In early April 2022, due to a work visit, the author was invited to California to participate in a new car test drive under the epidemic situation, and California is not only the location of Tesla's factory, but also because of the subsidy policy of subsidizing new energy vehicles, so the visibility of including PHEV, EV pure trams, and even Fuel Cell hydrogen fuel vehicles on the streets of San Francisco is not low.
On this trip, I directly hit the 1,111 hp Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance, Rivian R1T electric pickup truck, the street can also see Waymo and Jaguar's I-Pace self-driving car, and a brief visit to Tesla's exhibition room in downtown San Francisco, where I share some first-hand observations on the California electric vehicle market and the local electric vehicle charging usage patterns.
At the forefront of environmental protection in the United States, California has a high acceptance of new energy vehicles such as electric vehicles
California is at the forefront in response to environmental awareness, so not only many brands of commercially available electric vehicles in the early days choose To use California as a starting point, including Fuel Cell hydrogen fuel cell vehicles such as Honda FCX, Honda Clarity, Toyota Mirai, etc. also choose to be supplied in California in a rental mode, and it is also the location of Tesla's first gigafactory, Fremont California Factory, south of San Francisco and other areas are the high-tech research and development centers of the United States - Silicon Valley Valley), coupled with the California government's launch of a series of subsidies for new energy vehicles, the local natural acceptance of electrified models is higher, and even in the use and penetration of high-tech such as unmanned autonomous vehicles.
Passenger services have been launched in downtown San Francisco, and Jaguar I-Pace Waymo is self-driving
Like I have seen several times in downtown San Francisco, Waymo, an autonomous driving research and development company owned by google alphabet group, and Jaguar Land Rover jointly announced a partnership in 2018 to bring the Jaguar I-Pace electric self-driving car service, Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover previously planned to produce 20,000 self-driving I-Pace in the next few years.
In particular, although Waymo has tested unmanned autonomous driving technology in the San Francisco Bay Area for 12 years, I-Pace is the first car to open the general public to experience the "Waymo One unmanned driving" service in August 2021, and Waymo is the only car in the United States that Chrysler Pacifica in Arizona and San Francisco, California (I-Pace) have provided external passenger services. You can experience a short, pure electric journey, and for safety reasons, the car will still be accompanied by an autonomous driving specialist. Most of the author's trip is a hasty glance at Waymo I-Pace on the street, and there is no actual riding experience, but from the waymo official video, many San Francisco citizens have praised the performance of Waymo I-Pace, and can also see the results of the combination of "electric" and "self-driving" two technologies in the mobile process.
Maximum horsepower 1,111 electric beasts, Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance live action
Another big surprise of the author's trip was that on the side of the Road in the Tesla San Francisco exhibition room, I actually saw the top version of the Lucid Air Dream Edition electric sedan in the United States, which was limited to 520 vehicles!
Lucid is a new electric brand in the United States, but its first product Air did not officially start delivery until October 2021, and the first batch of unified only delivery of the top version of the Dream Edition electric sedan priced at up to 169,000 US dollars (about 1.1 million YUAN), Dream Edition is mainly divided into Range long-endurance version, Performance performance version 2 models to choose from.
After the advent of the Lucid Air, it became the focus of global electric vehicles, accumulating more than 17,000 orders, because its all-vehicle wind resistance coefficient is only 0.21, and it also uses a high-voltage system architecture of 900V, so the highest DC DC peak power supported by the whole car series can reach 300kW, can be charged in 16 to 20 minutes 80% (10 to 80%), and can supplement 482 kilometers of endurance in 20 minutes, with quite powerful electrical performance.
The first limited Edition Range and Dream Edition Performance are also equipped with 110kWh lithium battery packs, dual motor 4-wheel drive settings, the maximum horsepower of the Dream Edition Range is 933 horses, the range is 836 kilometers, and the Dream Edition Performance I saw this time, its performance is improved to 1,111 horses, which can be 2.5 With 0 to 96 km/h in seconds and 9.9 seconds per 1/4 mph, it is the first production electric motorhome to break through the 10-second barrier and reach speeds of up to 265 km/h.
From the appearance, the Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance I saw, its body is the main Eureka Gold gold, the roof is painted in silver as a contrasting color, the body size part of the Lucid Air length and width to 4,975x1,939x1,410mm, wheelbase is 2,960mm. Compared to the electric sedans with the closest sizes are the Tesla Model S (4,979x1,964x1,435mm, wheelbase 2,960mm), Porsche Taycan (4,963x1,966x1, 379mm, wheelbase 2,900mm), but compared to the Mercedes-EQ EQS (5,216x1,953x1, 512mm, wheelbase 3,210mm), which I have experienced before, It is in the length and wheelbase of the car are shorter. The author actually observes that it is indeed not as slender as the EQS, but it is also enough to compete with opponents such as model S and Taycan in terms of momentum.
Lucid Air full car many like high-precision LIDAR lundography system hidden in the entire glass roof, many detections are also hidden in the body, plus no bezel doors, flat retractable door handles, the overall body will not have any abruptness, charging holes are uniformly located on the left side of the body, the UNITED STANDARD CCS1 specifications. The through headlights and through taillights on the front and back of the body are quite recognizable, and the dream Edition's exclusive 21-inch Aero Dream silver and black diamond cut two-tone rims are used under the foot, with a Pirelli P Zero tire, front wheel size 245/35 R21, rear wheel size 265/35 R21. The side of the car is marked with a copper-colored trim plate at the intersection of the D-pillar and shoulder line, and the rear of the car also has "Air Dream Edition P" to represent the Performance version.
