As always, I start a post by expressing my gratitude to Elon, George and the Tesla team for such a magnificent vehicle - and now for building out the supercharge network as committed. Darien is a huge add for us in New England, as it is now much easier to get back and forth to NYC without having to top off in the city.
We just completed our 3rd road trip in the last 6 months - we are traveling more now that we have an EV than we did with an ice car - it's such a pleasure to drive, and cost and convenience are far superior.
That said, there is a lot of learning to do in the provisioning process for new superchargers - as the network is building out, I hope the Tesla team can benefit from some feedback.
- I called Telsa road service twice to confirm that Darien was online after receiving the email; both times, the Tesla rep said 'let me check' and confirmed a few minutes later. This was great to hear as I had a July 4th trip planned to White Plains, and it made it easier to get to NYC for the fireworks
- We drove past the northbound side, and several miles later found the southbound service stop 'closed for construction' so we had to loop around and head back north - would have been good to know that
- Then, we found ice cars in each of the 4 Tesla spots - we found 2 of the spots had no signage whatsoever (in contrast to Milford which is clearly marked), and two had insufficient signage (ok to park here if your car is efficient)
- We went into the service area and was directed to the manager of the Subway who is the site manager - he was quite helpful, but couldn't do too much - he did make an announcement and this did get a BMW from Brooklyn to move, so I was able to get charging after about 15 minutes
- Then, a 60KW pulled up heading to Wilmington - and we again had to go to the site manager - he put cones up on two of the spots and got another ice car to move (two people moved the cones and parked ice cars in our spots again). Since there was no signage, you can't blame the ice drivers
- The site manager then said signage was Telsa's responsibility - I called the roadside number and they tried to find someone local to address the problem - as of midnight, there were still no signs and ice cars continued to park in the Tesla spots
- Also, at least two of the supercharges were not quite ready for us - both were clamped and it was not clear they were ready for us even if someone had a wire cutter
Net: as Tesla builds out its supercharger network, work is needed on the provisioning process and readiness criteria - otherwise, the risk of a high profile brodering incident is high
Jack
We just completed our 3rd road trip in the last 6 months - we are traveling more now that we have an EV than we did with an ice car - it's such a pleasure to drive, and cost and convenience are far superior.
That said, there is a lot of learning to do in the provisioning process for new superchargers - as the network is building out, I hope the Tesla team can benefit from some feedback.
- I called Telsa road service twice to confirm that Darien was online after receiving the email; both times, the Tesla rep said 'let me check' and confirmed a few minutes later. This was great to hear as I had a July 4th trip planned to White Plains, and it made it easier to get to NYC for the fireworks
- We drove past the northbound side, and several miles later found the southbound service stop 'closed for construction' so we had to loop around and head back north - would have been good to know that
- Then, we found ice cars in each of the 4 Tesla spots - we found 2 of the spots had no signage whatsoever (in contrast to Milford which is clearly marked), and two had insufficient signage (ok to park here if your car is efficient)
- We went into the service area and was directed to the manager of the Subway who is the site manager - he was quite helpful, but couldn't do too much - he did make an announcement and this did get a BMW from Brooklyn to move, so I was able to get charging after about 15 minutes
- Then, a 60KW pulled up heading to Wilmington - and we again had to go to the site manager - he put cones up on two of the spots and got another ice car to move (two people moved the cones and parked ice cars in our spots again). Since there was no signage, you can't blame the ice drivers
- The site manager then said signage was Telsa's responsibility - I called the roadside number and they tried to find someone local to address the problem - as of midnight, there were still no signs and ice cars continued to park in the Tesla spots
- Also, at least two of the supercharges were not quite ready for us - both were clamped and it was not clear they were ready for us even if someone had a wire cutter
Net: as Tesla builds out its supercharger network, work is needed on the provisioning process and readiness criteria - otherwise, the risk of a high profile brodering incident is high
Jack
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