EV general discussion

b0rn2sk8 said:
It's a big 'if' though. How do you improve the network if you have just fired the 'entire' team? (I'm sure it is not actually all of them)

While the Tesla network is good, its not in any stretch of the imagination 'finished' in terms of the number of locations. It is keeping pace with demand but only because they keep adding locations to diversify people away from the really busy ones which can't expand. A huge number of the sites are at hotels and other leisure/retail locations which are only going to want so many chargers on their estate.
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That's my point though, why bother keeping on improving the network when it has done it's job? The business model of providing the product (the car) and the solution to the barrier to adoption (the supercharger network) was incredibly effective. Tesla took a massive foothold because of this and had the market pretty much to themselves for a while.

Any further investment at this point doesn't benefit them in isolation, it benefits their competitors.

Playing devil's advocate on the requirement for chargers... "Yeah that sounds like an ongoing issue if you want to continue with EV adoption. Well, we've done our bit." *Musk smirk*
b0rn2sk8 said:
The reason I say its a stupid decision is they have basically convinced America that their proprietary standard is the best and their chargers are the only ones worth using. They have a huge opportunity to take a stonking % of the charging market.
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Sounds like the perfect bait and switch to improve the charging network for your customers at other people's expense.

I don't think they have or had any intention on being a charging provider. That was just a means to an end.
b0rn2sk8 said:
The company isn't a start up anymore and it could do with some adult leadership and I wouldn't be surprised if he is ousted at some point if he keeps up the current direction of travel. Looking beyond Musk, the product itself is actually decent and sold for a competitive price.
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They seem to be doing ok though. I don't like the guy or the way he does business but I do know his name. I couldn't name another head of an auto manufacturer. No such thing as bad press?
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
In most of the Gridserve electric forecourts, the batteries are not there because of the chargers, its there because of the grid huge connection and they use it for grid services (e.g. frequency balancing) and not powering chargers. It's part of the economic case for building these sites, the exception is Cornwall Services, that is used for buffering an insufficient power supply.
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I'd been thinking of this distinctive one johnny posted, way back ... ok so time-shifting is a motivation for battery too, theyr'e on octopus ... and their solar roof

GRIDSERVE | GRIDSERVE opens UK’s first Electric Forecourt®

GRIDSERVE has opened the UK’s first Electric Forecourt® near Braintree, Essex, representing a major breakthrough for massive expansion of electric vehicle ( ...
www.gridserve.com www.gridserve.com
The UK’s first subsidy-free solar farm in Clayhill is paired with Braintree Electric Forecourt®, providing 100% renewable energy via the National Grid. There is also a 6MWh battery onsite which helps to balance the local energy grid and shift energy to periods when it is more valuable. For example, on windy winter nights the battery can store enough energy to drive 24,000 miles in electric vehicles the following day, helping to maximise the value of renewable energy resources, stabilise the grid, and keep prices low.
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The quote confirms exactly what I posted, the battery is there to provide grid services, not power the chargers.

They’ll probably make more money through providing grid services than they do from rapid charging at that site.

What’s octopus and a solar roof got to do with it?
 
Knock yourself out with your hydrogen car, we don’t really care.

Those of us who can will take the BEV option which will be 5X cheaper to fuel and no more expensive to buy.

Edit: hydrogen combustion isn’t going to be a thing in passenger vehicles due to emissions so we will always be looking at fuel cells.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Knock yourself out with your hydrogen car, we don’t really care.

Those of us who can will take the BEV option which will be 5X cheaper to fuel and no more expensive to buy.

Edit: hydrogen combustion isn’t going to be a thing in passenger vehicles due to emissions so we will always be looking at fuel cells.
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Touched a nerve :D

I also stated other forms of energy.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
The quote confirms exactly what I posted, the battery is there to provide grid services, not power the chargers.

They’ll probably make more money through providing grid services than they do from rapid charging at that site.

What’s octopus and a solar roof got to do with it?
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What difference? The batteries store energy for the grid or chargers to use later. No point having it just for chargers if they don’t deplete it enough
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
They’ll probably make more money through providing grid services than they do from rapid charging at that site.

What’s octopus and a solar roof got to do with it?
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the article provided 2 additional motivations for needing a battery (time shift which - joke - octopus tarif could provide, also, as recipient for their solar panels)
I, for one, don't know which is the most important, grid stabilization seems mandatory with intermittent high demand of chargers ie they are not installed as a benevolence for other users.

