Over the weekend, at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association fair in Custer Wisconsin, one JB Straubel, the CTO of Tesla Motors, gave a talk. According to a report by Electrek, Straubel said that Tesla Motors is “talking with” other automakers about the Supercharger network. Clearly the current situation with three…
A single solitary sentence in Tesla’s announcement about doubling the Supercharger network could have a significant impact for urban-dwelling prospective electric car owners. Those who live in “multi-unit-dwellings”, like apartment or condominium complexes, usually have a hard time finding charging. Typically the landlord or home owners association puts up barriers…
The Tesla Model 3 is due for its production launch in a few months. While some of us are pondering our personal budget, Tesla Motors has a bigger issue on its mind. The key advantage they have over other automakers is the extensive reach of the Supercharger fast charging network.…
While CHAdeMO had a head-start over all other DC Fast Charging systems for electric vehicles, it may be that it will lose out in the standards/market-share competition to retain relevancy. We are plagued with three (four counting the Chinese) competing DC fast charging systems, when we as electric vehicle consumers…
At the beginning of 2015, BMW, VW and ChargePoint declared a plan to establish fast charging corridors along the East and West Coasts of the USA. Initially I thought this would be bad, because they’d install just ComboChargingSystem stations leaving CHAdeMO station owners in the lurch, and worsening the Big…
Electric vehicle charging stations with WiFi support could become commonplace. Texas Instruments, a.k.a. TI, has just published an EVSE (a.k.a. electric vehicle service equipment) reference design that includes WiFi support and an ARM-based processor. I believe many companies use these published reference designs as the starting point for products, sometimes…
This week Tesla Motors unveiled a larger battery pack for the Tesla Model S. With a 100 kiloWatt-hour battery pack they’re now up to 315 miles EPA range, and it also let Tesla juice up the Ludicrous mode for an even faster 0-60 miles/hr time and claim to be selling…
A battle is being fought in California over whether electric utility companies can own/deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In the case of PG&E’s proposal, it has drawn huge amount of criticism and in late 2015 the CPUC forced PG&E to limit their plan while the Commission weighed whether PG&E should be allowed…
We don’t think of the Midwest as a hotbed of electric vehicle activity, do we? In actuality, the Kansas City area has had electric vehicle owners for 20 years or more. Over the last couple years, the local electrical utility (Kansas City Power and Light) has built up an impressive…
Electric car charging resources are limited, meaning we all must do our best to share them effectively. It’s bad enough that gasoline car owners routinely block charging stations either from confusion/ignorance or from politically motivated spite. In some cases electric car owners block charging stations, maybe thinking they have a…
In late March, CharIN e.V. made the briefest of announcements that looks to make a huge impact on the electric car charging scene: “CharIN e. V. is happy to announce that Tesla Motors Inc. has been granted core membership in the association on 24th of February 2016.” This is important…
I’m working on a book meant to teach “Range Confidence” as a way to avoid letting Range Anxiety keep us from driving electric cars. The key knowing the capabilities of your car, the local charging network, the ins-and-outs of selecting between Level 2 and Fast charging, and having a car with fast charging.…
Yesterday, a post by John Voelcker of Green Car Reports noted that General Motors has no intention to invest in building fast charging infrastructure. He had been able to attend a meeting between the press and GM at CES last week. Several GM executives agreed, no support by GM to…
Earlier today Volkswagen unveiled the BUDD-e, a reboot of the venerable VW Bus that had been passed through an uglifier and given an ultra-modern electric drive train and infotainment wizardry. The most curious part of the car is its recharge time, which Volkswagen described as allowing a “80% recharge in…
Tesla Motors has had a spot of bad news – another Model S has caught on fire, this time not from road debris but while plugged into a Supercharger station. This happened in Norway, according to a news post on fvn.co, for a brand new car. The owner had plugged in,…
