California is Getting a Charging Upgrade

[julianevjourney]

Interesting article about some big Tesla/CCS charging stations coming to California.

Tesla is building four enormous Supercharger locations in California — TESLARATI

Tesla is currently building four enormous Supercharger locations in California.

apple.news

 

[RGS_AZ]

I don't even own an EV yet, but how is more chargers going to help a state that tells people on a holiday weekend to NOT charge their cars?
I understand needing more chargers but not when the infrastructure does not exist to actually use them.

 

[HC_79]

They’re retro-fitted so no more than 50Kw charging speed for us

 

[HC_79]

I’m also not sure if the cable is long enough to reach the Lucid charging port

 

[Ksa23]

I don't even own an EV yet, but how is more chargers going to help a state that tells people on a holiday weekend to NOT charge their cars?
I understand needing more chargers but not when the infrastructure does not exist to actually use them.

Why should an emergency and unprecedented situations determine the entire future of EV infrastructure?

We can walk and chew gum here..

 

[hydbob]

I don't even own an EV yet, but how is more chargers going to help a state that tells people on a holiday weekend to NOT charge their cars?
I understand needing more chargers but not when the infrastructure does not exist to actually use them.

I don't understand where these stories are coming from? Did Newsom actually come out and say don't charge your EV?

 

[HC_79]

I don't understand where these stories are coming from? Did Newsom actually come out and say don't charge your EV?

It was part of the Flex Alert. They said not to charge EV's but again, it's all advisory not mandatory. I went to an EVGo charger during a Flex Alert and it worked fine. I also think it was more for home owners to not charge EV's at home rather than DON'T use EV Chargers.

 

[hydbob]

I mean a Flex Alert just says be mindful of your energy usage during a high stress time on the grid. How does it go from that to Suck It California for trying to have EVs...

 

[Ksa23]

I don't understand where these stories are coming from? Did Newsom actually come out and say don't charge your EV?

The company responsible for managing their grid advised residents to reduce usage, including EV charging, during a heat wave. This was a few days after California passed legislation to ban the sale of gas only vehicles by 2035.

Both of those stories at the same time had anti-EV groups and other similar groups who have trouble rubbing two brain cells together calling out the supposed hypocrisy.

 

[hydbob]

The company responsible for managing their grid advised residents to reduce usage, including EV charging, during a heat wave. This was a few days after California passed legislation to ban the sale of gas only vehicles by 2035.

Both of those stories at the same time had anti-EV groups and other similar groups who have trouble rubbing two brain cells together calling out the supposed hypocrisy.

Yea...I mean when they texted everyone about the Flex Alert it reduced energy demand by 1.25 Gigawatts!!! Plus, how many people in California actually charge their EVs at home before 9pm anyways?

 

[HC_79]

I mean a Flex Alert just says be mindful of your energy usage during a high stress time on the grid. How does it go from that to Suck It California for trying to have EVs...

You know what the media is like. Take a false narrative, run with it and most people don't research these days so they just believe what is in the headline.

 

[HC_79]

Yea...I mean when they texted everyone about the Flex Alert it reduced energy demand by 1.25 Gigawatts!!! Plus, how many people in California actually charge their EVs at home before 9pm anyways?

Yeah it was stupid to call it out in the messaging because the EV rate kicks in outside the Flex Alert hours

 

[Ksa23]

Its just so braindead to me when people talk about emergent and rare events today to discredit a bill that doesn't take effect for 13 years

 

[HC_79]

First V4 station in AZ. Tesla plug only but all stations follow the normal tradition of reversing into the parking space. So when Tesla does install CCS it's going to be interesting to see how this works with ports on the side of the car like ours. I'm sure you've seen stories in Europe of E-Tron's, Taycan's etc. parked across multiple spaces trying to use the Superchargers

 

[DeaneG]

I don't even own an EV yet, but how is more chargers going to help a state that tells people on a holiday weekend to NOT charge their cars?
I understand needing more chargers but not when the infrastructure does not exist to actually use them.

This was widely misreported by people who don't like California, and/or electric cars. We were asked, if possible, not to operate heavy power-consuming appliances or charge electric cars between 4pm and 9pm for several days. Very few people charge during this interval anyway, as power is more expensive then.

 

[Sandvinsd]

This was widely misreported by people who don't like California, and/or electric cars. We were asked, if possible, not to operate heavy power-consuming appliances or charge electric cars between 4pm and 9pm for several days. Very few people charge during this interval anyway, as power is more expensive then.

I’m in CA. it lasted for 10 days. Asked not to use a lot of power b/w 4-9p most days and 3-10p on at least 1 day. Of course EVs are a big power hog if you charge them (for example, the Lucid battery would be three to four full days of household power for me) so we were asked not to charge the EVs and set the AC to just under 80. As we have fewer than 1M EVs in CA out of about 20M total cars. It will just get worse.

 

[DeaneG]

...As we have fewer than 1M EVs in CA out of about 20M total cars. It will just get worse.

There will be pain along the way and will take a couple decades to accomplish. Without clear goals, it will take far longer.

 

[julianevjourney]

I’m in CA. it lasted for 10 days. Asked not to use a lot of power b/w 4-9p most days and 3-10p on at least 1 day. Of course EVs are a big power hog if you charge them (for example, the Lucid battery would be three to four full days of household power for me) so we were asked not to charge the EVs and set the AC to just under 80. As we have fewer than 1M EVs in CA out of about 20M total cars. It will just get worse.

I’m in CA too. This heatwave was such an extreme situation. Personally I think it’s irresponsible at this point in time to treat it as anything but that. As we push toward a more EV centric future there is time to build up the grid to better handle these events which are sure to start happening with more regularity. This was 10 days out of an entire year. So, I think we can just chill as CA residents and let the future unfold.

 

[LucidDropkick]

I don't even own an EV yet, but how is more chargers going to help a state that tells people on a holiday weekend to NOT charge their cars?
I understand needing more chargers but not when the infrastructure does not exist to actually use them.

I'm so goddamn sick of people saying stupid things like "CA says no more gas cars but then says not to charge EVs haha", they never freaking said not to charge your cars at all.

They literally said to charge your EVs before 4pm and after 9pm, so that the electricity demand for A/C can be met (because that's when it will be at its highest). This isn't difficult to look up. The official PDF is available, it's not like it's hidden. You can read it yourself. And if you don't want to read it yourself, here's the relevant part:

Can you see that? It never said not to charge your cars "for the holiday weekend". It never said "don't charge your EVs at all".

Of course, non-Californians and certain politically affiliated people don't want to recognize that nuance and instead ran around telling the internet that CA is simultaneously banning the sale of gas cars but then telling you that you can't charge your EVs, and people like you lapped it all up without even thinking twice.

Guess what? Not only did we not get told "don't charge your EVs at all", because we listened, cut down our usage between 4 to 9pm, and didn't make a big fuss about it, most of California managed to avoid rolling blackouts because the amount of energy we conserved made it possible.

Also, most people with EVs who charge at home wouldn't even be effing charging during 4pm to 9pm during non-heatwave times, because they charge overnight when electricity is cheaper to begin with. But again, this kind of nuance doesn't sell clickbait BS headlines, so here we are.

So congrats, now that you know what the Flex Alert actually said, go out into the world and try to correct the misinformation before it gets worse.

 

[EVCar]

We were in Orange County last week, during the heatwave, and decided to take an ICE to avoid adding more stress to the grid.
Was painful at the gas station, though.
When we got back, I learned from my news network that a major hospital in San Jose actually had an outage.
Would have felt a bit guilty if we'd driven an EV for that trip.