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Tesla Model 3 Highland - Tesla Supercharging
201 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to the Plug In For More podcast! Mike, Tom, and Bryant are here to help you on your journey to an Electric vehicle future. Each episode we discuss current events, trends, and a specific topic of education related to EV's. We bring together a diverse experience set, and pair it with guests who are experts in the field. For even more information on EV's, check out www.EVUniverse.com.
In this episode, the guys talk about the release of the Tesla Model 3 revamp, code-named Project Highland. Also, we sit down with Edwin Xiao, an electrical engineer, owner of Electric Brain Lab, and a former Senior Project Developer for the Tesla Supercharging network. You can learn more about Edwin, and the Electric Brain lab on Instagram @electricbrainlab or his email; [email protected].
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
And welcome back to the plugin for more podcasts. Today we're going to talk about the model three Highland update, which is a massive change for Tesla. And we're going to talk a little bit about something I got in the mail. I've been really excited about, and then also talk about Tesla server charging. And we have a special guest. So listen in for that guest a little bit later.
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Plug In For More, brought to you by evuniverse.com. EV Universe is your one-stop shop for all things related to the electric vehicle. Here on this podcast, our goal is to educate, inspire, and hopefully make your transition into the electric vehicle marketplace a lot less intimidating. And now, here are your hosts, Mike, Tom, and Bryant.
Tesla Model 3 Highland Update
00:00:44
Speaker
Tom, what is your first impressions of the Tesla Highland update for the Model 3? I really like it. I think it's a step in the right direction. There's a lot of little creature comforts added, which I think are really cool that kind of up the game for the Model 3 to get it still in that entry level space. But it kind of taps into that luxury that you come to expect from the X and the S and to be competitive with the other vehicles that are in that platform.
00:01:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when I always first come out, obviously the exterior changes are not that much different, right? You've got some different headlights, different tail lights. Overall, the shape is pretty much the same. It's not a huge departure from what you're used to with Tesla and the model three, but their sales have been, you know, not going as crazy with the model three as they have with the model Y. And then I think the big changes you're going to see on the interior. So you've got more sustainable products in the interior. Um, I think it's a more modern interior as well.
00:01:43
Speaker
The biggest thing was the quality and the fit and finish. That really, I think the quality of materials really brings it up to the X and the Y or X and S and the quality of the Mercedes and the BMW manufacturers.
00:01:57
Speaker
Listen to the podcast, know that I'm typically more subdued in my, what I like for appearance and something more understated. I really like ambient lighting and the, one of the photos I've seen of the interior of this car has an ambient lighting strip that goes all the way around at the dash. They're onto the front, more like a spaceship type cockpit. And I think that's really cool.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, one thing I did notice, there was a post on Twitter of one of the first actual drives of the Highland vehicle, the new Model 3. And what I thought was pretty surprising is with the ambient lighting and the dash, the way it curves around, if you haven't seen a picture of it, take a look. But it actually is reflecting off the windshield pretty severely. And hopefully, it's just
00:02:44
Speaker
Really depends on the lighting and it's kind of a just a one-off scenario at certain times a day And I get a little bit of that in the Rivian, but this is it was pretty pronounced Maybe there's some camera tricks involved. I'm really hoping that Tesla would have caught that But yeah, I mean that's something I'm a little bit look a little bit shocked by when I first saw that picture. I
00:03:07
Speaker
And the big thing here where we're burying the lead is the roughly 10% range increase of the car as well. Yeah, it's a big deal. It really is. I mean, every little bit matters. One other thing that was pretty interesting too, which people have been complaining about for a while with Tesla's a long, long time is the blind spot monitoring. And so there's now a little indicator
00:03:32
Speaker
where you'd expect it to be. And so when you're looking over, you know, to make a lane change, you can see if someone's in your blind spot or not without, you know, correct, you know, moving your, your neck quite a bit and getting uncomfortable doing it. So that thing is a pretty good update there too. And the only other thing I think that people will love, at least the backseat people love is he's got a LCD screen for the backseat now to control HVAC stuff. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely improvement.
