Charging a Tesla Roadster from household outlet could take 30 hours!

[tomsax]

In other news today: filling a Ferrari gas tank with a teaspoon could take over 30 hours!

OK, so people don't normally use a teaspoon to fill their gas tank, but in the early days of gasoline vehicles, people had to buy gasoline in gallon cans from hardware stores. As the popularity of gasoline vehicles rose, so did the availability of more appropriate gasoline-dispensing locations.

It's been interesting watching this bit of Tesla trivia make its way around the Internet. I believe it started with a cheesy Engadget article published on July 7th, which I won't support by providing a link but I'm sure you can find if you care to read the original cheese.

This information has been available from Tesla since at least the fall of 2006. Tesla says that it takes about 3.5 hours to charge a fully discharged battery (or at least as far as the software will let you go) with 220V at 70A. If you do the math to figure out how long it should take for 115V at 15A you get right around 30 hours, although the charging time may not be perfectly linear.

But this "shocking" revelation is more oil industry FUD than news. No one is buying a Tesla Roadster to drive cross country using only 120V outlets. Tesla isn't trying to mass market these cars to single-car families who will be expecting to take the kids to visit grandma 600 miles away. They are selling an exotic sports car that is cost-competitive with its ICE-based peers but runs on a clean alternative fuel, can handle 99% of all travel with zero additional infrastructure, and free their owners from weekly trips to the gas station. That's the news.

But mass-marketing electric vehicles, which is Tesla's ultimate plan, is going to take some additional infrastructure to notch a bit more out of that last 1% of travel. First, hotels will start exposing some RV-style 220V/50A outlets, which will cost almost nothing and attract some flashy patrons. Then high-current charging stations will start to appear in strategic locations that can charge the Roadster (and the Model S) in under an hour. With the Model S not coming out until late 2010, there's some time to figure out what a standard high-current EV plug should look like.

This is just one more way that Tesla's strategy is brilliant. If they had started out trying to build a high-volume mass-market EV, the relative scarcity of high-current charging infrastructure would be a barrier to mass adoption. Instead, they are selling flashy cars and attracting attention to the promise of EVs and the business opportunities they present.

In the meantime, road-tripping Tesla owners will have to depend on creative solutions like RV plugs, the community of owners and the kindness of other EV enthusiasts. I wonder who will be the first one to pull off the coast-to-coast trip just to show it can be done?

[rjf]

Well you can Google for the original article and the other 3,750 matches with query of Engadget Tesla "30 hours"

Anyway, very nice critique and explanation, to bad the original author didn't put as much thought into his writing.  But alas that probably doesn't get as many hits...  We have a similar discussion in the Phoenix SUT - too good to be true? topic about rapid charging, and the Lightning GT is yet another fast charging EV.  Yes, we've been able to fast charge for quite some time but it's not very feasible mostly because there is no need at the moment.  Oddly enough most people when presented with the idea react with disbelieve that it is even within the realm of possibility, but then many people respond in a similar manner to the idea of freeway capable EV's as well.  Anyway, I can and have charged my PHEV Prius conversion with PbA (Lead Acid) batteries in under 25 minutes just because I could, but normally I just do it in 3 hours because I've got plenty of time overnight.

Anywho, I think this article is worth a "DIGG" so feel free to hit that button in the corner of the page...

[leitmotif]

So what is a DIGG?

Dan Bentler

[aviken]

Digg is like casting a vote for a page / article you like on line. You need to go to digg.com and "register" with them. Then specific pages that people find usefully or really like for some reason, they vote for it with a digg, and sometimes a comment. It's just a social popularity thing really...can you dig it?

[StorminN]

Tom, your comment about hotels offering RV-style hookups made a thought go through my head.

I have noticed RV's parked in WalMart parking lots many nights... I think this may be encouraged by WalMart? (I don't know, I don't shop there.) Either way, it seems that any mega-corporation that's trying to "green" up their image could go a ways towards doing so by simply installing EV charging stations in their parking lots. It could be as simple as adding one to four chargers at the base of every parking lot lightpost... the electrical infrastructure is mostly there already. For a place like WalMart, charging stations / RV hookups could serve a dual purpose. Does anyone know if this has been done anywhere outside California?

-Norm.

[leitmotif]

Friend told me Walmart likes the RVs in their parking lot at night because it gives them free security.  Since Walmart has a reputation as a cheapskate I believe it.

Dan Bentler

[aviken]

That would make total sense. There has never been a bigger cheapskate than Walmart. Since I have boycotted them for several years, I hate to even mention their name in this forum...but since we are calling them a cheapskate, I don't mind so much 

[StorminN]

Friend told me Walmart likes the RVs in their parking lot at night because it gives them free security.  Since Walmart has a reputation as a cheapskate I believe it.

It's probably also because the people in the RV's inevitably go into the store and buy groceries, supplies, etc. in the morning...

-Norm.