Tesla Prefabricated V3 Superchargers - Genius or Incremental Improvement?

Join Branden for tour of two prefabricated Tesla Supercharger (PSU) installations in North Carolina to speak about the pros / cons of prefabricated charging installations vs traditional cast-in-place installations.
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[@brandenflasch]

Here’s a partial plan set for the first site we visited in Mooresville, NC - twitter.com/brandenflasch/status/1616510590822014976?s=46&t=SnqJdpM7SPLK2y8nA3kSNg

[@steveurbach3093]

Pre-built, also means pre-configured , so no fiasco on labeling like that EA site. All that is needed now is the App 'suggest' a bay for charging that optimizes speed/load balance (💡 Put a blinking light on the bay that comes on as you arrive to help locate)

[@Yachtzeee]

Love how they can simplify the process. Manufacturing the cabinets, concrete to ship for ease of installation. Typical Tesla manufacturing.

[@KyleConner]

Magic and perfectly suited for Tesla vehicles

[@stefyyy1994]

Its all about scale. How fast can you install them, and also, how fast can you produce them. As you already mentioned, installers will have much simpler installation, instead of 2-3 weeks, they will make it in, I dont know, in 4-5 days. They will also make production much more agile and lean, much more efficient this way. Cost will go down, effort will go down, QC will go up, it will be easier to transport, easier to maintain. List goes on and on.... Tesla grow their SC network 33% compared to last year. In order to scale that fast, and even faster in the future, I think this is only way to go. The more you reduce complexity, the faster you will be... so you will spend less time on everything. These are the numbers: Tesla in Q3 '22 alone: +312 supercharging locations worldwide +2718 chargers Ionity in total: 432 locations 1896 chargers Electrify America in total: 791 locations 3435 chargers Speed of installation, cost, maintenance, QC is just brutal, insane! If we want BEV story to work long term, I think this is the only way!

[@sdandersonjr5]

Just drove back and forth to Missouri and back rto SoCal and Id be willing to bet that these types of installations made up at least half of the 30 SC sessions we took. Amazing.

[@brianriebedriveselectric]

Love the prefab units. St. Peter location went in super fast last year & it prevents local installer screw ups like the end stalls in Fargo & Grand Forks, ND from being put in backwards. Doesn’t leave an option for pull through or trailer spots though, which may be an issue over time.

[@brandenflasch]

I have seen Tesla separate one post from the PSU to accommodate accessibility requirements and likely could do the same for a trailering spot

[@brianriebedriveselectric]

@@brandenflasch Nice, I haven’t seen one of those yet. Hoping to get up to Two Harbors in the next week or so, but I don’t know if there’s a pull-in spot there. Black Bear has a great trailer spot, but I don’t think that was prefab.

[@steinmar2]

@@brandenflasch yeah accessibility should always be considered if they would make them 50 to 100cm more apart in Europe they would even need special handicaped charging spots, oh wait we don't have them anyway ^^ i looking forward to them since i have relatives which are affected by that concern and yes of course the old continent is way harder to change because it's historical grown and space is always a constrain and it would mean we would have to give up 1 or 2 parking spaces in order to accommodate the ever growing car dimensions..

[@mickn7386]

All the charger "posts:" in Hilliard are backwards. I mentioned it to a service tech and he just shrugged. It will still work, but not the standard installation

[@kylecordes]

Pre-fabricating these things seems genius. Going to need other networks to do the same thing, to roll out enough charging to support the (gradual!) shift to EVs over the coming years.

[@graceshotdown]

This was really informative, thank you for filming this!

[@scottp4862]

Prefab seems the way to go, fast install and Tesla reliability!

[@stevehayward1854]

Doesnt matter if it's a large improvement or a large improvement, it's an improvement

[@TinkerTry]

Such a great video, love learning new things! We got our area’s first prefab V3 around Thanksgiving in Rocky Hill Connecticut, was fun to see how it went up fast in Spring of ‘22, then sad to see a multi-month delay for the utility/transformer.