00:04:01
Speaker
Overall, I think it's a winner. Especially the quietness update or the improvements in the overall road noise and how it's much of a quieter, it's more akin to a Mercedes or BMW, which is what people are expecting that price range
00:04:23
Speaker
I think if it's really that quiet, the fit and finishes there, the reasons for getting away from not going into Tesla have diminished severely.
Rivian Tonneau Cover Adventure
00:04:32
Speaker
So you talk about getting this package in the mail, which I'm assuming isn't the type of package that comes in a discrete packaging? No. No, okay. No, it actually was kind of discrete. It didn't have Rivian all over it, but I did get the Rivian manual tonneau cover. So my Rivian truck did not come with the automatic tonneau cover, which is a really cool thing for the owners and the early owners that got those.
00:05:00
Speaker
You know, Rivian had a lot of issues with those. And so they stopped producing them while they were figuring out some of the mechanics and making some changes to it. So in the meantime, there was the manual, manual, uh, time to cover that came out and then they had to make some changes there. I've had the truck for almost a year now. I just got it in the mail and I ordered it with the truck. So I'm really excited to put it on. However, it's down pouring right now. And so I'm going to have to just sit and stare at it for a little bit until I can get outside and put that on the truck. Maybe I'll get wet. We'll see.
00:05:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, the town covers made to get wet and you're not going to melt. So go do it. No, I might. It's, it's happened before. So we'll see. Um, we didn't make fun of Brian for not being here. We can. So are we sure that he didn't just retire and then he's not, he's just unemployed somewhere. I mean, it definitely could happen. I mean, we should check on him.
00:05:59
Speaker
Well, in any case, besides if Brian's going to be here or not, we need to invite our guests and talk to our guests today.
Introduction of Edwin Shao
00:06:06
Speaker
Edwin, who has a lot of experience with Tesla and Tesla Superchargers, helped with those installations over the years and then obviously with this new business. So let's move to that conversation.
00:06:17
Speaker
you're listening to the plug in for more podcast. If you're looking for information on electric vehicles, electric vehicles, components or information on how to reduce your carbon footprint. Look no further than ev universe dot com ev universe dot com is your one stop shop for all things related to electric vehicle.
00:06:37
Speaker
We're joined today with Edwin Shao. He is a former senior project developer for Tesla Supercharging Network, and he's here to talk to us today about his experience with Tesla and what he has going forward for the future of the charging infrastructure for the country. Edwin, thank you.
00:06:52
Speaker
Thanks so much Tom for having me on your show. Can you just dive in and tell us about yourself and your backstory and what brings you to where you're at today? Coming out of grad school, went to engineering school, studied construction management and civil engineering. I came out working in real estate development for about five years. Then in New York City, got to know the real estate and construction industry pretty well.
00:07:23
Speaker
had a 120 room housing company for international students as well. Grew that from scratch. And then one, you know, so I have like an entrepreneur and technical background. What happened is there's an opportunity to work for Tesla and still stay in New York City rather than in California. So they have like a nine
00:07:45
Speaker
They're sort of slow on certain things and fast on a lot of things. So they had like a kind interview process over the course of like four months with negotiations and such like that before I landed a job in 2017 with Tesla. And this is at the start of the supercharging network. It's still relatively in its infancy at that point. And they wanted someone to basically help grow it for the entire Northeast. So, you know, it's a small team.
00:08:14
Speaker
I would say in total for the entire Northeast around nine people you know maybe less at that time and that's that's how we
State of Charging Infrastructure
00:08:24
Speaker
So I guess what I would like to do is jump around timeline a little bit, but I'd like to start with what is the current state of the charging infrastructure for the country? I think that the current state of the charging infrastructure, from my opinion, and prior to Tesla, I had looked into this, I had reached out to other charging station companies back then. And I basically, initially, my thought process was, because charging speeds are so slow, we need as much fast chargers as possible.
00:08:52
Speaker
So, that's my initial assumption. A CEO of another charging station company at that point before I worked for Tesla came back to me and said, no, I think that we should have more home charging, a level two charging, instead of having all these faster
00:09:12
Speaker
And that emphasis should be on that. I think there's a lack of infrastructure everywhere. I think money's being thrown everywhere right now to basically increase the amount of charging stations. I think that there's multiple areas I see a weakness. The first area I see a weakness because now I own an electrical engineering and contracting company. There's a lack of electrical talent out there.
