In reply to Keith Tanner :
I understand that Teslas use proprietary charging systems, but do you ever encounter non-Tesla charging stations, if not side by side, in the same general vicinity?
Suppose you were to roll up to a hypothetical IKEA or other EV friendly business. Would you find charging stations for multiple platforms, or would it be one or the other?
Do business enter into exclusive deals with Tesla / non-Tesla?
For slow charging, Teslas can use the proprietary Tesla connector or the common J1772 Level 2 connector. They come with the adapter. The Tesla chargers are a little faster but in reality it doesn't matter on an overnight stop. It might matter if you're only stopping for dinner and you're pushing the limits.
Destination chargers are slow chargers. It's pretty common to see both Tesla and J1772 chargers together. I always use the Tesla ones in that case because it would be rude to lock out a Bolt or i3 or something that doesn't have the option. There's pretty clearly no exclusivity requirement.
Generally, the high speed chargers seem to be geographically separate (like Shell and Philips 66 stations are always on different lots) but I know the Superchargers in Montrose, CO have both Tesla and EA fast chargers on site so this is not a universal rule and may be changing. Again, it appears there's no exclusivity but from what I've seen this is less common. Maybe due to the fact that these are owned by the networks and not by the businesses, and there's no real motivation for the networks to work together most of the time.
The non-hypothetical Denver IKEA has J1772s out front, a Supercharger cluster in a parking lot adjacent and there's an EA charging station a mile or so down the road at WalMart. EA seems to partner with WalMart/Sam's Club a lot, there's probably a high-level deal at play and there might be exclusivity on that one.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
When you are in the navigation section of the UI, there are multiple lightning bolts to click that will show chargers of different rates. It goes from 1-3 lightning bolts signifying level 1 -3 chargers. If you click all three you will see all available chargers in the area excepting the latest ones that haven't been added to the map recently. The car will continue to use only superchargers when calculating routes but it is great to see all the chargers nearby if needed.
Well look at that! Thanks. I was going off what I remembered reading in the owners manual, but that's a big document to absorb all at once.
Janel has decided the car is too shiny. She's asking if I can black out the chrome trim around the windows, which I believe is what the 2021s look like as well. Not the handles, though, people have enough trouble figuring out how the doors work as it is :)
I took a spare piece of black vinyl from the cutter and stuck it on (badly) to see. Easy enough to do.
We've also removed the aero hubcaps for a while just to mix things up. It makes the car look more normal. Not sure if I'm convinced it makes it look better, just more normal. Now I just need to come up with some sort of small highlight for the nose to cut down on the weird fishy face. The S has a little chrome moustache, something similar might work. Vinyl makes for cheap and easy experimentation.
It's still wild to me that we still have multiple DC charging standards competing at this point. We don't have multiple gas station nozzles for each brand of car, so why EVs? It seems the current crop is mostly the euro and GM standard CCS or Tesla. There are a few of the older CHAdeMO that Nissan and a few others favored but those seem to have gone the way of Betamax.
I'm hopeful that someday soon we see just one standard everywhere. Tesla's standard is good because it has a lot of stations available in good locations already and it seems to "just work" better - I have heard more tales of difficulty getting a CCS station like those found at Electrify America or Chargepoint to work. It's bad, in that other automakers are extremely unlikely to adopt it and give in.
Imagine if you pulled up to a Chevron, the only one in 100 miles, and had to wait 20 minutes to get the pump to work or worse? It's a big barrier currently to longer trips in an EV, but it should be solvable.
Well, we sorta do. My diesel truck gets really pissy when I fill with gasoline.
Tesla had to create their own fast charging standard because at the time there was no alternative. CHAdeMO was adopted by the Japanese for fast(ish) charging, then the Euros settled on CCS. It's looking pretty clear to me that CCS will be the overall winner with Ford and GM also coming on board, and I would not be surprised to see Tesla stations switch over to CCS in the future. To do that, they'll have to come up with a CCS adapter or conversion for the 3/Y which does not yet exist for US cars. Those cars do use CCS natively in Europe, so I'm hoping it'll be relatively easy.
Authentication is coming to CCS, so hopefully the challenges of trying to activate an EA charger will soon be in the past. With authentication, ideally the car will arrange for access and payment when you plug it in. I agree that the non-Tesla networks really have to pay attention to their user experience if they want to foster increased EV use.
Level 2 charging does have the J1772 standard which seems to be working well, but it's slow enough that it really only works for very long charge stops or very small batteries.
Keith Tanner said:Well look at that! Thanks. I was going off what I remembered reading in the owners manual, but that's a big document to absorb all at once.
Janel has decided the car is too shiny. She's asking if I can black out the chrome trim around the windows, which I believe is what the 2021s look like as well. Not the handles, though, people have enough trouble figuring out how the doors work as it is :)
I took a spare piece of black vinyl from the cutter and stuck it on (badly) to see. Easy enough to do.
We've also removed the aero hubcaps for a while just to mix things up. It makes the car look more normal. Not sure if I'm convinced it makes it look better, just more normal. Now I just need to come up with some sort of small highlight for the nose to cut down on the weird fishy face. The S has a little chrome moustache, something similar might work. Vinyl makes for cheap and easy experimentation.
There are a couple of aftermarket front bumper splitters that really change up the look. The beak is my least favorite feature - the rest of the lines I like. There are also Tbadge and moustaches like the S and X available. I can't decide what I think of them though as it feels like the hood scoop on the Rav4.
