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28 September 2019

Created: 28 September 2019

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Tesla unveiled the first V3 Supercharger at its Fremont, California factory just a few months ago, but the company is already making progress on the first concentrated buildout of the third generation of its fast-charging stations. That’s because 26 of the 46 charging stations currently being built along the transcontinental Trans-Canada Highway are V3 chargers, Tesla tells The Verge.

The new V3 chargers are capable of charging some Model 3s at rates of up to 250kW, making it possible to gain 75 miles of range in just five minutes. So far, the company has opened just a few other V3 Supercharging stations (including one in Las Vegas) beyond the original one at the Fremont plant.

The news comes as Tesla celebrates the seven-year anniversary of the first Supercharger stations this week. In the time since the company lit up those first fast chargers back in 2012, Tesla has gone on to build out one of the biggest networks of EV chargers in the world, with 14,081 Superchargers across 1,604 stations in 36countries.

Tesla tells The Verge it’s seen more than 30 million charging sessions on its fast chargers since the first one was debuted in 2012. The company says its Supercharger network handles an average of 64,000 sessions per day, and doles out a total of about 2.25GWh of energy per day — meaning users take on about 35kWh of energy during an average charging session.

Depending on the model, Tesla’s vehicles have battery capacities that range between 50kWh to 100kWh. While there’s an obvious psychological appeal to recharging your car to completely full (just like you’d refill a combustion engine car’s gas tank all the way), the numbers Tesla provided imply that a great deal of customers only charge up enough to get where they’re going. Whether that’s because they don’t want to wait for a full charge, or because they’re happy enough to just grab a few extra miles before heading home to finish filling the battery over night, is unclear.

To put some of these numbers in some context, ChargePoint — which controls one of the most widely distributed charging networks in the world — has more than 1,476 fast chargers around the world and 100,700 chargers in total, according to its most recent monthly fact sheet. The California-based charging company says it has powered more than 62,879,120 charging sessions in the 12 years since it was founded.

But since the overwhelming majority of ChargePoint’s chargers are of the slower Level 2 variety, the company’s network has delivered just 563,125MWh worth of energy over that time — the same amount Superchargers put out in about 250 days. Based on those numbers, the average charging session over ChargePoint’s existence is closer to 9kWh.

Other comparisons are hard to make. When asked, EVgo was only able to share the number of charging stations on its network, and Volkswagen’s Electrify America said “we don’t provide usage data.”

Tesla may have outpaced other charging networks across the last seven years, but like a number of the company’s efforts, the original vision was even more grand. In the https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-motors-launches-revolutionary-supercharger-enabling-convenient-long-dista+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">2012 blog post announcing the first Superchargers, Tesla promised the ability to drive “anywhere in the country on pure sunlight for free.”

The company also said it wanted to outfit Superchargers with solar panels from SolarCity (which at the time was still a few years away from being acquired by Tesla), with the goal of “generating more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger,” resulting in “a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid.”

“I think this day will actually go down as being quite historic, I think at least on par with SpaceX docking with the Space Station earlier this year,” CEO Elon Musk said at the 2012 unveiling.

Of course, free Supercharging eventually went away, only reappearing from time to time as an incentive for new buyers. Only about six of the stations were hooked up to a solar panel setup in 2017, and Tesla hasn’t shown off a fully off-grid Supercharger setup. There are a few more stations with solar panels, but it’s clear Tesla’s still a long way off from fulfilling the picture Musk painted back in 2012.

Still, Tesla’s Superchargers tend to excel at the two things that matter most: reliable coverage and getting as much juice as possible in a short amount of time. Other charging networks (like Electrify America) are coming online, and that will certainly shift the balance in the years to come, especially since they tend to work with multiple makes and models. But by the time they’re built out, there will also be more electric cars on the road to charge. Maybe by then, stats like charging time and coverage maps will matter a little bit less than they do today.

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27 September 2019

Created: 27 September 2019

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Ah, the Gran Coupe. That’ll be a two-door for your Nan?

Purleeze. In BMW language, a GC is a four-door coupe-ish thing. In this case a version of the ritzy 8 Series coupe, with added doors. It’s not just some lazy stretch job. Every exterior panel is different aft of the windscreen.The front doors are longer, the rear doors simply exist, the wheelbase is longer, the roof is higher. The rear track is a fraction wider, mostly for design reasons. Even the boot lid and rear wings are new, enclosing extra litres in a longer rear overhang.

Looks good?

Hmmm. The proportions are pretty sensational. Long, low and broad-hipped. The trouble is in the surfaces and lines. The side has a pair aimless creases above and below the door handles, and that angular rear door-window outline just doesn’t quite work. Maybe go for a dark colour.

And you didn’t much like the 8 Series Coupe. I’m having trouble summoning the energy to read on…

Ah well, actually, I find myself warming to the Gran Coupe. It seems to be the correct expression of the 8 Series idea.

How so?

Well the Coupe never really feels like a sports car. It’s too heavy and remote. But it doesn’t have the drop-dead visual loveliness to justify its place among the sportyish-coupe rivals. The Gran Coupe has enough space to be useful, and if it doesn’t feel like a sports car at least it feels notably more nimble that a conventional big German saloon.

OK, since the back seat is the new bit, what’s it like?

They call this car a four plus one. There are three sets of rear belts but you wouldn’t want to be strapped into the middle. Headroom is tiny, and your legs have to splay outside the standard full-length rear centre console.

That console is home to full climate control, vents, USBs, storage and so on. So it’s a well-equipped den for the two in the outer rear seats.

Because the wheelbase is 20cm longer than in the coupe, they get comfy chairs with enough room for legs and heads. It’s not a lolling-about space like the back of a limo though. You’re held snugly as the driver in front chucks the car around.

Why would they do that?

Because compared with most saloons, it doesn’t mind a bit of chuckage. It feels low, the springing is firmer than a 5 Series, and the whole package is grippy and well-balanced and damped, if rather numb. You know, like the 8 Series Coupe. There’s nothing lost in the stretch.

I drove the 840i, which is the only one of the range (840i, 840d and M850i) that you can have with rear-drive. That saves 90kg, and sharpens up the turning responses, as does having the lightest engine.Besides, 340bhp is hardly feeble, and delivery is smooth and enthusiastic. A really classy engine, and it goes hand-in-glove with the eight-speed auto. Normal BMW advantages then.

Ah, and normal BMW cabin design.

Yep, that’s an issue. The dash and instruments and centre screen system are beautifully made and ergonomically excellent. Especially as a head-up display is standard here to mitigate BMW’s unreadable new polygonal dials.

But all of this is just what you get in any BMW from the new 3 Series upward. House style is all very well, but at this price level we find ourselves wanting something more special. Mind you it’s not such a problem with the 840i sDrive, at £69,340, than it is with the M850i xDrive which goes against a Panamera or AMG GT4.

Still, BMW expects the Gran Coupe will outsell the Coupe and Convertible combined, and to be honest we can see why. It’s a more natural and less contradictory car than the Coupe.

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