00:09:40
Speaker
So you have a lot of people that are not naturally trained from university or from trade school to do electrical work, whether it is design work, whether it is actual electrical work. You have a lot of people that have basically as a result of the lack of talent.
00:10:00
Speaker
you know, people like me, for example, with engineering backgrounds, but basically had to get into electrical, you know, later on, and then basically adjust to it. I mean, I did end up going back to study electrical engineering for a couple years, while I was at Tesla at night, but but nonetheless, you have people that are later in their career adjusting to these positions. Gotcha.
00:10:25
Speaker
I think that that's like one of the things that no one really talks about is we're trying to throw money everywhere. Let's put as much charging stations as possible. But you don't have the talent there. That's one of the big issues I see. You don't have the labor force for design, labor force for construction, labor force for management. And we're just trying to make do with it because it's been such an indoor problem for so long.
00:10:50
Speaker
Now I'd like to step back to when you started at Tesla, doing the supercharging projects back in 2017. You're there for four years. What sort of vision and dream did you guys have in 2017? And were those expectations met going forward? Yeah, sure. So in 2017, we're just trying to build anywhere. Whereas it didn't matter. We would pay rent. We would basically just give landlords
00:11:18
Speaker
really good deals because just to get the it's like any startup just get movement you throw money at it or you throw time.
00:11:26
Speaker
And they were throwing time and money. I remember guys would just drive around all the time and basically knock on doors to try to get small landlords to convince them that electrical cars will be feasible. I obviously didn't do that. I'm smarter than that. I just go to public records. I'm not dumb
Early Supercharging Network Challenges
00:11:47
Speaker
enough to drive around like all those guys, but nevertheless, you had guys that do that.
00:11:53
Speaker
So yeah, so, so there's that, that element of it where you're just basically, it was like a sort of like a land grab that you say, as this term, where you're trying to compete against the charge points, compete against, um, other, uh, companies like EVgo to basically.
00:12:13
Speaker
get the mall real estate, get the good real estate. The cheap construction real estate was what I would try to go after, but people are just trying to make deals. Gas station companies eventually became a big thing where we were partnering up with Bala loves.
00:12:30
Speaker
and other type of, you know, those type of gas station companies. So we didn't really know what we were doing. We were just like, okay, let's try to at least get more chargers out there. We had no metrics. We were just testing things out and seeing what worked.
00:12:47
Speaker
What sort of pitfalls did you guys run into besides acquiring property? Were there any other issues that you came into that maybe the layperson listening right now wouldn't necessarily anticipate? Yeah, we didn't know what the heck we were doing back then. It basically came out of a marketing budget, the supercharging team.
00:13:09
Speaker
Even on our teams, we didn't have electrical engineers really, you know, we had engineers, we didn't have electrical engineers, and here's a prompt to solve. And everyone had their own different style of doing everything. I would say that electrical feasibility was was a big challenge, like some of this stuff in electrical learn, but electrical feasibility. So you have to find sites which
00:13:30
Speaker
And now I'm just focused on talking about level 3 supercharging network, where you have every site, you don't have electrical capacity, you have to build, you have to work with utilities, you have to talk to the townships, you have to stand before the townships and just give reasons why it makes sense.
00:13:46
Speaker
And, you know, you have to be a public person and, you know, you have to affect policies somewhat in every municipality. So that, that I would say were also issues, but obviously negotiations with landlords.
00:14:03
Speaker
That probably took a bulk of the time, but then the design phase, you know, just getting four counts for them to approve of this because a lot of these, you have to go through planning commissions. So zoning officers for counts. So that, that was, you know, interesting for school up there, you know.
00:14:22
Speaker
all dressed up as I usually am, a guy from New York City, you know, go to these like villages in upstate New York and stuff like that. And, you know, try to create some sense of calm for these people that hey, we're not here to try to take over your town, we're just here to provide charging stations. You see a lot of people just voicing their opinions. Oh, you know, now,
00:14:45
Speaker
big companies are coming in and now they're going to, you know, whatever nefarious ways we're going to do stuff and the fears of what if, you know, like cars explode randomly, like, you know, how are we going to be able to deal with that? You know, what happens with the, you know, the electrical fires and things like that nature. During your time there, did any cars catch on fire or explode?