If I felt like throwing money at the appearance, I'd be looking at the Unplugged Performance front bumper cover. It's actually pretty attractive. But the nose does not bother me enough to spend $3k on it. Given that I'm not the primary driver, I'm concerned about affecting approach angle with a splitter. I also don't think it would affect the look of a black car as much as a lighter one, as it would blend in more.
There weren't any mustaches available when we first got the car, which was the last time I looked. I might take a look around. One of the reasons we got a black car was to minimize the dorkiness of the nose, and if a sticker helps with that I'm willing to accept the fact that it's fake.
Unplugged front bumper for those who don't go looking for Tesla styling mods. Interesting, UP doesn't claim any aero improvements which they usually do, which means it is purely for style. It also extends the nose by nearly 3". But styling-wise, I think it's pretty successful.
Ha ha ha!
I'm kind of surprised that no one makes faux-Ferrari-ish vinyl egg crate grills for these things.
A 289 Cobra grill might work too.
Startech has this model available in Europe but I haven't seen it in the US. It looks different, that's for sure. Not sure if I think it's better per se.
I do like the unplugged performance but have never been able to justify that cost for pure aesthetics on this or any other car.
I can't stop my brain from analyzing the engine cooling effects of the different front end appearance mods. Apparently decades of thinking about things a certain way are difficult to change. Or, I'm just not that bright.
You do still have a cooling system - battery management, motors and HVAC. But apparently they're not as hungry for air as an ICE. I think it also pulls air from underneath the nose.
The irony of current ICE design with massive grilles is that they probably need smaller ones (per horsepower) than they've ever needed before. But that's where styling has taken us.
My buddy has a Model 3 that he has tweaked from an appearance perspective. All subtle changes but, to my eye, it all adds up to a much better looking version.
In reply to dyintorace :
My window tint goes on aug 2nd. Too my eye it needs more low and a reasonably price front splitter add on up front. Maybe lighter weight wheels to offset more tire?
I had the chance to do some pulls in the wet with slip/shift and track mode engaged. Pleasantly surprised at the grip and launch.
Took awhile, but this thread really lines up with my interests for our next car, so I read the whole thing. Following with interest!
As part of my ongoing curiosity about how an EV would fit in my life I used the Tesla Go Anywhere site to see if I could have used an EV for the mini-vacation I took with my wife this past weekend. It looks like the infrastructure is not quite there yet for me to have been able to drive the route we took without modification. To be fair though, it was a vacation so we could have planed our trip differently and once again there isn't currently an EV available that would have worked for this trip since we spent some time with the truck in four wheel drive exploring some trails.
Driving 600+ miles through the middle of nowhere in one day is always going to be a challenge :) Had you been staying overnight somewhere instead of covering quite a bit of ground, you could have charged overnight at a destination charger.
There are some non-Tesla chargers on that route as well - a lot of them at RV parks. They're mostly Level 2 so not fast chargers, but there are ways to make it work if your vacation involves a sleepover :)
Keith Tanner said:You do still have a cooling system - battery management, motors and HVAC. But apparently they're not as hungry for air as an ICE. I think it also pulls air from underneath the nose.
The irony of current ICE design with massive grilles is that they probably need smaller ones (per horsepower) than they've ever needed before. But that's where styling has taken us.
Per the Electrified Garage's engineers and ex-Tesla employees, they run at a max of 160 Degrees F but only about 1-2lbs of pressure, versus a gas car's ~200F at 13lbs.
Keith Tanner said:Driving 600+ miles through the middle of nowhere in one day is always going to be a challenge :) Had you been staying overnight somewhere instead of covering quite a bit of ground, you could have charged overnight at a destination charger.
There are some non-Tesla chargers on that route as well - a lot of them at RV parks. They're mostly Level 2 so not fast chargers, but there are ways to make it work if your vacation involves a sleepover :)
We actually stayed overnight in Silver City doing the eastern part of the route on Saturday and the Western part on Sunday. That doesn't invalidate your point about traveling long distances through the middle of nowhere always being a challenge. There aren't many places to buy diesel fuel in the Gila National Forest either.
It's interesting, when I first started driving a diesel pickup truck as my daily in the early '90s diesel fuel wasn't sold at most gas stations and you had to search out truck stops for fill ups. I had more than one trip in desolate places where range anxiety was a thing. I just planned routes and schedules to accommodate. Just like I'd have to do now if I had an EV.
An overnight in Silver City does give you access to a small number of destination chargers, so you could consider that a reset. There are also a few in RV parks in the immediate area that are listed on Plugshare. Most of them are just 14-50 plugs so you'd have to pack along your mobile charger (roughly the same volume as a shoebox) but it's enough to fill the battery overnight.
The second day (the one that doesn't go through Truth Or Consequences, where there is a Supercharger) would still be a stretch but at least it's closer to plausible.
Also, I cannot believe you skipped Pie Town.
In reply to APEowner :
How did you like the trip over Emory Pass? That is one seriously twisty piece of road.
My wife usually has to take extreme measures not to get car sick on that route.
dyintorace said:My buddy has a Model 3 that he has tweaked from an appearance perspective. All subtle changes but, to my eye, it all adds up to a much better looking version.
I missed this when it was first posted. He's done quite a bit. Front lip, lowered ride height, rear diffuser, ducktail trunk lid. Hard to tell if the blacked out chrome is factory or aftermarket as the new ones come that way. I can't remember if those are factory 19s or if he's got something else, but I do suspect there are spacers if they're factory wheels. It does look good.
I have looked at wheel options a few times, it is tempting. And I'd love to drop it, but Janel is already worried about ground clearance and I have real concerns about the engineering behind some of the suspension from the major players. A set of wheel spacers, though, could go a long way. Maybe I'll black out the window trim tomorrow too...
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