Charging – Page 3 – Tesla Owners Club Western Australia

23 January 20222 April 2024

Explaining the Nullarbor EV Chargers

As you may have seen in recent news retired engineer Jon Edwards has designed, built and installed a Biofil DC charger at Caiguna on the Western side of the 1200km drive between Ceduna and Norseman, this provides a handy boost for the adventurous EV owners crossing the Nullarbor when border openings allow. Before I continue let’s make one thing very clear, you’re under no obligation to drive across the Nullarbor, commercial air travel is faster, safer and probably cheaper, but as Ferris said “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it”.

Below I’ll discuss the charging available at the locations that are spaced evenly apart.

Before attempting to drive an EV across this part of Australia remember that Plugshare is the only app with the accuracy to plan charging stops, also don’t rely on apps to predict your energy consumption and arrival times, the road surface and wind direction plays a major part in how far you’ll get on a charge, play it safe and always plan to arrive with at least 30kms of range remaining. If you wisely plan your daytime and overnight charging stops the less time you’ll spend topping up the batteries.

Departing Norseman and driving East the first well spaced charging stop is at the Balladonia Roadhouse, 190kms from Norseman, which has a 22kw CCS2 DC charger plugged into the 32amp 3 phase outlet. Compared to the latest 250-350kw DC chargers popping up close to Australia’s populated areas 22kw appears prehistoric, but in reality they’re a pretty handy short term solution that doubles the charging speed a model 3 can get from the existing 3 phase outlet and better still triple the charging speed available to a Hyundai Kona.

Caiguna, 181kms drive from Balladonia, has a 50kw DC charger powered by a Biofil generator, politely ask the counter staff to start the charger then go and enjoy the air conditioned Cafe.

Madura, 157kms drive from Caiguna, has a 22kw DC charger plugged into the 32amp 3 phase outlet, payment is a donation to the Royal Flying Doctor Service tin located in the dining area. Note: as at April 2024 not available due to plug issue.

Mundrabilla, 116kms from Madura and 81kms from Border Villa, now has a 22kw CCS2 DC charger plugged into the 32amp 3 phase outlet. Note: as at April 2024 3 phase only available.

Eucla, this location is 182kms east of Madura, charging is via a 32amp 3 phase outlet in the Laundry of the Eucla Motor Hotel. Be aware that this outlet is not available between 9.00am and 3.00pm, if you expect to arrive at this time maybe use the Border Village charge point, 12kms to the East. Note: this location is no longer available for EV charging.

Nullarbor Roadhouse, 197kms drive from Eucla, has a 22kw CCS2 DC charger plugged into the 32amp 3 phase outlet at the rear of the building close to the motel units. Note: April 2024 NRMA DC charger now in place.

Penong Caravan Park, 223kms east of the Nullarbor Roadhouse, has a 32amp 3 phase (it has been prone to tripping at 28amps so plan accordingly). Penong is part of the South Australian grid so is likely to get a reasonable speed DC charger before too long.

Cocklebiddy and Border Village also have handy 32amp 3 phase outlets if you want to shorten the driving distances between charge sessions or wish to try different accommodation on the return journey.

21 October 202125 April 2023

100% a Waste of Time: Why charging to 100% is defeating the purpose of Superchargers

Pete Petrovsky 21/10/2021

As most EV owners will know, there are two main ways to charge an EV, AC or DC, but there’s also another less known and slightly more nuanced distinction.

A charger’s main purpose can be for rapid top ups or for longer perhaps even overnight charging and it’s important for EV drivers to understand this difference as it will not only save a lot of time, but it will also result in a better ownership experience for the entire EV community.

The main purpose of ultra-rapid DC chargers such as the Tesla Superchargers is rapid top-ups to facilitate convenient travel between built-up areas. This is critical in winning over the broader driving public who have concerns about charging downtime on long trips away from home. The problem is many new owners have misunderstood this and are in fact wasting a lot of their time charging at high battery percentages. How much time are they wasting? It depends on the vehicle’s next destination but as can be seen from the graphics below, it’s more than many drivers realise.

Test conducted with a Tesla Model 3 Performance charging from a V3 Tesla Supercharger at a 14-degree outside temperature with a pre-conditioned battery.

As the chart above shows, a long-range battery takes about the same time, roughly 14 minutes, to charge from 10% to 60% as it does to charge from 90 to 100%. In other words, you can spend the same 14 minutes topping up 50% at a lower state of charge (SoC) or 10% at a higher SoC.