00:15:12
Speaker
I'm sure they did, but not at our sites. And I'm sure they did just because there are so many cars out there, but I think it's probably much less than combustible engine cars, which also catch on fire. It's not as newsworthy if a Ford catches on fire. And we know from our own reporting here on the show,
00:15:37
Speaker
A gas car is 60 times more likely to catch on fire than an electric vehicle, but it's just one of those anecdotal things where I'm sure there's so much pushback at those meetings that you went to that people thought cars were going to catch on fire, but it's unfounded and it's just an interesting point to hit across.
00:15:54
Speaker
Looking forward, I know that your new role with the company you're in with the electrical contracting has an interest in growth and the betterment of the electric charging infrastructure.
Policy and Infrastructure Scaling Challenges
00:16:06
Speaker
Where do you see us heading? A couple of things. First thing is government policy needs to be the initial letter to be the impetus for all these things and government policy done right.
00:16:20
Speaker
Um, so for example, in New York state, you had, uh, NYSERDA, which is, um, you know, they're an arm in New York state, which promoted subsidy programs for, you know, out of the Volkswagen, like, uh, you know, fund, you know, where they had a penalty fund. Um, they promoted that and then, you know, a lot of chargers came up as a result. Now you have, um, you know, some federal funds that are coming out as well.
00:16:50
Speaker
for the fast charging networks. And you continue to have more subsidies for, in California, I'm working on some projects there where they have subsidies, you know, in Mountain View and in other smaller locations. You know, I've worked for some fleet providers like AVIS, which also somehow they're getting subsidies. So policy is influencing a lot of this demand. So I see
00:17:19
Speaker
Um, I see at the, you know, for the, I could give you a immediate short term and long term of, you know, what I say. So in the immediacy, I see there being a lot of headaches as people throw money at this problem and people are not going to get it right. Right away. So for example, I was just in Hong Kong for a month and my wife and one of our, um, you know, like my college friends, um, he's, you know, he's involved in a pretty decent sized company there and, uh,
00:17:49
Speaker
he was telling me that, you know, there's these government subsidy programs here, would you be interested in, you know, joining, you know, maybe like, you know, working on it together somehow. And so I look into it. And there, the policy there is saying, we have a quarter billion US dollars, right, about 2 billion Hong Kong dollars. And you
00:18:14
Speaker
We're going to electrify your buildings. We're going to pay for the cost of the installation, the cost of, you know, the chargers, right? And, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll do it 30,000 Hong Kong dollars each, uh, each charge or something like that. 30, I think it's 30,000 to 60,000. Uh, yeah, 36,000 Hong Kong dollars per. But the only condition is that you can't electrify just one spot. You have to electrify.
00:18:45
Speaker
all the spots in the buildings in the high density places like Hong Kong, New York City, you're talking about 200 units minimum. Yeah. Now for at 20 amps, you know, that's 80,000 amps, you know, then, you know, at two, eight volts. And also you're not allowed to have some sort of low diversification device where it's basically like, you know, good load share. Okay.
00:19:15
Speaker
So here we are. So I look at it and I'm like, this can't be done. And I look at the projects that were done and they're really, really small buildings.
00:19:23
Speaker
can't be done. So that's an example of how policy wanted to influence, but how policy cannot influence it correctly without having people to tell them how this can't work. So you have all this money, which is allocated for the electrification for the future electric car owners.
00:19:47
Speaker
what's going to happen in Hong Kong is they're gonna realize that you actually can't be done. And all these people...
00:19:55
Speaker
that are expecting all these chargers to be in place so that they would buy electric cars are going to have to be forced to buy their own car charger and get it installed on a one-on-one level versus doing these bigger projects. So I would say as a future EV car owner, what you must do is check with your property management company to see what the impending plans are for installing a home charger.
Advice for EV Owners on Charging
00:20:23
Speaker
That's the first thing I would do.