[@brandenflasch]

The utilities are very often the limiting factor for DCFC installs - often at multiple stages of the project development

[@TinkerTry]

Yep, Eversource and many others, supply chain. Took months for my electrician to get a new meter socket for the 33 year old home I moved to in Oct ‘22, trying to get Solar-ready. Eversource guy visiting to help me with voltage sag had just been to the Rocky Hill Supercharger the day before, to put their meter in. FYI, my electrician and I just filmed a smart panel discussion with SPAN, and he installs and maintains the top 2 brands of DC fast charging sites, fun conversations all around, you and Kyle would really like talking to this guy! Even had a chance to meet Kyle filming his Ioniq 5 videos back in March of ‘22, and met his dad at the Pipistrel EV plane (charged by Ford Lightning) events here in Connecticut. Small world! Keep up the great work, EV Club of Connecticut and TinkerTry thank you!

[@georgepelton5645]

Thanks Branden for another very interesting video. IMO Tesla’s pre-fab approach should help lower costs and time required to install superchargers. Just like pre-fab homes, the more work you can move indoors in a factory quality control environment the lower costs will be. Looking forward to your video about using Tesla’s L2 Wall connectors to charge your Rivian. Maybe this is what Tesla meant by “opening up their supercharger locations to all EV brands.” 😀🙄

[@BillB33525]

They can probably do more testing at the factory, maybe less talent required at the installation.

[@markwaters5578]

I just wish we had a couple of them here on the Big Island (Hawaii). I can always dream 😪.

[@thetruth4548]

When the Bemidji MN Supercharger was new I walked around and looked at it and remember talking to my kids and told them that it looks like Tesla learned a bit and a lot of this is prefabricated probably for speed of deployment, installation and cost reason.

[@thetruth4548]

After watching this this is definitely more prefabricated than the one I saw in Bemidji. The V2 is look like everything was poured, wired and installed and set up at the site. So when I went to the Bemidji one it was clear that the pedestals that the stalls they were sitting on were pre-made. That's what got me to start looking at it.

[@jamesbruce1183]

Note: '1,000 KVA transformer' is labeled 1,500. No biggie. So the stalls are not capable of 250kW individually? I've seen 250 kW only for short times so maybe that's the smarter way to do it. They will rarely see an instance where every car plugged in will want 250 kW at the same time. We call that diversity.

[@brandenflasch]

I may have misspoken - yes, you’re correct. The DC buses allow the power to be used very effectively across stalls.

[@BrisbaneTeslaGuy]

Fascinating thanks for this I have learnt a whole bunch. I oils Love to see some of these pre fab set up In Australia.

[@steveroper8733]

It’s the gigacasting of DC fast charging. Modular construction in a controlled environment with easier quality control…….why wouldn’t you have better, more robust, uptime? Do it right the first time. Install it consistently every time.

[@Geckogold]

This is such a genius move on Tesla's part to make supercharger installations faster, and likely cheaper as well. If they can retrofit these to also have the rumored "Magic Box" that has a CCS adapter to allow non-Tesla EV's to charge there, then this will be a huge win for EV's in general.

[@suvari225]

Hey Branden, very informative video. It seems like adding level 2 charger to a DC site is cumbersome, adding another transformer etc. But I think it is a great idea. Most of the time superchargers are too fast, if you are visiting the mall, shopping or going to gym etc. Sometimes slower charge is way to go Do you think slower DC chargers are more useful than the AC ones? I feel like 25-50kw is perfect for running errands/shopping etc. But there has to be a lot of stalls and no idle fees. That would be perfect for peoole who doesn’t have home charging.

[@football0552]

I had the same thought.

[@mickn7386]

I thought the same thing on the level 2 chargers-why not across from each other. As a contractor, the prefab units are fantastic. Weather is always an issue. One being installed in Hilliard, OHio is taking over 9 months due to weather and possibly a poor contractor.

[@78katz]

Seems like crushed stone would be better than dry bark mulch around the charging equipment.

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

The faster that Tesla can add Supercharger stations the better, in my opinion.

[@4literv6]

Indeed, over 11,000+new dcfc plugs added in 2022 alone. In China for Dec 2022 they averaged over 20+new station's opening each day with an average of 8 new chargers per station. 😎

[@mitchellbarnow1709]

@@4literv6 I love it!

