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Supercharger - Barstow (EXPANDED, 5 stalls added, now 16 total)

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So I have a story about my recent trip to Las Vegas that i thought the Tesla community would be interested in.
I arrived at the Barstow location with 2 MS charing and one waiting. After arriving we determined order and I had lunch with a wonderful couple.
Also it was determined that the right charger was the faster one by the owners that arrived fist. So we came up with an order to charge on what charger determined by who arrived first. It seemed that on charger would charge at about 150 to 200 miles per our and the other only at about 70.
So after some great conversions and 3 hours i got back on my way to Vegas.

Now on my way back to Los Angeles I arrived to construction at the supercharger. All bays were blocked off. I was really concerned for about 2 second till I was waived in by the constitution crew and the blocked stall was made available. Now this was concerning to me because this was the "slow stall" I started charging and found that i was getting 200mph great! Just after i arrived another MS showed up and needed a charge badly he was at 1mile left. The crew was making room for him at the other bay. He was here on my way out and knew that the order was who ever was first got the faster charger so i moved over to the newly available stall and he took mine. Well now i was only at 70mph and he got 150. This got me thinking that the faster charger was not determined by being closer to the supercharger but by who connected first. I was ok with him getting the faster speed especially when i found out that one of his passengers was in in jeopardy of missing his flight at LAX.
So now i was hanging out in Chilies and found one of Teslas Elections eating lunch. I struck up a conversation with him about what i was experiencing and about the superchargers in general. I told him that it seems that one car charges at a faster rate than the other and that maybe it was determined by who plugged in first.
He said he had never been informed of this and would look into it. He also informed that 2 bays are supplied by one unit. He also said that the ones currently in use at barstow are gen 1 and the ones he was installing are gen 3. After some time I noticed that the other MS had left so i checked my app and found that it was only charging at 70mph still so this made me thing that it does not switch when the other MS disconnects. I went out side and disconnected and reconnected.
My charge now topped out at 170mph. I told the tesla tech this and he said it must be a software thing and will have it checked out.
It seems that the Gen 1 charger has 12 charging units and the first car to hook up gets 8 and the second 4.

I hope that my experience sheds some light the "Faster stall" stories we have all been hearing.
By the way the extra 2 units are going to be finished by Friday if everything goes to plan.
I would also like to thank the Tesla Tech that was so informative and willing to listen. I hope they come up with a patch that will be fair. The Tech said that if only one car is charging they should get he max amount of charging units but when someone else connects it should switch to an equal amount of charging units and when someone disconnects it reverts back to the max. I hope this can be the case and im happy i helped to find this out. Not sure it it only affects gen one all superchargers.

C

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imgur: the simple image sharer
 
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Reactions: Vern Padgett
That quite interesting! I'm hoping that whatever announcement we get next week includes news about a bunch of new superchargers. I have to to from Eugene, OR to Medford, OR periodically for work and I think that there will be one on that route somewhere. I had to go down and back on Monday and so was forced to drive our Suburban... it used 20 gallons of gas to do the trip, getting around 16mpg.
 
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Reactions: Vern Padgett
CB: You are somewhat correct. At the supercharger sites they are in 'pairs' and the first to plug in is designated as primary, and the second to plug in becomes secondary. As one gets closer to full and begins to ramp down, the secondary will begin to ramp up. As the primary disconnects, the secondary then becomes primary, and so on. There is no designation of 8 to one and 4 to the other. It is fluid between the two cars charging.
 
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Reactions: Vern Padgett
CB: You are somewhat correct. At the supercharger sites they are in 'pairs' and the first to plug in is designated as primary, and the second to plug in becomes secondary. As one gets closer to full and begins to ramp down, the secondary will begin to ramp up. As the primary disconnects, the secondary then becomes primary, and so on. There is no designation of 8 to one and 4 to the other. It is fluid between the two cars charging.

But based on CB's report, there is a difference between how it's intended to operate and how it actually does operate
 
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Thanks for the update. I'm doing a Model S roadtrip to Vegas in two weeks so any news about superchargers along the way is welcome.

As far as charging speed, I've had similar experiences at the Gilroy superchargers. The two pairs of charging bays there are labeled 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B (1A and 1B are a pair and 2A and 2B are a pair, but the charging bays in a given pair are not adjacent to each other). On the way back from my first road trip, there was someone charging at 2A and I mistakenly plugged into 2B and was only getting about 66 mi/hr of range. This charging speed remained pretty constant until the other car stopped charging and then my charging stopped as well with a hardware error. After I unplugged and reconnected, I got over 200 mi/hr of range. A week later, I went on another road trip and plugged into 1A when all the other chargers were occupied. This time I started charging at around 80 mi/hr and then the charge rate slowly ramped up (presumably as the current to the car plugged into 1B ramped down) until my battery was mostly full (then it ramped back down to keep from damaging the battery). Either they upgraded some or all of the Gilroy superchargers in the intervening week or the two pairs of bays behave differently.

