Tesla Owners Club Western Australia

Tesla announced today its first “Version 3” Supercharger:

https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging

At present, the fastest speeds may be limited to new Model 3 deliveries (and the upcoming Model Y), but a new accompanying software update also works to condition the battery of your vehicle before you arrive, if you set the satnav to take you to a Supercharger.

After the full annoucement today, we will update with more information.  We will not see V3 Superchargers in Europe and Asia-Pacific until late this year.  The arrival date of Perth’s Supercharger is still unconfirmed, but we hope to see a more concrete announcement on this, too.

Introduction

Several electric vehicle drivers in Australia have made the long journeys away from the isolated City of Perth travelling to Darwin, Adelaide and even all the way around Australia. A few keen enthusiasts in the EV community have done an excellent job arranging 3-phase power points to be installed along these routes. While these have been much appreciated by those that have followed, many places are not well connected to the grid and the power supply is inadequate or more to the point not as reliable as required – phases are often not balanced and access is sometimes restricted. The ChargePod was developed to service these locations, with a simple easily installed skid with 50kW DC charging capability. A keen AEVA member has built a prototype unit and a fuel consumption and endurance test was undertaken.

Objectives of the test

• Check the reliability of the ChargePod over an extended multiple EV charging session
• Evaluate the equivalent diesel fuel consumption for each model of car charged

Test Outline

The test consisted of 10 electric cars being charged consecutively at roughly 1 hour intervals utilizing a 50kW DC charger powered by a diesel generator (ChargePod). The cars were predominately Tesla Model S and Tesla Model X which arrived with around 35% battery with a view to charging to around 85% to ensure the optimum charging range. The ChargePod was not stopped between charges but allowed to idle for the few minutes while cars changed representing what would happen in a real situation. The charge sessions were all started and stopped using the ChargeFox App.

Equipment used

• 10 full electric vehicles consisting of 6 Tesla Model S, 3 Tesla Model X and a 2018 BMW i3
• A Tritium Veefil 50kW DC charger with a Chademo and CCS2 connector
• A near new (23h) 75kVA Cummins powered generator set.

Test sequence

• ChargePod fuel tank topped up to 38mm from filler neck.
• Start charging car – record start and finish battery %, car’s average kWh consumption rate, kWh added to car, session start and finish times.
• Change subsequent cars and repeat recordings.
• Complete all 10 cars then shut down.
• Leave skid overnight to cool.
• Use mobile fuel truck with calibrated meter to refuel ChargePod to 38mm from filler neck.
• Record total fuel consumption for the test.

Calculation method

Using total kWh added to all cars divided by the total fuel consumed an average kilowatt hour per litre diesel consumed is established – this is 3.392 kWh per litre which is the ChargePod performance.

Using the lifetime average kWh per kilometre for each car (this depends on the car and the driving style and is recorded continually by the car) an individual litres diesel equivalent per kilometre for each car tested can be established

Results

• The ChargePod ran continuously for 9 hours 15 minutes and charged 10 cars without stopping.
• the generator consumed 108.6 litres of diesel.
• the total energy recorded as received by the cars battery packs was 368.4 kWh.
• the average kwhr per litre delivered to the cars by ChargePod was 3.392 kWh/l.

Diesel fuel consumption equivalents :

• BMW I3 is 4.392 L/100km
• Tesla Model S range 5.011 to 6.014 L/100km
• Tesla Model X range 5.689 to 6.957 L/100km

Conclusion :

A stand alone DC EV-charging skid powered by diesel generator for remote locations with inadequate power delivers fuel consumption results are very comparable but on most occasions better than equivalent diesel powered passenger vehicles.

Thanks to all the EV drivers who volunteered their cars  on the day and most importantly to Jon Edwards who provided the venue, equipment, knowledge and can-do attitude to build the Chargepod and complete the test.