[@4literv6]

@@mitchellbarnow1709 me to I'm betting they can almost double that this year. 😎

[@patrickmay8261]

You mentioned the layout with the L2 chargers on the ends. I'm guessing this comes down to the way the DC bus connection from the main cabinet to the single sided isle. It's really short. It probably just worked out the best based on their lease for the property. Though they could have slid everything down one spot maybe and had the L2 chargers on the end with the utility transformer. Working as a designer for an EE firm I really enjoy your channel (came upon it from the Out of Spec channels) and learned stuff. I'm in CA and we have to provide pathways for EV charging (7.2kw per stall) per code. Working on a current project that I need to bring a dedicated feed over for 10 EVSE spaces and makes me wonder if it would be better to just for single phase 480-120/240 transformer to get a little better charging performance.

[@brandenflasch]

I agree for this install - likely came down to the space allocated and aligning DC buses. L2 is easy to move as needed on a plan. For your project, if you already have a 480 feed, I’d do a 480-240/120 step down to get better charging performance. You can also then have smaller conductors to the transformer and place it close to the charging install.

[@robocheme880]

I'd like to see a video talking about how a CCS adapter can be used on a Tesla supercharger. Specifically, how would it work for a vehicle with the charge port in the right rear when the charger cables are so short. It seems like a CCS car would have to park in the adjacent spot, thereby actually occupying two spots.

[@markjackson7566]

By adding the level 2 chargers, does this give Tesla the Government incentive money for charger build? Also I assume the L2 is free?

[@lkuhn65]

It seems to me, in order to better accommodate conduit interconnection between PSUs and also enable deployment of the PSUs in an island configuration they should have positioned the power conversion and control cabinet at the end of slab rather than the middle. Also, I am wondering, what factors necessitate a star controller configuration vs. daisy chaining? Finally, even if logical daisy chaining is not feasible you could come up with a physical (PSU module) daisy chain design that implements a logical (wired) star controller design (admittedly causing some longer wiring runs and larger conduit)

[@Vxvx22]

One more con: You cannot pull up the Tesla "straight in" to the supercharger anymore. Older supercharger sites are common to see at least one "straight in" charging post.

[@Chris_In_Texas]

Wonder when v4 will come out with 800V to support the cybertruck? Also they (Telsa) will really need to start putting in pull through chargers once the truck is out for people with trailers.

[@steinmar2]

As always nice insights and good point that the level 2 AC charging should be grouped together and maybe increased to the same amount as DC fast chargers but great move from Tesla to now also support non-tesla vehicle charging although it's just 11kW i hope for you that the most reliably fast charging network around the globe opens up over on your side although the different connector is the biggest problem and the short cable lengths and therefore cars like ID.4 could block 2 spots if not parked properly.. How do you feel about adding a additional energy storage for lower input power requirements and back up capabilities for limited time, especially with star link terminals it makes even more sense (if the relay or ground station is also backed up) So like 1MWh storage, capable of delivering and receiving 1MW continuous power and only 100kVA or 200kVA input power instead of tenfold. (or is the overhead or effort for the transformer and utility site already that big that it won't matter, if their not power constrained in the first place) ? is this the future anyway? with energy trading for stabilizing the grid.. or is the overhead for storage otherwise to big for charging station which are below 20 or 30 stalls?

[@ChrisSmith-tc4df]

I suspect that future Supercharger sites will begin incorporating something similar to a Megapack for exactly that reason to provide peak power across even higher kW charging posts - especially in locations where requesting more than KVA becomes very expensive due to existing power infrastructure limitations.

[@AlphaDewolf]

Be nice if those prefab installs were pull through.

[@givepad]

Cool video! Thank you.

[@shaqdeez1]

Not sure if you've mentioned it but what are you credentials regarding electrical engineering ?

[@kylecordes]

He's mentioned credentials in some previous videos. Breath of fresh air compared to the typical KZbinr with no actual knowledge just talking for fun.

[@CalvinKlesmith]

Cabinets can share power if everyone plugs in next to eachother

[@brandenflasch]

The DC buses that enable this are a critical piece of why V3 is so good

[@mickn7386]

So we no longer will need to alternate charge stations to avoid sharing power and thus less KW?