50-60% SoC is a key level because not only does the time to charge each 5% increment begin to lengthen to charging speeds attainable at slower (non-ultra-rapid) DC chargers but generally it’s enough battery capacity to cover the distance between Superchargers on long road trips.

What is not illustrated on the graph is what happens once the state of charge reaches 100%. Once at 100%, the charge time jumps off the chart as it took me at least a further 19 minutes of trickle charging the last few watt hours and balancing the cells before I lost patience and quit the test.

As can be seen in the graphic above, at roughly around a 14% state of charge (SoC) the car reached its peak charge of 244kW but then this began to taper off down to 192kW at 30% SoC, then to 110kW at 50%, 81kW at 70% and 42kW at 90% before dwindling down to 5kW once it remained at 100% for almost 20 minutes.

Once at 100%, the time the car takes to completely finish charging is dependent on how long it has been since the battery was fully charged to 100%. The longer the period between full charges the longer it takes to balance the cell groups and the longer the battery takes its time at the 100% level.

Powered by a lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) battery chemistry, once at 90% or above, it is best to begin driving the Model 3 Performance (and Long Range) to ensure minimum long-term battery degradation. It’s not ideal to keep this chemistry above 90% or below 20% for extended periods of time. In fact, the above 90% charge level should be reserved only for times, when necessary, on longer stretches between chargers on country road trips. However, that said, it is also a good idea to balance the cells once every 3-6 months. The added benefit is that the battery management system (BMS) will also get a chance to recalibrate itself to ensure accurate battery range readings.

In contrast, it is ideal to charge the lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery chemistries, found in the Shanghai built and soon also in the Fremont built Standard Range Plus Model 3s, to 100% at least once a week and it’s also perfectly fine to charge to 100% on a daily basis.

Irrespective of the battery chemistry, however, to save wasting your time at Superchargers and unnecessarily taking up this important infrastructure, please be mindful of how busy the charger is. If you feel the need to charge to 100% and if you have plenty of time, during off-peak times when Superchargers are hardly used, it is perfectly fine to squeeze in every last watt but at busy times, vehicles taking up much needed charge bays while charging at a fifth or less of the charger’s potential is a burden on the infrastructure and not helpful to fellow EV owners.

Therefore, please consider only charging to a lower percentage and leaving the charging at the top state of charge levels for your home, BNB, or at overnight AC destination chargers such as those allocated to your room at hotels and EV-friendly resorts. You’ll only be doing yourself, your EV community and even potential new EV owners a big favour.

P.S. Special thanks to TOCWA Chairman Rob Dean for not only helping with this article but also for coming up with the idea for the test.

27 June 202110 July 2022

Jurien Bay DC charger critical instructions

Due to a redevelopment of the Jurien Bay foreshore the “plan B” 3 phase outlet has been removed making the 50kw DC charger at Caltex even more important for those looking for a short stop on the trip between Perth and Geraldton. There is a Tesla destination charger at the tourist park but this is limited to 3.6kw so is only useful for an overnight stop.

If Perth to Geraldton is only 410kms via the coastal road do I need to stop? In most cases, absolutely yes, due to the nature of the road surface and almost constant winds it’s near impossible to achieve reasonable energy efficiency, driving at slower speeds on this busy road and being a road hazard is not an option so it’s best to accept the inevitable and plan a 25 to 40 minute stop at Jurien Caltex while adding 20-40% back to the battery.

The most critical aspects to using the Jurien Bay DC charger is to carefully read the operating instructions on Plugshare before arrival, patience is front and centre at this location, if you try and rush the process or miss a step you’ll just waste time. The Tritium DC charger is very reliable, the only time it’s failed to work is due to an issue with a handful of pre 2020 model X or S cars with a CCS2 upgrade or the operator rushing the start up process. If your Tesla is less than 24 months old, you should not have any issues with this charger.

A few tips:

Phone ahead your arrival time, Wade or Jarryd will make an effort to be on site as they know the process better than other staff members.

Make sure when the charger is unlocked both charging handles are firmly pushed into the holsters before and while the charger completes its 5 minute start up process.

Don’t arrive at this charger with less than 50kms of range, even though it’s so far been extremely reliable there is no longer a plan B in town, keep enough spare range to drive the 24kms to the Cervantes destination charger.

Don’t complain about the price, the $50 flat fee may appear high (it used to be 70 cents per kWh and a $25 minimum) but the Electric vehicle owner that spent tens of thousands of dollars installing the Jurien Bay unit will never see a return on investment.