Anyway, I'm glad that they labeled the charging stalls. But I think they should also add a sign that explains the key details of how the system works so you know which charging stall you should use and what charging speeds to expect.
 
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That quite interesting! I'm hoping that whatever announcement we get next week includes news about a bunch of new superchargers. ...
Agree. These superchargers have been a big win. I suspect even Tesla is surprised at their popularity. I have a LEAF, and there was an L3 quick charger finally installed in downtown Los Angeles but, it's located quite a ways off the freeway and behind a pay parking structure ; closed when I went to use it one Sunday afternoon returning from LAX. Tesla has done it right.
 
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Can someone explain the Gen 3 vs Gen 1. This is the first time hearing about this?

I don't think there is a Gen 1 or 3 SuperCharger. If you look at the pictures of the SuperCharger control units that were just installed at Harris Ranch and the one that was there originally you can see they are exactly the same part numbers. They've always said they were 120 units. I think it is just a software upgrade that will allow them to charge the cars at a higher rate.
 
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Reactions: Vern Padgett
Does anyone else find this a little bit ridiculous, or is it just me? If I'm planning a trip using the supercharger network, I expect to work around two variables: charging time and wait time (if all chargers are in use).

Now it sounds like I need to worry about those things in addition to charging time at rate X, charging time at rate Y, and jockeying for the "best" charging spot. Makes the whole process seem needlessly complex, IMO.

I always thought you just pull up to a supercharger, plug in, and get 150 miles per half-hour or 300 miles per hour. Simple.
 
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Does anyone else find this a little bit ridiculous, or is it just me? If I'm planning a trip using the supercharger network, I expect to work around two variables: charging time and wait time (if all chargers are in use).

Now it sounds like I need to worry about those things in addition to charging time at rate X, charging time at rate Y, and jockeying for the "best" charging spot. Makes the whole process seem needlessly complex, IMO.

I always thought you just pull up to a supercharger, plug in, and get 150 miles per half-hour or 300 miles per hour. Simple.
That's the way it has worked for me. But I suppose it happens differently at crowded ones?
 
I don't think there is a Gen 1 or 3 SuperCharger. If you look at the pictures of the SuperCharger control units that were just installed at Harris Ranch and the one that was there originally you can see they are exactly the same part numbers. They've always said they were 120 units. I think it is just a software upgrade that will allow them to charge the cars at a higher rate.

The difference is probably in the control boards controlling the single charger with two outlets. Older units might do the 4/8 swap with no dynamic reconfiguration while newer units (or units with newer software) hopefully does dynamic reconfiguration of how many 10kW chargers are allocated to the respective outlets base on how fast the first car is charging. Hopefully they can swap over one 10kW unit at a time, so that for example a 70/50 or 60/60 split is possible.

If 120kW to a single outlet is made possible, they have three choices:

- Up the number of 10kW chargers to 15 in each unit
- Drop the charge rate for the first car down to max 90kW if a second car connects
- Make all 120kW chargers connect to a single outlet only

The first option makes the most sense to me, as 120kW will only be of use for a short time before the current start ramping down. The second option would annoy the owners of the first car when they suddenly get a lower charging rate and the third option is wasteful with the charger and power resources.
 
I saw the 70 mi/hr thing at Hawthorne back in the beginning a February (when there were only two working connectors). I was the second car to arrive, and the first car was charging at full rate. After the first car left, my car continued to charge at 70 mi/hr until I switched the other connector. Hopefully this is just a problem with the original set of superchargers, and is fixed, now.
 
I'm at the Barstow SC now. It is definitely struggling to meet capacity on a holiday weekend. I had to wait 45min to get a charger, sometimes as many as 4 cars were waiting. Some of the delay was due to really slow charging, and chargers that stopped after starting. I've been here 1.5hrs and my range is only up to 100 miles, currently charging at 38kw but that's the highest it has been.
 
I'm at the Barstow SC now. It is definitely struggling to meet capacity on a holiday weekend. I had to wait 45min to get a charger, sometimes as many as 4 cars were waiting. Some of the delay was due to really slow charging, and chargers that stopped after starting. I've been here 1.5hrs and my range is only up to 100 miles, currently charging at 38kw but that's the highest it has been.
Sorry to hear that, but considering it's a holiday weekend and the relative sparsity of SCs along I-15, I can't say I'm all that surprised.

Adding a SC in Baker, CA, within walking distance of the Mad Greek restaurant, would be nice!
 
So, have the Barstow s/cs been upgraded to 120kW?

charging at 38kW is pretty low from what I've read.

That being said, the last few times I've been to USA (from Australia), driving to vegas, I've noticed the Barstow S/Cs being almost empty.