OOS - Gravity Charging

[LuvLucy]

Superchargers were a profit center of Tesla. Then they fired everyone who worked on them. Their future remains to be seen. The only real competitor in North America to date has been EA, who exists solely because of DieselGate and a government lawsuit/settlement (thanks VW). I'm excited to see what Ionna and other new players bring to to the market for the upscale traveller, given actual demand. I pay like $.03/kW mostly at my home to charge due to dynamic pricing, but am willing to pay 100 fold for a luxury experience when road tripping - and it all really sucks right now.

Last time I charged at a Telsa supercharger (with my M3P),on rt 80 in Iowa, I enjoyed a lovely "Southwest Salad" at the Kum-N-Go. It was burger toppings with a bag of "flaming hot Cheetos" dumped on it. Quite the memorable experience - NOT!

 

[segbrk]

Is there a thread on Gravity charging on Level 2 chargers? I understand precious little about all this stuff, even as a current EV owner. I have a Tesla home charging station that is currently feeding my car 48A on ~240V (238 as we speak). In my S, that is currently equating to about 35-36 nominal miles of charge per hour. Understanding that the Gravity's nominal charging "miles" will differ somewhat from the Tesla, how should I expect the Gravity to charge on the same charging station? I'm assuming about the same (possibly faster since the Gravity should get more miles per kWh?) but want to make sure I'm not missing anything, or that I might need a different home charging solution?

Gravity GT has a 123kWh battery, and its stated range is 450 miles with the small wheels.
450 mi / 123 kWh = about 3.66 mi/kWh
48A at 240V = 11.5 kW
3.66 x 11.5 = 42.09 miles per hour
Or in terms of the whole battery,
123 kWh / 11.5 kW = 10.7, call it 11 hours from 0-100%. 20%-80% should take about 6.5 hours.
I think you're in great shape, I see no reason you'd have to change anything.

 

[LuvLucy]

Is there a thread on Gravity charging on Level 2 chargers? I understand precious little about all this stuff, even as a current EV owner. I have a Tesla home charging station that is currently feeding my car 48A on ~240V (238 as we speak). In my S, that is currently equating to about 35-36 nominal miles of charge per hour. Understanding that the Gravity's nominal charging "miles" will differ somewhat from the Tesla, how should I expect the Gravity to charge on the same charging station? I'm assuming about the same (possibly faster since the Gravity should get more miles per kWh?) but want to make sure I'm not missing anything, or that I might need a different home charging solution?

I would not expect the Gravity or any other car, realistically to charge any differently on a Level 2 home charger. My air is pretty much the same as my Tesla before that, on a 60 amp circuit. It's more a function of the circuit - yeah I could change out to a 100A circuit (18kW vs 9) but would I notice when plugged in? For me, no. YMMV.

 

[Knucklehead]

Is there a thread on Gravity charging on Level 2 chargers? I understand precious little about all this stuff, even as a current EV owner. I have a Tesla home charging station that is currently feeding my car 48A on ~240V (238 as we speak). In my S, that is currently equating to about 35-36 nominal miles of charge per hour. Understanding that the Gravity's nominal charging "miles" will differ somewhat from the Tesla, how should I expect the Gravity to charge on the same charging station? I'm assuming about the same (possibly faster since the Gravity should get more miles per kWh?) but want to make sure I'm not missing anything, or that I might need a different home charging solution?

They charge at the same 48 Amp speed. It is limited by the EVSE. You could get a 80 Amp EVSE and charge the Gravity twice as fast, since it can do that.

 

[PetevB]

Superchargers were a profit center of Tesla. Then they fired everyone who worked on them.

And then hired many of them back. Like I said, greed. Musk sent a clear message to his other lieutenants, but he still wants the ~1B in profit per year the network is projected to make by 2030.

It’s take years for any major player to catch Tesla, let alone pass them- securing the locations, getting grid interconnect permits for the 10+ MW per site, etc. Tesla’s in a great position to push their first mover advantage, and with the ineptitude of the competition meaning that there aren’t real alternatives they can push up the price, simultaneously generating more profit and giving their own cars a competitive advantage. I also assume future Tesla platforms will be 800V as Iit saves money in the car, so I have no doubt they’ll get there. It’s just a question of how fast.

 

[Elfin]

I just wish everyone standardized charge port locations. The V3 cable has a lighter feel and is more elegant than the longer V4 cable. One thing Kyle mentioned in a video is that the V3 cables may not be able to sustain the 20 minutes of 500 amp charging the Gravity is capable of. The cooling on the V4 cable is improved.
Hard to beat plug and charge and super fast handshake at the superchargers. How long does it take to start an EA session?

 

[PetevB]

.The V3 cable has a lighter feel and is more elegant than the longer V4 cable. One thing Kyle mentioned in a video is that the V3 cables may not be able to sustain the 20 minutes of 500 amp charging the Gravity is capable of. The cooling on the V4 cable is improved.

Keeping that cable cool has multiple functions, one of which is to reduce losses. Meaning a cool cable actually reduces your cost to charge noticeably. So yea, give me the bulky cable.

How long does it take to start an EA session?

Anywhere from 2 minutes to 60 in my experience? You can’t trust that an EA station shown to be unoccupied and working, on a map, is actually working in my experience. Multiple times I’ve rolled into a 4 spot 350 KW EA station with two “vacancies” (with my car on fumes) only to find that two stations are actually on the fritz and one has something charging at a snail’s pace (Leaf/ or similar). At that point there’s likely a lone and you’re twiddling your thumbs for who knows how long.

In comparison Tesla not only knew how many people were waiting (because they are tracking the location of all of their cars) but also how many were inbound (tracking cars with chargers set as the destination).

 

[DeaneG]

...Hard to beat plug and charge and super fast handshake at the superchargers. How long does it take to start an EA session?

Long enough that you start to wonder if it'll work, but not so long that it's significant.

 

[Elfin]

Keeping that cable cool has multiple functions, one of which is to reduce losses. Meaning a cool cable actually reduces your cost to charge noticeably. So yea, give me the bulky cable.

The change in resistance with temperature is not nearly large enough to offset the 50% extra length of the V4 cable. It's basically proportional to degrees Kelvin for copper. My complaint is about the inefficiency of everyone having different charge port locations.

 

[PetevB]

The change in resistance with temperature is not nearly large enough to offset the 50% extra length of the V4 cable. It's basically proportional to degrees Kelvin for copper. My complaint is about the inefficiency of everyone having different charge port locations.

Worse than that. While water cooled cables are better in theory Tesla has substantially cut the cross section of the conductors. So V3 cables will be more efficient until V4 cabinets come. They apparently gain about 2% grid to vehicle efficiency (with higher voltage, which will also halve cable losses).

 

[Elfin]

They apparently gain about 2% grid to vehicle efficiency (with higher voltage, which will also halve cable losses).

Doubling the voltage actually quarters cable losses, loss is current^2*resistance.
Makes me wonder if we'll eventually see voltages higher than 1000V.
I guess those V2 cables were super efficient but man were they heavy (and probably much more expensive due to all that copper.)