00:20:25
Speaker
Right. And most of the time their plans are going to be crap. It won't make sense. They're not going to have a smart guy to really tell them, you know, like short, medium, and long-term plans. So like first thing you need to do, talk with your, if you live in a condo, you live in a rental building, talk with the property manager, see what's the immediacy to get home charging. Cause home charging, the difference between home charging and supercharging,
00:20:53
Speaker
would be the difference between paying for a hundred kilowatt hour car, $12 or $40 for 330 miles. So you're talking about 75% savings here.
00:21:10
Speaker
I think about a different metric than most people. I think about the cost of home charging versus the cost of gas versus the cost of supercharger in regards to cost of gas. Because you're not supposed to use a supercharging network every day. You're supposed to use that only for travel routes. Or if you don't have
00:21:33
Speaker
a home charger at home. Now, if you have a home charger at home, you get it installed for let's say 2000 bucks, you know, permitted and everything, of course. Now you have access to cheap electrical for the duration of your car. That's the most important thing is getting home charging installed at your house. Doesn't matter about what everyone else does because you're not going to be traveling more than really 200 miles a day. You know, if you have
00:22:00
Speaker
If you're depending on one car, if you're doing road trips and stuff like that, just rent a car, right? Just be smart, rent a car or do something else. You know, if you have that fear. But I would say that if I am a, so if I am a potential electric car owner, how I would do it is I would
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, first ask the property manager and then think of what's my use going to be for this car? Is it for road trips primarily or is it going to be for day to day? For day to day, like home charging surfaces. If you're a road trip type guy and you want to use electric car, it's awesome. Why not? But in the same regard, your fears of having to stop, let's say,
00:22:51
Speaker
you know, every, you know, 250 miles and having to fill up. Um, and then waiting, like instead of, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, you're waiting, let's say, you know, half, you know, like 20 minutes to 30 minutes that, that is a legitimate, you know, concern. But what are your thoughts around Ford GM? I think Rivian have all announced that they're going to be adopting the NACS standard and abandoning that CCS combo.
Impact of NACS Standard Adoption
00:23:18
Speaker
How do you think that plays into this?
00:23:20
Speaker
I think that now you're going to have three different types of ports. You have even more ports and there's more separation. But in the same regard, if you think about it, the issue
00:23:33
Speaker
only arises for a level three charging. It doesn't arise for a level two charging because of all these adapters that come into play. So you don't really need for a level two charging anything except just like an aftermarket adapter, whatever it is, obviously you all listed. Now for what they're doing that for is going to be for the
00:24:00
Speaker
highway charging infrastructure networks is they're trying to privatize it that way. I think they're probably, my intention, my guess is their intentions are
00:24:15
Speaker
now to focus on selling their cars and basically promoting their cars that way versus like, you know, Porsche. I heard, you know, they want, you know, to create like some sort of network as well. All these German cars, all these European cars. So you're going to have, now you're going to have like Japanese cars, German cars and the American cars competing for different fast charging networks. I think that that's, and Tesla, I think that, you know,
00:24:40
Speaker
That's where again, policy needs to push them with incentives to just get together and work on it together.
00:24:50
Speaker
That'll probably happen in the long-term somehow. But in the immediacy, I just see that as being a little bit more of a headache. Because it's like basically branding your site as, hey, I'm a Tesla's charging site. And there's not a lot of electrical infrastructure out there. So all these stupid guys with marketing backgrounds that are thinking of this stuff, they need to get more engineers involved.
00:25:19
Speaker
Edwin, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate the time and you sharing your wisdom and expertise on the supercharging. Tell us where people can find you and for any further information.
00:25:33
Speaker
Sure. My email for anyone on this podcast, if you have any questions, please email me at edwin at electricbrainlab.com. And my Instagram is electricbrainlab. So it should be easier to reach me. Any questions, things of that nature, design questions, construction questions, any electrical questions could be reached at me there. That's my personal website.
00:26:02
Speaker
Perfect. And I will make sure all of those pieces get into the show notes for this episode so people can check that out there and find you directly from our show notes. Awesome. Great. Thanks, Evan. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to plug in for more. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, check out the one-stop EV Marketplace, evuniverse.com. Until next time.