10 June 202114 June 2021

Perth North Supercharger Location

10 JUNE 2021 BY PETE PETROVSKY

As some may have noticed, a couple of months ago, Tesla’s supercharger map had two exciting and long awaited W.A. updates.

The Perth Supercharger location was assigned the Q1 2022 timeframe, and,
A new location referred to as “Perth North” popped up with a Q3 2021 timeframe.

As we know, the location of the supercharger icons on the map are not designed to be precise or provide an accurate indication of the location, therefore, the question is where will the latest WA supercharger be located.

In my view, it would be ideal to locate it in Joondalup as it would be an ideal location for:

1. those heading north to Jurien Bay etc. Joondalup would also put Dongara and potentially Geraldton within reach, and then on to Kalbarri, Monkey Mia, Carnarvon and so on.

2. those coming back from north of Perth, for example Jurien Bay, Geraldton etc could charge at Joondalup and then have enough to travel around Perth or comfortably reach the Eaton Supercharger,

3. those living in apartments in Joondalup who have little if any options to charge. (Joondalup has the second highest apartment dwelling population of any suburb of Perth after the CBD),

4. those living north of Perth who feel uneasy buying an electric car with the most northern DC charger being all the way in Gwelup (an approx. 25 min drive from many northern suburbs near Joondalup and potentially longer in traffic) Understandably, most charging occurs at home, however, if one forgets to charge, or the power goes out and there is another issue it makes the EV purchase decision easier if you know there’s a fast charger within a 5 to 15 minute drive.

5. Joondalup has aspirations to become Perth’s biggest satellite city with approval to build high rise buildings such as the 18-storey Arthouse completed in mid 2020.

6. Wanneroo which is adjacent to Joondalup is Australia’s 5th fastest growing council with the Wanneroo and Joondalup population projected to reach 800,000 by 2070. (The current population of Perth, is less than 2 million.)

If the thinking is that the primary purpose of the supercharger is to address the long-distance trip market rather than serving the surrounding suburbs, then another good location is the Drover’s Marketplace and Leap Frog’s Botanic Gardens, Mini Golf and Restaurant at 1397 Wanneroo Rd in Wanneroo as it is the most northern point with any infrastructure along Wanneroo Rd (which heads out to Indian Ocean Dr to Jurien, Dongara and so on.)

Drover’s Marketplace is located on a major intersection which services about 62,000 cars on an average day. To put this figure into perspective, it is about three times more than the traffic along the Australind Bypass along Forest Hwy in Eaton where the only other existing Supercharger in Western Australia is located and about fifteen times as much as the traffic along Albany Hwy in Williams where the next supercharger is to be commissioned.

The Marketplace is home to a major northern suburbs tourist attraction which is the 5-acre Leap Frog’s Botanic Gardens with integrated mini-golf, wedding venue and restaurant. Drover’s Marketplace is also home to a cafe, steakhouse, pizza restaurant, Italian restaurant, bakery, hairdresser/barber, liquor store, large fruit and vegetable and mini mart store, butcher, 24/7 gym, laundromat, 7-day chemist, medical centre (including physiotherapy, dentist, nutritionist, pathology, sleep clinic and podiatry). There is also a creche, kids indoor swimming pool, storage, vet, pet store and so on. Importantly, the above list only includes the existing tenants as the other half of the site is currently being developed which provides a good opportunity for the installation of appropriate electrical infrastructure. This southern part of the development already includes a petrol station and across the road is also a McDonald’s. Carramar Village Shopping Centre is within walking distance and includes a major supermarket, community centre, several fast food outlets, newsagency, cafe, 24/7 gym, hairdresser/barber, chemist, medical centre, school and so on.

It is entirely possible that Tesla has already picked the location and thus the above could serve as a suggestion for the next supercharger location or maybe there is still time for Tesla to take the above into consideration. Either way, with the State Government due to begin installation of the fast DC charger network across WA next year, it is going to be an exciting time for WA Tesla and EV owners.

6 May 20216 May 2021

Planning a long distance trip away from DC chargers

If you’re keen to drive you’re Tesla north of Geraldton or east past Merredin it can be done safely as long as you have patience and prepare correctly. If you treat the journey as an adventure you’ll enjoy the trip, treat it as a task that needs to be completed ASAP and you’ll wish you stayed at home.

What will you need to carry?

You don’t need a large variety of charging cables but you do need charging plans A, B and C.

