will give you 1 MW. In midday. In mid-summer.

That single Tesla charging station will need a solar farm like the photo below. And it still has to maintain very short operating hours.

When I heard of Tesla doing solar charging station, I visualized something like the real photo below. I thought to myself, wow, they were going to buy big swaths of land to do this. What a let down to see the car parking canopy!

 

[Lakewood90712]

Tesla Charging Stations

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, Musk said that Tesla charging stations will eventually be solar-powered.

Sure, why not? But look at the drawing below. Can you see what's wrong?

OK, some engineers here quickly figure out that this Tesla charging station is so far from being off-grid, that if I were an engineer working there I would be ashamed that the company puts out something like this.


Ya got to admit , the marketing people at Tesla are going to sell a lot of cars with that architects rendition / sales brochure. The circular building depicted in the far background looks like the Apple mothership in Cupertino.

Going to the LA auto show tomorrow, will sit in a Tesla for the first time.

 

[ERD50]

OK, some engineers here quickly figure out that this Tesla charging station is so far from being off-grid, that if I were an engineer working there I would be ashamed that the company puts out something like this.

Here are some numbers that I ran, using real data.

.... What a let down to see the car parking canopy!

You were smarter than me, using the area of the car space rather than trying to count panels! And I missed all those charge station in the back of the building (I guess the trees would block the panels?).

But I bet the typical Tesla customer looks at that picture and says "My car runs on solar power! It's clean and green!"

Two problems with that - as you point out, those panels can only provide a very small fraction of the power required to charge the car.

And second, it makes no difference anyway! As I've mentioned in the past, even with those solar panels, the cars are still being charged mainly by fossil fuel:

A) With no cars charging, those panels are putting power on the grid, and a fossil fuel plant somewhere on the grid is running a little lighter, saving fossil fuel and reducing emissions.

B) Now charge some cars, and the solar power goes to the cars rather than the grid. So a fossil fuel plant somewhere on the grid has to run a little harder, using fossil fuel and increasing emissions.

Bottom line, the solar panels help make the grid cleaner, the EV still needs fossil fuel to charge. Until we have a regular, steady, reliable excess of Renewable Energy.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

... You immediately see the problem, as each supercharger takes around 100 kW. ...

This is nit-picking for rough number scenarios, and doesn't change the point, but before a Tesla fan picks apart that number....

100kW is about the peak charge current. As the battery reaches terminal voltage, the current drops. I saw a chart somewhere, I'd eyeball it at maybe 50kW average for the charge cycle.

That's still a huge solar farm for that station!

-ERD50

 

[JoeWras]

You were smarter than me, using the area of the car space rather than trying to count panels! And I missed all those charge station in the back of the building (I guess the trees would block the panels?).

But I bet the typical Tesla customer looks at that picture and says "My car runs on solar power! It's clean and green!"

Two problems with that - as you point out, those panels can only provide a very small fraction of the power required to charge the car.

And second, it makes no difference anyway! As I've mentioned in the past, even with those solar panels, the cars are still being charged mainly by fossil fuel:

A) With no cars charging, those panels are putting power on the grid, and a fossil fuel plant somewhere on the grid is running a little lighter, saving fossil fuel and reducing emissions.

B) Now charge some cars, and the solar power goes to the cars rather than the grid. So a fossil fuel plant somewhere on the grid has to run a little harder, using fossil fuel and increasing emissions.

Bottom line, the solar panels help make the grid cleaner, the EV still needs fossil fuel to charge. Until we have a regular, steady, reliable excess of Renewable Energy.

-ERD50

Except, Elon says they will be off the grid.

All Superchargers are being converted to solar/battery power. Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid.

Of course, we know Elon's issue with saying truths. Also, "over time" and "almost all" are weasel words.

This article has more, including another overhead artist picture to help you guys do your engineering calculations.

https://electrek.co/2017/06/09/tesla-superchargers-solar-battery-grid-elon-musk/

Edit: I looked a little closer at the artist concept referenced and they didn't even put panels on the service and lounge building! Wow, those are awesome panels.

 

[NW-Bound]

This is nit-picking for rough number scenarios, and doesn't change the point, but before a Tesla fan picks apart that number....