The interior is unfortunately captured on the street, so it is impossible to explore it, including details such as the 34-inch oversized curved digital instrument in the car, but the rear seat at first glance provides considerable knee space with its full green floor. Interestingly, the captured Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance loudspeakers parked next to the Tesla booth, attracting the curiosity of Tesla booth employees and passers-by, but also hung a local California temporary sign, the body and wheel rim are suspected of collision scratches, whether it is Lucid's original test car, it is unknown.
Tesla booth modification Model S a quick glance, Powerwall energy storage equipment booth display
The author also walked into the Tesla downtown exhibition room, but after going in, he found that the limited American chip shortage car snatching situation was not reduced, so the entire huge exhibition room was empty, only 1 all-black model S Long Range was placed, and even the exhibition room personnel said that even this Model S Long Range had been sold, and the author had no chance to enter the car to explore the modified Yoke steering wheel and 17-inch central screen.
However, in the back of the exhibition room, see the domestic general consumers have not yet had the opportunity to see the 2nd generation Of Powerwall energy storage battery products, its energy storage lithium battery capacity of 13.5 kWh, the size of 1,150 x 753 x 147mm, a household can connect up to 10 Powerwall batteries for energy storage, equivalent to 135 degrees (kWh) electricity, Powerwall's main use is to connect to the power grid, so that users can powerwall when the peak price When the battery is charged and the electricity is peaked, the user can use the power stored by Powerwall to save money, and even in the event of a power outage, the user can supply electrical appliances. The scene also showed that Powerwall can be used with Tesla Solar Roof solar panels, like California with abundant sunlight, you can store the electricity converted into solar energy in Powerwall during the day, and you can use Powerwall to power supply at night to save power costs.
There are also Tesla SuperChargers in downtown San Francisco, and many public AC slow charge utilization rates are not high
The author has also been quite curious about how to use and charge electric vehicle owners like Tesla in San Francisco, asked tesla exhibition personnel, only said that they know that there is a 72kW urban supercharger in San Francisco, and it seems that there is a 250kW V3 SuperCharger in San Francisco (the author queried the V3 supercharge station with 1 28 charging piles in San Bruno). Because he also mentioned that San Francisco car owners mostly live in the suburbs, there are garages that can install AC home charging, most car owners go to the city to commute after full charge, and few people use the urban AC AC slow charge or public fast charging station. The author has indeed basically not seen anyone in the city use the public AC slow charge, which may be slower and the reason why acry slow charge is also charged.
Domestic Tesla has not yet enjoyed the "traffic light identification"
The author's group also called 1 Uber practicing tesla Model 3 in the journey, the driver said that he had not seen anyone charging in the city, he was at home after full charge to come out to pick up passengers, Model 3 Stardard Range full of once enough for him to drive Uber for two days. He also has another oil car at home, the recent high oil price era has come, so he is basically through this Model 3 generation, he also drove this Model 3 interstate travel, then Tesla's more perfect SuperCharger Network supercharge network, so that he saves a lot of travel time, it can be seen that easy to use, fast DC fast charging such infrastructure, like gas stations, is crucial for the development of electric vehicles.
Although the Uber driver of this Tesla Model 3 does not have the option of FSD fully automatic assisted driving, it still has more "traffic traffic light recognition" compared to the domestic general Model 3, which is quite a novel experience for the author.
The third-party fast charging EVg0 certified by Tesla can unfortunately not be directly hit at close range
The author originally wanted to explore the largest third-party electric vehicle public fast charging station operator in the United States EVg0, after the modification of the tesla exclusive specifications of the fast charging gun of the third-party charging station (foreign media said that according to the observation, it is mainly through the adapter, the original supply of CHAdeMO charging gun current to Tesla charging gun power supply), but unfortunately, the EVg0 charging station in the parking lot near San Francisco City Hall is limited to parking users can enter and exit, and the author has no chance to observe this by EVg0 up close Install a DC dc charging pile that can be used by Tesla and other specifications.
Electric vehicles are highly accepted, and Can be seen on the streets of Mach-E, Rivian, and Model Y
Even if the utilization rate of charging piles in downtown San Francisco is not high, the visibility of electric vehicles in downtown San Francisco can be said to be not low. Even when I later drove in the napa valley mountains north of San Francisco, I saw many Teslas or other brands of electric vehicles. Even at night, you can see the Rivian R1T electric pickup with its rather bright through-the-day running lights. Non-electric vehicles have also seen the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid, a plug-in oil-electric version of the XV. As far as the entire California region is concerned, electric vehicles have gradually become an important role in streetscape.
Urban AC slow charging efficiency is slow, low utilization rate, California electric vehicle owners mostly use home charging, far away door fast charging
From the author's observations on this trip, due to the vast size of the United States, many families have more than 1 car, so many people with electric vehicles in California may have a combination of 1 fuel vehicle and then 1 electric vehicle. It is common to commute in and out of the city after the electric vehicle is fully charged at home to cope with the era of high oil prices.
On the contrary, the public charging stations in the urban area, especially the AC slow charging rate that is slower and also charged, are even less pleasing, resulting in a fairly low utilization rate. Often within 1 to 2 hours AC slow charging of electricity, for the United States long-distance, long-mileage car demand can be said to be a "cup of water salary", the United States electric vehicle consumers mostly ignore the existence of AC slow charging.
As for long-distance interstate travel, the infrastructure network of electric vehicle DC fast charging is crucial, like the previous Kia EV6 through fast charging, in the 2880.5 miles, 7 days from New York City to Los Angeles across the United States, the total charging time of the entire journey is 7 hours 10 minutes and 1 second to refresh the Guinness World Record, if the charging network density can be increased, I believe this record can be shortened.