harveyalt

I have never seen a fenced area near a charging station. The service is underground, which is the wiring method at every Tesla Supercharger I have used. There are large cabinets that must contain transformers because of the hum level that can be heard a few feet away. I think the distribution to these cabinets would be 3 phase, 440 or higher, and the transformers are used to convert to single phase power, and if the voltage is higher, then they reduce it to 440. The rectifiers must also be present in the cabinets because the Supercharger is a DC charger. The Tesla battery is nominally a 360 volt battery, so 440 volts is appropriate for the charger.

Harold Stetson Loc: Marquam 97038

No oil "wanders through the engine." The motors are sealed, and air cooled. Coolant is use to keep the battery temperature down, and also to heat the battery under cold conditions. The battery coolant does not need to be changed. As far as I can remember, the only fluids that need attention are the windshield wiper fluid, and the brake fluid.



That is not the case at all. I have a Mach E motor and plan to do an EV conversion. I think the EV conversion has some benefits that electric vehicles don't have like keeping cars out of land fills or salvage yards and providing short distance transportation. The motor does use oil cooling in it. How often it needs to be changed I do not know but it is not air cooled. My hope was to use the oil for the heater but it seems that is not realistic. They do pick up particulate and need changing but I don't know how often. Nothing is free. It might be a good deal but it isn't free.

440 three phase does not need to be in an industrial area just a larger power line. Those are around 330 thousand volts three phase. Thats one reason they want to put the solar farm in on my place as you need a major line to take the power. My house is on a smaller line and I have no three phase. There are only 2 wires on the poles and I don't know the voltage but probably pretty high as that's a more efficient way to move power. Amperage makes heat and requires larger wires and it's volts times amps for the power capability. Much more efficient with high volts. That's why the Mach E is 450 volts.

harveyalt

I have no experience on the Mach E. The Teslas use air cooled motors, and the only coolant is used for the battery. By Tesla's own statement that coolant does not have to be changed.

Two wires on the pole sounds like 120V. It could be higher if there is a transformer feeding the line to your house.

Unless you want to install a Supercharger ($$$$$$$$$$$$$), there is no need to have three phase power. The level 2 home chargers attach to normal 220 volt lines, with your charge rate a function of the maximum current that your line provides. The maximum for the Tesla is 48 amps, for which you need a 60 amp line. Some chargers can plug into 30 amp dryer outlets or T-50 outlets. The Tesla comes with a portable charger that works on 120 volts, but only adds 2-4 miles per hour. Adapters for the various 220 volt outlet styles are inexpensive, and with a T-50 outlet, allow for the addition of around 39 miles per hour. I plan to buy such an adapter for T-50 outlets because I have found that many RV camps have those connections. That would extend the area where the car could be used without having to bite my nails looking for a compatible charger. That adapter costs about $35.

I have seen in the news that Musk plans to open the Tesla network to other vehicles. It is not clear how he is going to do this, since the power connector on the charger is different from the CCS connector that many other cars use. There must be something to this because I did notice the other day that the Tesla phone app has added the ability for non members to sign up to use the network. There is a choice for pay as you go, or monthly membership with lower rates than pay as you go. Teslas are able to use other networks, as there are already adapters to convert the Tesla connector to CCS.

Harold Stetson Loc: Marquam 97038

It's more than 220 thou it comes down to 220 after the transformer. You need 2 110 legs for 220. I look at that as 2 phase but electricity guys beat me up for that since it isn't phased like three phase. If your charger is 48 that makes it a lot for smaller generators. I have a 12 KW which is 10 KW continuous on gasoline and only 9.5 on propane. That is 10 k divided by 220 gives you 45 amps. Won't make it and a 12 KW is not a small generator. My wife knows Ohms law and thinks all appliances are 15 so she can have 3 with the generator. The 12 peak matters when our pump starts as it's about 15 but needs 26 to start. the Tesla requires a pretty big set up and doing it at night works but you can't be in a hurry.

harveyalt

The voltage that comes from the transformer is split phase 220. The two lines are 180° out of phase with respect to the ground line. Each will measure 110 with respect to ground and 220 between the lines. I also know Ohm's Law, I got my EE Degree in 1967.

Your EV conversion sounds interesting. How are you going to control the motor? Is it an AC or DC motor? The Tesla uses one of each.

I slightly misrepresented the Tesla charging system. It will supply up to 48 amps, but I can use the app in the car or on my phone, and set it at any level up to the max. The same for the charging time. I can set it to start any time, or even, if I have a departure time, and I set the car up to charge, it will charge by the departure time.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

Let's assume that you're right and that that "cabinet" contains a transformer and not a diesel generator, what's generating that power to the transformer. Solar or wind? Not likely. Nuclear, possibly but it's probably natural gas or coal. So where is the environmental benefit of the EV. Wouldn't it be better and more efficient to just drive a natural gas-powered vehicle instead?

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Of course when you have big storms that knock out the power for days or more, then you are out of luck, if you have an electric car. And if there is an evacuation ordered, there will be so many electric car owners looking for charging stations, somewhere along the line but few places to actually get power.