100kW is about the peak charge current. As the battery reaches terminal voltage, the current drops. I saw a chart somewhere, I'd eyeball it at maybe 50kW average for the charge cycle.

That's still a huge solar farm for that station!

-ERD50

Before dwelling into the details, one can do just a back-of-the-envelope estimate to get the right order of magnitude. And that was all that I did. Does it take 1,000 sq.ft. of panels, or should we use football field as the unit of measure?

By the way, I kind of like EVs, and would not mind owning one as an in-town second car (when it is cheap enough). And I am still working on my DIY solar power and storage system. Just finished the ground-mount installation for 5 kW of power in my backyard. Once have this working, may add another 5 kW on the roof, as my big pool does not leave much space left in the backyard.

So, I like solar power fine. I just do not see it as the panacea for the energy problem that we have. Need some nuclear power if we ever want to stop burning fossil fuel.

 

[ERD50]

Except, Elon says they will be off the grid. ...

Before dwelling into the details, one can do just a back-of-the-envelope estimate to get the right order of magnitude. And that was all that I did. .....

Absolutely. It wasn't a critique, just a 'preemptive strike' before a fan says you used a 'bad' number!

... Does it take 1,000 sq.ft. of panels, or should we use football field as the unit of measure? ....

Everyone knows the standard unit of measure for 'big things' is the Olympic Sized swimming pool! Yes, that's usually used for volume, but we don't have to be involved in little details like that when we are trying to save the planet!

https://aquamagazine.com/retail/an-olympic-sized-metaphor.html

How many times have we seen the comparison? A volume of liquid of some kind is expressed in the number of Olympic-size swimming pools it would fill. Over the years some of the examples I’ve personally read or heard include the amount of guacamole consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, tears cried after JFK was assassinated and beer quaffed during Oktoberfest. Without revisiting those calculations, suffice to say in each case, it was a lot of pools.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Except, Elon says they will be off the grid.
Of course, we know Elon's issue with saying truths. Also, "over time" and "almost all" are weasel words.

This article has more, including another overhead artist picture to help you guys do your engineering calculations.

https://electrek.co/2017/06/09/tesla-superchargers-solar-battery-grid-elon-musk/

Edit: I looked a little closer at the artist concept referenced and they didn't even put panels on the service and lounge building! Wow, those are awesome panels.

I have always known that Elon is no engineer, despite how highly people think of him. But he should still know enough that claiming charging stations to be completely off-grid would require him to acquire huge land areas, and a huge capital invesments, money that he does not have. That knowledge only requires basic arithmetic.

So, I conclude that Elon is either a total ignoramus if he believes what he says, or that he knows and can lie without turning red.

 

[ERD50]

.... So, I conclude that Elon is either a total ignoramus if he believes what he says, or that he knows and can lie without turning red.

My vote is for " he knows and can lie ". It's marketing.

-ERD50

 

[Totoro]

He just recently admitted Tesla was single digit weeks away from bankruptcy at the time he was trying to fight off the shortsellers.


He's a great salesmen and doesn't mind flat out deceit.


On the other hand, he did build a reusable rocket company out of nothing and his Tesla actually got to mass production. The original Tesla founder wouldn't have been able to do that.

 

[clifp]

I have always known that Elon is no engineer, despite how highly people think of him. But he should still know enough that claiming charging stations to be completely off-grid would require him to acquire huge land areas, and a huge capital invesments, money that he does not have. That knowledge only requires basic arithmetic.

So, I conclude that Elon is either a total ignoramus if he believes what he says, or that he knows and can lie without turning red.

I interpreted as meaning that solar production of the charging stations would generate all the electricity that was needed to charge the vehicles, not that they wouldn't be connected to the grid.

 

[samclem]

I interpreted as meaning that solar production of the charging stations would generate all the electricity that was needed to charge the vehicles, not that they wouldn't be connected to the grid.

If that was his point (despite what he actually said about disconnecting from the grid) , then putting all the panels at the charging stations is ridiculous. Sure, use the canopy rooftops there (primarily for PR), but for the (95%?) of the panels that can't be accommodated on the roof, put them somewhere cheap. Real estate under power lines than can be bought for $2000/acre, on top of large industrial buildings, etc. Buy a huge chunk of cheap land somewhere and just add another 3,600 square feet of panels for every charger that is installed somewhere.