Downtown Oslo: On Tuesday 29 June, Tesla will open 18 Supercharger charging posts in Sentrum P-hus in Oslo. The company’s new V3 chargers are being set up, each with up to 250 kW of available power.
On Wednesday, the Norwegian media had a look at the chargers together with the man who is responsible for Tesla’s charging infrastructure in the Nordic region, Ole Gudbrann Hempel.
This will be the capital’s largest charging station, both in terms of the number of charging stations and available power. So far, however, only Tesla owners are allowed to use them. Hempel can not comment on when the chargers will be opened up for other car brands.
– I must refer to Elon Musk’s comments, Hempel answers when we ask about opening the chargers for other car brands.
Tesla boss Musk tweeted in December that they work to open the charging stations to others than Tesla owners, and repeated the message during the presentation of the fourth quarter results in January.
In other words: The charging stations will be opened for other car brands, but when and how is uncertain.
In the comments section and on social media, several Tesla users have expressed skepticism about such an opening for fear of charging queues when the chargers are occupied by cars from, for example, Volkswagen, Peugeot or Hyundai. Hempel tries to reassure Tesla owners by saying that the customer experience is the company’s most important parameter.
– We are very sensitive to charging queues. For us, fast, easy charging is very important, and we do not envisage that it will change drastically, says Hempel to TU.
Easier with an electric car in the big city?
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The 18 chargers can eventually be expanded to 40, but then Tesla will have to install another transformer in addition to the one that today supplements the chargers with two megawatts.
Ole Gudbrann Hempel, responsible for Tesla’s charging infrastructure in the Nordic region.Photo: Mathias Klingenberg
Only Model 3 can utilize the maximum capacity of 250 kW. According to Tesla, it should then be able to charge 120 kilometers in five minutes. The company says they hope the charging station will make it easier to be a Tesla owner in the capital. Older Model S and X can use an adapter that throttles the speed to 142 kW.
The rectifiers can supply from zero to 500 volts and 631 amps. Here, Tesla differs from, for example, the Ionity network, where the chargers deliver up to 350 kW using higher voltage (800-1000 V).
Tesla, on the other hand, has lower voltage, and has several amps to be able to deliver 250 kW at its stations. This is because the cars use a 400-volt system. This is also the reason why you cannot charge the Tesla Model 3 with 250 kW maximum power when charging on an Ionity station.
Proponents of 800-volt solutions, including Porsche, say that the charge loss is greater when pushing through several amps instead of having a higher voltage. Hempel in Tesla says he can not enter into that discussion. He also can not say anything about whether Tesla will eventually switch to 800 volts.
The price for charging at the Supercharger station in central Oslo will be NOK 2.25 per kilowatt hour. In addition, there is what you pay to stay in the car park. Despite the fact that Tesla raised the average price of its charging stations in January, they are still cheaper than most others the operators.
Tesla’s first Supercharger stations arrived in 2013. Today they have 78 charging stations with 1101 charging posts. The average price is NOK 2.9 per kWh, but as the Sentrum P-hus example shows, the price varies from place to place.
– When can Volkswagen ID.4 owners charge at this station?
– They can only try now, says Hempel wisely, knowing that nothing will happen.
The 18 charging posts can be expanded to 40 in the long run.Photo: Mathias Klingenberg
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