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harveyalt

It depends on where you are. AZ has a large solar component in it's toolbox of power sources, and also we have a very large Nuke (Palo Verde). Most of the remainder come from natural gas, hydroelectric (for the immediate future) and a small, and decreasing portion from coal.

Natural gas is not environmentally friendly, it is methane, which is a really bad greenhouse gas. The best that can be said about it, is that it burns more cleanly than coal or oil. I have not seen a fueling station along I-10, I-17 or I-8 that supplies natural gas. The Department of Energy has a website that shows the location of every fueling station, for every kind of fuel.

The environmental benefits from EVs come on slowly. As more EVs are on the road, the amount of greenhouse tailpipe emissions decrease. I didn't buy the car because I felt a burning need to buy an environmentally sound vehicle, I bought it because I needed a new car and didn't want to invest in a car that was going to see increasing fuel costs a few years out.

A bit of information about diesel generators. A diesel generator would not be a good choice for something like a Supercharger station. Diesel generators operate best when connected to more or less constant loads. That is why the power companies use them to supply base load. The Supercharger stations have very uneven loads. There might be no cars, or there might be ten or twenty. Each car will have it's own charging curve, depending upon how full the battery is. When the charger starts up on a low battery, the charge rate is very high. It falls off rapidly after a short time. When the battery gets over 80%, the charge rate slows down. This is a very uneven load, and unsuitable for a diesel generator.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

The manufacture of solar panels requires the use of fossil fuels.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

We can pick at issues like methane as a greenhouse gas. It's a fossil fuel which we burn, not release into the atmosphere. When you cut to the quick, the only workable outcome is to get rid of all the subsidies and let EV compete with fossil fuels directly. The only way that can work is if we bring on far more nuke plants than currently exist. You're lucky if you have one in your back yard that supplies your power. You're also lucky that you live in a desert and no one cares if you build a wind farm or solar-powered plant there. But nuke plants would have to be on a nation-wide basis and there's not much likelihood of that happening in time to meet the increasing demand for electric due to transportation. As far as increasing gas prices, we have at least a 400 yr supply and would not expect prices to increase unless our government intervenes. If you think you're going to save money with electric, wait until you see what happens to electric prices once the transportation demands increase. And it won't just affect the cost of driving, it will affect everything electric like your cost for air conditioning.

What works in our system is to use the most economical and reliable form of energy until something better replaces it.

harveyalt

Granted. As more wind and solar come on line, that will decrease, too. This is not going to happen overnight, but t is happening now.

Harold Stetson Loc: Marquam 97038

Wind power makes money by government subsidies. They don't produce enough power to pay their way as in pay for installation and maintenance. Solar will make money from power production. The big drawback to wind it the impact on birds for some reason they don't see the blades.

harveyalt

Production of natural gas releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, both at the well head and during transmission.

I don't know about being lucky to have a nuke in my backyard. When I lived on Long Island, I had the Shoreham plant 13 miles away. It was a total disaster. Luckily, it was dismantled before delivering it's first kW of power. The project, well behind schedule and monstrously over budget, was mismanaged from day one. Corners were being cut and numerous coverups of errors and defects were found during government inspection. Company management, knowing full well that they were not going to get an operating license, ran a test which contaminated the reactor, driving the cost of dismantling up by orders of magnitude. Fortunately, Palo Verde is quite the opposite. It is the largest in the country and well run. It supplies power to AZ, CA and NV.

It is highly unlikely that many nukes will be built. Aside from the cost and time it takes to build them, there is a justifiable fear associated with them. I am aware that there is a new design type that is self limiting, and "cannot" run away, but that fact will get buried in the noise when an application for such a plant is made.

Why would you assume that just because we live in the desert that no one cares if we build wind or solar farms? The desert is far from a wasteland. It has an amazing ecology and stunning beauty. Every application for solar or wind get the same amount of opposition as an application in any other place.

As EVs propagate, there will be less need for gasoline, and fewer places to buy it. You might even need an app to find your nearest gas station. That will drive the prices up. You might even have a problem finding a place to repair your car. With fewer gas cars on the road, there will be fewer places to service them.

Before you point out the expense of battery replacement, I will tell you that the battery warranty on my car is that the battery will retain greater than 70% of capacity for 8 years and 120,000 miles. Most of the older Teslas on the road have passed 150,000 miles and still retain high capacity. By the time 8 years go by, I will probably want a new car, if for no other reason than taking advantage of technology advances beyond those that Tesla now downloads to us periodically.

harveyalt

Interesting point about the birds possibly not seeing the blades. My first thought is they get sucked into the blades, but then seeing how slowly the blades turn, I think you are right.

The problem of bird kills also affects some solar plants. Most of us recognize the plants that are rows and rows of solar cells that seem to go on for miles. These don't kill birds. There is a type of thermal solar plant that uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a boiler mounted on a tower to produce tremendous amounts of heat to boil water to make steam for turbine electrical generators. You can recognize them by their semicircular rows of mirrors. The heat between the mirrors and the boiler is so intense that it cooks the birds on the fly.

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Even at apparent slow rotations the blade tips reach speeds over 100mph.
The birds are unable to react fast enough to avoid impact.