musings of the owner of a Tesla model S
Some years ago I decided I needed to be able to read the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) sensors on my car. Back then the only game in town seemed to be the Autel TS508 reader, seen at right. Recently, I tried to use my TS508 reader to read the TPMS sensors on a friend’s Tesla Model Y. The reader said that it had never heard of the Tesla Model Y. What gives? Continue reading “Why your existing TPMS reader tool can’t read sensors on your Tesla car”
A friend suggested I read this news article about battery swaps for EVs as a substitute for ordinary charging of the battery. In the article, an EV owner in Beijing pulls into a battery swap station and pushes a button.
[The car] lifts up a tiny bit, and jostles around, followed by a muffled, methodic clanking sound and then, silence. The gray metal floor under the vehicle opens, and a machine rises to the undercarriage.
The car’s entire battery pack, which weighs about 1,100 pounds, or about as much as a grand piano, is unbolted and whisked away, underground. It goes into a closed room on the side of the swapping station where it is plugged in to charge for a future user.
Under the car, there are a few clicks and clanks as a fresh battery is lifted into place and bolted securely to the vehicle. The system runs some diagnostic checks. And that’s it.
The swap is said to have taken “three minutes and eight seconds”. Here is what I think about it. Continue reading “Battery swaps?”
I am delighted to hear from Ionna that starting now, all of their EV chargers are priced at 39 cents per kWh or cheaper.
It is commonplace to be at an EV charging station where the price to pay is higher than 39 cents per kWh. I have, for example, been at Tesla superchargers where the price was higher than this.
It is commonplace to be at an EV charging station where the price to pay is based on how many minutes you are plugged in, and then the charging slows to a trickle, and the effective cost per kWh skyrockets.
So this is a reason to be alert to the opportunity to choose Ionna if it is a better option.
The tiny potential drawback to this is that you might not be able to find an Ionna station. Colorado, for example, has only one Ionna station in the entire state.
Colorado Public Radio reports that the General Services Administration will be shutting down all of the EV chargers at the Denver Federal Center. This action by the GSA is said to be due to instruction from “the current administration” that directs that “GSA-owned charging stations are not mission-critical”. As seen in the above screen shot from the GSA web site, the Denver Federal Center has 22 EV charging stations at four buildings.
Yes, soon there will be a NACS vehicle for the would-be purchaser who does not want to buy a Tesla. But it will have the charging port in the wrong place on the vehicle. Continue reading “Soon there will be a NACS vehicle for the would-be purchaser who does not want to buy a Tesla”
(Update: the seven car makers have picked a name for this venture: Ionna.)
In July of 2023, seven car makers (BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis) announced (blog article) that Real Soon Now they would install thirty thousand EV charging kiosks. The title of this blog article says it all:
How many of the promised 30,000 charging kiosks have the seven car makers installed?
The answer is zero. Not one of the 30,000 promised EV charging kiosks has been installed, as of September 2024.
The Tesla supercharger at the base of Ruby Road in Silverthorne, Colorado has been upgraded to provide “plug and charge” for all non-Tesla electric vehicles that are able to use a NACS adapter. Continue reading “Ruby Road Tesla Supercharger has been upgraded for non-Tesla vehicles”
A NEVI grant has been awarded for a Tesla supercharging station at the AC Hotel, just off exit 201 of Interstate 70 in Frisco, Colorado. Continue reading “Coming soon — a Tesla supercharger station in Frisco, Colorado”
The Tesla company has quietly rolled out a new layout for superchargers, to better accommodate non-Tesla electric vehicles. Here you can see a brand-new supercharger station in Vernal, Utah. Continue reading “New supercharger layout for non-Tesla cars”
In July of 2023, seven car makers (BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis) announced (blog article) that Real Soon Now they would install thirty thousand EV charging kiosks. The title of this blog article says it all:
How many of the promised 30,000 charging kiosks have the seven car makers installed?
The answer is zero. Not one of the 30,000 promised EV charging kiosks has been installed, as of April 2024.
The seven car makers have given a name (blog article) to the entity that will install the 30,000 EV charging kiosks — Ionna. And the entity has a web site. As best I can see from clicking around on the web site, it is content-free.