Plan A is the Tesla destination chargers located around the state, so far most of these have been reliable and most also have a 5 pin three phase outlet nearby as a backup.
Plan B is a 3 phase mobile connector such as a juice booster or KHONS charging cable that plugs into the dozens of 3 phase 5 pin outlets located all over Western Australia, this will generally provide the same charging speed as a Tesla 3 phase destination charger. Unless you’re planning many long distance trips I suggest you borrow a KHONS cable from TOCWA, paying over $800 for a cable you may only use a handful of times is not good value.
Plan C is the UMC that is delivered with the car, it’s the one in the square black bag. You may never use this cable but you must carry it, if everything else fails this will get you home, slowly but eventually.

North of Geraldton and east of Kalgoorlie you’ll need a spare tyre, jack and associated equipment. Puncture repair kits are a handy plan B but won’t get you out of trouble if the tyre damage is severe, besides you don’t want to be hanging around some outback town for 3 days while a spare tyre gets transported in. Keep in mind the best way to reduce tyre issues on a long trip is depart home with plenty of tread depth. A spare tyre and wheel combo is available to loan from TOCWA.

The Plugshare app is critical, make sure all fields are open so you don’t miss any charging options. Before departing to the next charging location it’s important you read not just the location details but also previous comments, this may well save you a lot of time and frustration on arrival. Don’t forget to log in and if necessary leave a tip for the following drivers, it’s a great way to support the EV community.

Charging tips.

At some stage in the future virtually all locations in Western Australia will have fast DC charging until then the following tips will make any trip far easier.

Charging from AC will provide the same power transfer and charging speed no matter the battery state of charge right up to approximately 97% so there’s no time saving in adding the bare minimum charge to get to the next location, this is where the saying “Always Be Charging” comes in, take the charge where its available, the next charge location may only be 200kms along the highway but if it doesn’t work you could be spending the next 15 hours charging from a caravan park socket rather than the lunchtime stop you expected. Arriving with 40% state of charge is far wiser than arriving with less than 10%.
Don’t try and charge too fast if you don’t need to, especially overnight on three phase. If the Plugshare comments say the breaker trips off with extended high amp charging go to the touchscreen settings and drop the amps down a small amount so the car completes charging just before you plan to depart, slower charging is better than no charging.
Cool the car interior just before departure while still charging, this reduces the energy consumption from the battery needed to cool the car down once back on the highway.
Ask permission to charge before you plug in. Many of the charge locations in regional WA are provided through the good will of the local business, it’s important to return the favour with a friendly chat if possible. Take note that due to staff turnover the person behind the counter may not even know a chargepoint exists, check the exact location by browsing the plugshare photos beforehand.

General tips.

Get an early start each day and get off the road before dark – there’s far less traffic on the road in the early morning and it’s generally cooler. There’s still some wildlife hanging around the side of the road but it’s easier to see without a continual flow of headlights heading towards you. Early starts and early finish also provide some flexibility if your planned journey for the day takes longer than expected.

Don’t get too confident in quality accommodation being easily accessible, if you want the best possible overnight stay, ring well in advance, and make sure you arrange key collection. Many of the regional locations close up the front office by 6.00pm.

A number of TOCWA’s committee and members have completed long distance journeys throughout the state as well as around Australia, they are willing to share their experience with others so don’t be afraid to ask if you want more information.

18 April 202118 April 2021

Why AC Charging is Still Vital

When most people refer to electric vehicle charging they discuss the DC variant, and without doubt DC only charging is useful in three EV charging scenarios.

DC charging of at least 100kw power output is critical on highways between Australian towns and cities, the vast majority of non EV owners firmly believe fast charging times that are closer to petrol refill times are essential if they’re going to purchase an EV, these future new owners will soon realise that a 15 minute stop every 250kms is nowhere near the issue they expected.
There’s a small percentage of car owners that live in multi story buildings with no electricity outlet near their allocated parking spot, when these residents purchase an EV they’ll rely on public charging, for many DC charging will be the preferred choice.
The third EV charging scenario is the Taxi industry, to make the day to day operation as smooth as possible they’ll need the easy access to reliable DC charging.

So why is AC charging still so vital?

Despite what the EV naysayers would like to portray, the vast majority of Australian car owners have the ability to charge an EV at home or work. It doesn’t need to be 3 phase power, 10, 15 or even 32amp single phase is more than sufficient to replace the average days driving.

Compared to DC charging an AC charging set up is extremely cheap and fast to install. Public DC chargers are currently very expensive to install, sometimes expensive to maintain and often attract a lot of red tape that drags the build time out for months on end. At the moment there’s a very low number of electric vehicles on the road compared to the rest of the vehicle fleet so having EVs charging at their local DC charger is handy advertising, as the transition to plug in electric drivetrains rapidly increase this may very well cause issues if the DC charging infrastructure in built up areas can’t keep up with demand.