Chargefox have announced that they will be working with motoring clubs to roll out a 350kW charging network around Australia.  WA should get three new chargers over the next year (expected by early 2020 at the latest), one in Perth, one on the northern corridor and one south.

At present, Teslas can not make full use of 350kW CCS-2 chargers*, as we only have DC options of SuperChargers (120kW) and CHAdeMO (50kW).  There is much discussion about Tesla’s next move, as they are members of the CHAdeMO and CCS working groups, and stated in their Australian Senate submission they advocate the rollout of 100kW+ charging using Type-2/CCS-2.  Whether Model 3 will come with CCS-2 in Europe and Australia is yet to be seen, and there is much hand-wringing about the ability to adapt current vehicles to CCS-2.

It’s still great news that commercial funding continues to grow for EV infrastructure.

Car clubs, ARENA get behind solar-powered ultra-fast EV charging network

* In fact – no currently shipping vehicle can charge at 350kW and none that are likely to ship before 2020 will.

Harald and I represented TOCWA at the Tesla Owners Club 2018 Leadership Summit in Fremont, California from the 11th to 13th October.

The summit was designed to be a two-way conversation between Tesla and owners and representatives from official owners groups from around the world were invited.

We began with a factory tour on registration day, and then spent the next day in sessions.

Tesla sent along a number of staff to talk about Tesla’s approach to marketing, owner liaison and how it hopes to work with us.  Some highlights of that conversation are:

• Tesla is keen to get owners involved in making the new owner experience as pleasant as possible.  In the US, in the leadup to the end-of-quarter, they invited various owners clubs to help with the large volume of Model 3 deliveries.  This experiment is likely to be repeated – TOCWA will follow up with Tesla about this happening in WA, and we may call for volunteers.
• There is now an up-to-date list of officially recognised owenrs clubs at https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-owners-club-directory
• Tesla is working on a mechanism for new owners to be put in touch with official clubs in their region – this needs, of course, to be sensitive to any privacy issues.
• Tesla is slowly becoming more aware of issues presenting owners outside of continental North America, and recent tweets by Elon back this up

Same goes for all countries within which we officially operate by end of next year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 17, 2018

We were also given a good look at the new Performance Model 3, as well as the new service vehicle designs to be rolled out

Most importantly, it was a great opportunity to see how other clubs around the world were interacting with Tesla and with owners, and we hope to be able to provide a better channel of communication that has been present thus far.

Nice writeup of the owners club summit in InsideEVs

This Shows The Ultimate Tesla Ownership Support … Wow!

As part of the Tesla Owners Club Summit in Fremont, we visited the Tesla factory for a tour.

Although we’re not allowed to talk about what we saw there, the factory speaks volumes of Tesla’s success in getting these vehcles designed and built.

The Model S/X line and the new Model 3 line were running at full strength to meet the ongoing demand for product.  We spent a bit of time on the tour trying to spot the odd right-hand-drive vehicle (none were spotted on the 3 line, unfortuantely!)

The Australian Government is holding an Inquiry into Elecric Vehicles through a senate committee chaired by independent SA senator, Tim Storer.

The terms of reference of the inquiry are:

1. the potential economic, environmental and social benefits of widespread electric vehicle uptake in Australia;
2. opportunities for electric vehicle manufacturing and electric vehicle supply and value chain services in Australia, and related economic benefits;
3. measures to support the acceleration of electric vehicle uptake;
4. measures to attract electric vehicle manufacturing and electric vehicle supply and value chain manufacturing to Australia;
5. how federal, state and territory Governments could work together to support electric vehicle uptake and manufacturing, supply, and value chain activities; and
6. any other related matters.

TOCWA did not submit as an organisation, but members of the committee took some of our input, and made their own submissions – these submissions are linked below

Tesla also made a direct submission

You can see the full inquiry page here

Sylvia visited Perth back in April, and there’s a great writeup of her trip here:

Sylvia , 70, completes round-Australia trip in an EV for …. $150.90