The underlying question about whether high speed chargers demand increasingly high capital, and whether that is why tesla might be withdrawing is unanswered.
 
Simon said:
What difference? The batteries store energy for the grid or chargers to use later. No point having it just for chargers if they don’t deplete it enough
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You get paid for providing grid services which is much more than just dumping a bit of energy to the grid between 5 and 7.

Frequency modulation is a key service and largely being taken over by batteries because they can react much faster than traditional power stations can and are essential with the move to renewables. It smooths out the dips and spikes in the frequency (by charging/discharging at the sub second level) as the energy from renewables from moment to moment.

jpaul said:
the article provided 2 additional motivations for needing a battery (time shift which - joke - octopus tarif could provide, also, as recipient for their solar panels)
I, for one, don't know which is the most important, grid stabilization seems mandatory with intermittent high demand of chargers ie they are not installed as a benevolence for other users.

The underlying question about whether high speed chargers demand increasingly high capital, and whether that is why tesla might be withdrawing is unanswered.
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What are you bleating on about octopus for?

Gridserve are an energy producer in their own right, they buy and sell from the wholesale market and are not on some consumer time of use tariff.

aVdub said:
Touched a nerve :D

I also stated other forms of energy.
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Not really no, it’s just the economic reality of hydrogen. Hydrogen fuels cells are a fantastic technology, if it made any economic sense, I’d get one. It’s literally the opposite of that though.

They fuel is more expensive to buy then petrol and diesel before you apply any tax and the cost of those fuels are 45-50% tax.
 
[
b0rn2sk8 said:
[Gridserve are an energy producer in their own right, they buy and sell from the wholesale market and are not on some consumer time of use tariff.
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yes of course they are not on a consumer tarif it was a joke about them getting 7p /kwh from octopus to time shift, as in, they have the same issue as consumers using cheap overnight charging
]

b0rn2sk8 said:
Frequency modulation is a key service and largely being taken over by batteries because they can react much faster than traditional power stations can and are essential with the move to renewables. It smooths out the dips and spikes in the frequency (by charging/discharging at the sub second level) as the energy from renewables from moment to moment.
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yes (I know) but the chargers are partially responsible for erratic demand, so the battery is effectively mandatory ... plus it will time shift, cheaper energy.
I suppose the question is whether they have over-sized the batteries, beyond reqmts for chargers, to get an additional revenue stream from grid services.
 
jpaul said:
[

yes of course they are not on a consumer tarif it was a joke about them getting 7p /kwh from octopus to time shift, as in, they have the same issue as consumers using cheap overnight charging
]


yes (I know) but the chargers are partially responsible for erratic demand, so the battery is effectively mandatory ... plus it will time shift, cheaper energy.
I suppose the question is whether they have over-sized the batteries, beyond reqmts for chargers, to get an additional revenue stream from grid services.
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It wasn’t a joke, if it was a joke it would have been funny…

The battery isn’t mandatory there are orders of magnitude more sites that don’t have them that do have them. Gridserve Braintree has a huge grid connection and they don’t need a battery to buffer the chargers.

Using batteries at rapid charger sites to buffer the power supply increases the cost to build and operate them. Charge point operators have publicly stated this many times. Usually in response to ‘why don’t you put them here and use batteries’.

The battery is there as part of the business case for building the standalone site which they own. It’s there to take advantage of the grid connection to make money on grid services, there is no question about it.

It would never make sense to build it if they couldn’t utilise the grid connection to make money in other ways. It’s got way more provision than is generally needed in that area and will do for a long time.
 
3rd party only I’d expect and probably not worth the paper it’s written on.

The Air is the entry level spec, it’s worth shopping around to see if you can get a GT-Line or GT-Line S for similar cash.
 
Had my ohme pod socket installed today , anyone had any experiences with this? Just wondering how good the app is with scheduling at the charger times.
 
Yeah just caught the news a bit late about the whole Supercharger update. That does suck, up until now amazing speed with which they were rolling out chargers.

I checked the Telsa site/app and there is a load more superchargers opened to non-Teslas now, eg 3 in Bristol that weren't there 2 months ago (or at least to non-Teslas).

Some are saying about the talent will go elsewhere in the charging industry, god knows they need it, or another company etc.

I'm lucky I'm 4 miles away from a site with 16 and use it exclusively to do all my charging, I had one issue the very first time I used one, I'm guessing my fault for not plugging it in properly and charged 16 times since then with no issues.
 
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