[@CalvinKlesmith]

@@mickn7386 Correct, for V3 Chargers you don’t need to alternate chargers

[@ericwerner3605]

I work with city planners to estimate costs for DCFC sites. Do you have a source for the cost of these modular units and/or final installation cost at the site?

[@robbergstrom943]

More working stalls is better. Get them installed fast!

[@AlexWaardenburg]

6:38 that's 1,500 kVA, right?

[@stang393]

Single phase is not more effecient than 3 phase. Also home voltage is 240v, commercial is 208v. The most effecient step down to level 2 would be 277v down to 240v ( tho i understand it may be 208v because this is not residential) although did you see if that step down was in fact 277v input? I would.assume it would be a 480v step down. (The least amount of step downs the better) also higher voltage transmits more effeciently.

[@brandenflasch]

What?

[@stang393]

@@brandenflasch lol.sorry my CD was scratched and i skipped lol *fixed

[@brandenflasch]

Single phase isn’t more efficient per se, but 240V vs 208V delivers more power an EV at the same current.

[@stang393]

@@brandenflasch I do agree with that, but that’s not what you said in the video or at least not what i got. Also there is 2 reasons why, 1 st the efficiency in conversion is better to step down les from 277v to 240, second as you said wattage is Voltage X amperage, so 240x50 is more than 208 x 50….although idk if Id say that’s the reason it’s more efficient because all you would need to do is raise the amperage to 60 and yield the same out put. I know I’m splitting hairs and most people won’t care, but thats what happens happens when the nerds arrive haha

[@brandenflasch]

@@stang393 well when you’re current limited on the vehicle side, you need to increase voltage.

[@moebeslamipour-cf1jt]

Hi, how did you get access to the plans for this site?

[@brandenflasch]

County permit records

[@margaretmiles8910]

Trying to understand how they share the DC bus. Current to a car connection needs to be throttled to match current requested by the car. I would expect this current throttling to be done in the AC to DC conversion unit. This cannot be done if DC is paralleled after the DC conversion and before the car connection tap. Seems each car connection needs to have an additional DC to DC current throttling device.

[@brandenflasch]

The DC bus between cabinets is at 880-1000V, so I suspect they’re using buck converters or similar to regulate voltage when then outputting to vehicles.

[@whattheschmidt]

@@brandenflasch that brings up the point of moving to 1000V - they'll skip using the DC to DC conversion and just use full voltage that is going between those cabinets. I can't wait to learn all the specs of the Cybertruck.

[@brandenflasch]

They’ll still need to use DC-DC to match voltage

[@robert5008]

Branden is the system a shared load system? Can you charge 250 kW all at each dock at once or will it in extreme use d-rate the charges?

[@brandenflasch]

If every stall was full, you could only allocate about 88kW to each stall, however it’s extremely unlikely that every stall would be requesting more than 88kW and as such that frees up power to allocate to other stalls

[@robert5008]

@Branden Flasch Thanks for the fast reply Branden and have a great day.

[@Robert-pm6bm]

This happened to me once. Plugged in and only got 87kW. Happened in Nashville, TN early in the am. Rest of the stalls were being used by Uber drivers

[@iantrott9152]

Very poor accessibility sadly for disabled customers :(

[@brandenflasch]

Both sites have stalls with access aisles

[@iantrott9152]

@@brandenflasch - it would be interesting to see images or videos of just how accessible these units are.

[@DougGrinbergs]

One armed, angry MAGAfascist could ruin things for a bunch of EV drivers☹️

[@jerryjensen5052]

I think you met the communism democrats

[@Padie600]

5:33 Branden, Stop using a phone to record video. Content is v good, video quality is just rubbish. Sell the Rivian and get decent gear or I will unsubscribe 🥴🇰🇪.

[@brandenflasch]

It’s really not rubbish 🤷‍♂️

[@Padie600]

It's very inconsistent. A decent camera isn't expensive. Just coz " this" aka Doug uses an iPhone with a tripod won't work for every KZbinr. It's your content mate. Do whatever u prefer with it. ✌️

[@brandenflasch]

@@Padie600 I’ll continue to shoot with my iPhone 👌