# Tesla average distance between Superchargers and number of Stations at Supercharger compared to what Jobs Act is proposing.



## Rush (Sep 22, 2019)

Part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is going to be the installation of HV Charging stations along the interstate highways. Here in AZ ADOT is proposing a Charging location every 20/30 miles with 4 individual stations in each location. The stations are probably going to be CCS, with maybe a few Chademo.

What do Tesla owners think of the proposed distance and number per location as compared to what Tesla current has, which range from 62 to 223 miles or an average of 150 miles and about 11.7 superchargers per station?

I"ve also included a poll as to which system you think is better for EV's.


----------



## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

How about both?


----------



## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

AFAIK, Tesla is moving to a lot less than 150 miles between chargers. 

The lawmakers, who really don't know what they are talking about, try to make rules where rules don't really work. 
There's a lot more than "every 30 miles" that needs to go into charger locations. Take a look at the Supercharger map. Notice that it doesn't have a consistent placement of Superchargers. There's a lot or randomness and different strategies that goes into their placement. 

On the Interstates, in many places, exits are about 10 miles from each other. placing one at every other exit may seem to make sense, but placing them at exits that have other services, like food, makes a lot more sense. 
I'm upnear the North Georgia Mountains, and there really aren't many options in the mountains, even though it is a significant tourist area. The Tesla Superchargers are often over 50 miles away (and that is more than a hour trip on smaller roads) There are a few other chargers, but they often take work to get to. Sure, you can make it into and back from the area, but if you are up for a couple of days and travelling around, you start wanting closer chargers. 
If you are in urban/city areas, 30 miles it a long way to go. 

One of the relatively new Atlanta area chargers (Buford) just about always has someone there, but yesterday all 8 stalls were busy. There's not another Supercharger for well over 30 minutes away. 

I think that 4 stations is too few. In most cases, the cost per pedestal goes down with more pedestals. I'd much rather have 8 pedestals 60 miles apart at locations with a lot of food than 4 pedestals placed, just to be there. 

And the interesting thing is when you start looking at the number of EVs starting to increase. When the non-Tesla EVs hit 3 million vehicles, or easily 10 million in 5 years, the landscape will be different.

The biggest thing is that I think is that any installations today need to be futured proofed for at least a generation or two of vehicles. If you are putting in 4 pedestals, make sure that it isn't hard to go to 10 without tearing up the concrete.


----------



## Power Surge (Jan 6, 2022)

As far as I'm concerned, the more stations the better. The EV market is exploding, and the charging infrastructure needs to grow rapidly. I personally don't care if it's a Tesla or CCS station, as I've converted my car to use CCS. And since Tesla is planning to open Superchargers to other brand EVs, we really need all the stations that we can get.


----------



## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

I think right now Tesla Superchargers have an advantage over other systems that isn't talked about a lot: how easy it is to tell if a site is full or near-full while driving. 

Fewer chargers per site is fine if drivers can tell before they head there how full they are. If they can't, it becomes a dice roll every time. And if you arrived at a site with one car ahead of you waiting, is it worth it to go to the next site or not? There's no way to tell--maybe that one's full too.

As we move toward all stations being open to all EVs, I hope thought is put into a universal system for reporting how many chargers are open at each station, and that the software in cars all tap into that system to make it easy to figure out where to stop.


----------



## Joe90 (7 mo ago)

DocScott said:


> I think right now Tesla Superchargers have an advantage over other systems that isn't talked about a lot: how easy it is to tell if a site is full or near-full while driving.
> 
> Fewer chargers per site is fine if drivers can tell before they head there how full they are. If they can't, it becomes a dice roll every time. And if you arrived at a site with one car ahead of you waiting, is it worth it to go to the next site or not? There's no way to tell--maybe that one's full too.
> 
> As we move toward all stations being open to all EVs, I hope thought is put into a universal system for reporting how many chargers are open at each station, and that the software in cars all tap into that system to make it easy to figure out where to stop.


PlugShare already knows which charger are in use so I don't see a problem.


----------



## Power Surge (Jan 6, 2022)

Joe90 said:


> PlugShare already knows which charger are in use so I don't see a problem.


Isn't Plugshare based on user input (like Waze), not direct live data?


----------



## Joe90 (7 mo ago)

Power Surge said:


> Isn't Plugshare based on user input (like Waze), not direct live data?


People can check-in but there's live update for chargers from some networks like EVGO and ChargePoint which are the ones I'm interested in. Google Maps also has live updates. And the ChangePoint app has live updates from affiliated networks such as Flo, EVGO, Electric Circuit and several others not available in my area.


----------



## Joe90 (7 mo ago)

...


----------



## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

With a number like “every 30 miles” it sounds like charging stations are being equated to gas stations, but that leaves out people charging at home. It also doesn’t distinguish between level 2 and fast charging.


----------



## Joe90 (7 mo ago)

JasonF said:


> With a number like “every 30 miles” it sounds like charging stations are being equated to gas stations, but that leaves out people charging at home. It also doesn’t distinguish between level 2 and fast charging.


There are other requirements AFAIK.


----------



## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

Ed Woodrick said:


> The lawmakers, who really don't know what they are talking about, try to make rules where rules don't really work.
> There's a lot more than "every 30 miles" that needs to go into charger locations.


This is it in a nutshell. A general rule does not work, as population/travel density has to be considered. And needs will change greatly as more EVs are on the road.

In general I would prefer charging sites to be large, with lots of stalls. Even with Tesla providing me (almost) live data about how busy a SC site is, and even if there is another site within 5 miles, I don’t really have enough info to make a good choice as you don’t know how many cars are in route. I have seen half a dozen cars arrive at a SC site within minutes of each other.

There are, of course, exceptions to my preference for large sites. In more rural, less traveled spots, a fast charger is key to making that route accessible to EVs, but not many are needed. A bank of 4 can be adequate to accommodate the need. I immediately think of the SC in Bethany, MO. Although it is immediately off I-35, I have never been there with more than 1 other Tesla. Yet it is a very important SC for me, giving me access to family in very rural northwest MO.


----------



## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Joe90 said:


> There are other requirements AFAIK.


Maybe, but such an arbitrary number definitely sounds like whoever wrote up the proposal looked at a map of a highway and said "there is a gas station every 30 miles, so let's do the same for charging".

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have fast charging options every 30 miles of every highway, just that's probably where they got the number from. Of course it would be nice to be able to say "I'll stop at the next exit" because the chargers at the one you're approaching are full, rather than _having_ to stop and wait in line because the next supercharger is farther than your current range.


----------



## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

JasonF said:


> Of course it would be nice to be able to say "I'll stop at the next exit" because the chargers at the one you're approaching are full, rather than _having_ to stop and wait in line because the next supercharger is farther than your current range.


Why do you assume we won't have that visibility? 

As an actual example of cooperation, the various IOT manufacturers have come together to develop the Matter standard that will facilitate interoperability of devices. There's no reason why that won't happen with the various networks responsible for managing the chargers.


----------



## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

francoisp said:


> Why do you assume we won't have that visibility?


I’m not. I meant as you’re approaching the charging station exit you can see it’s full, so you take the next exit. That’s often not possible right now because the next option is too far away. Even if the station is full, you just have to wait.


----------



## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

"Every 30 miles" doesn't take into account that all of those charging stations will be privately-owned and maintained. And if there's not a profit to be made, they will quickly close. 

I cna think of several pieces of highway that don't have petrol stations every 30 miles.


----------