Those EV drivers mentioned earlier in the scenarios above will heavily rely on local DC charging, so getting as many owners as possible with the ability to charge at home or work from AC charging is vital to making the nationwide EV transition as smooth as possible.

10 April 2021

Model 3 USA build v China build

Energy efficiency and charging speed comparison

This test was scheduled to compare the different supercharging speeds between a USA and China built model 3 standard range, we also took the opportunity to test the energy efficiency of both cars. The energy efficiency test produced some unexpected results but nothing that would make one car far superior to the other over its whole life.

Conditions for the day were fine and dry, with the outside air temperature starting at 19C and creeping up to 26C over the next 4 hours, the roads had light to moderate traffic allowing for both cars to stay visible to each other, there was no tailgating each other or drafting larger vehicles.

We attempted to drive a combination of suburban and highway routes although a significant section of the journey was at 110kmh on a fairly coarse road surface that has a negative effect on range, I’ve driven the same Forest highway dozens of times in a model S in the past 6 years and it’s certainly chews up the energy as much as any West Australian road I can think of.

To make the test as tidy as possible both cars had the same cold tyre pressures (45psi) using the same brand and size tyres, both climate controls set to 22C throughout the full test when driving, 2 occupants each. Both cars preheated their batteries on approach to the supercharger. We had the good fortune to have the Eaton V2 Superchargers to ourselves avoiding shared cabinets.

The Supercharging Speed Test

Not really a groundbreaking surprise here but more of a reminder that the USA installed NCA batteries have a slightly different charging profile to the China installed LFP batteries, the good news is both cars had a reasonable good charging speed between 20% and 90% on a V2 Supercharger capped at 135kw, USA build taking 33 minutes, the China build taking 32 minutes.

Note: 97Kw figure at 40% was double checked and is correct.

The Efficiency Test

The Trip A south in temperatures between 19C and 22C was a total distance of 129kms via a detour through Pinjarra, this produced a small surprise that we initially put down to a margin of error, the USA car had a trip average of 153Wh/km against the China car of 157Wh/km, I didn’t expect the China car to have any advantage on such a mild day, a cold day would have certainly given it a win.

The Trip B north was a more direct 103kms with temperatures between 23C and 26C, this did throw up an interesting result, the USA car averaged 145Wh/km, the China car 158Wh/km, that sort of gap wasn’t expected.

So why such difference? It wasn’t driver behaviour, we swapped passengers at the supercharger so I spent time with both drivers, there wasn’t any significant difference in accelerating or braking. As the cars had been matched as close as possible the only difference was the age of the tyres, although the China model 3 had 1200kms on its tyres it appears they need some more age and distance before the tyres produce their best efficiency.

Many thanks to Nigel and Alex for giving up their Saturday morning to conduct this test.

Rob.

28 December 202028 December 2020

Comparing the Eaton Supercharger with the Treendale DC charger

These two sets of chargers are 5kms apart not far from the Forrest highway 160kms south of Perth, they’re are both excellent charging facilities that provide a welcome link for drivers heading to the south west corner of the state.

Treendale consists of 2 charging outlets with a maximum charge rate of 350kw, although currently there are no electric vehicles in Australia that can accept that power output. As of today (28/12/2020) the cost is 40 cents per kWh with no connection fee via the Chargefox network. In addition to the reasonable cost per unit the ability for 2019 onward Tesla’s to charge at rates as high as 190kw makes the Treendale charger an attractive alternative.

The Eaton Superchargers are part of the Tesla network, the bank of 6 charging outlets have a maximum charge rate of 135kw, for those without access to free supercharging credits the 52 cents per kWh cost can appear excessive compared to charging at home but is acceptable for a top up every few weeks.

The clear advantage of the Tesla supercharger is the convenience of the set up, firstly you can detour into Eaton with the surety that at least one of the 6 charging bays will be available to use, having the ability to check via the Tesla app how many chargers are occupied before arrival is an added bonus, but best of all the “plug in and walk off” set up is so much better than opening a phone app and waiting for a connection as often occurs with most other non Tesla chargers.

In summary, if you have a newer Tesla with the ability to charge at higher rates the Treendale chargers are the better alternative, the downside is you run the risk that eventually both charge bays will be occupied on arrival. If your not concerned about saving a few minutes and a few dollars the Eaton superchargers are the best option, park up, plug in, walk off completely hassle free.