Tracking on tmc for superchargers

The hardest part would be spreading word of the website that would track that. I guess someone could put magnets on the superchargers (they are metal?) saying "Plan your next supercharger stop to avoid a wait!" or something. I'd help throw together a simple web application for that but I don't have a ton of time. Anyone want to help?

What percentage of Tesla owners do you think frequent TMC?
I bet it is between 2% and 5%

Although this would be a great option, I find the superchargers to be pretty empty especially during the week.

Last night I was at Atascadero, and I was the only one there from 6:30 to 9:00

Buellton: In the four visits I have had there, I have seen only one other car.

Hawthorne I have seen full, and lots of cars at Gilroy, but never full. Tehon Ranch usually has 2 to 3 cars charging.

nwdiver said:

With the holidays approaching I thought of a way we might be able to avoid some bottlenecks...

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This is the only thing that worries me about superchargers, is what do the lines look like on Thanksgiving / Christmas. A news story of dozens of Tesla owners missing the Thanksgiving turkey because they were waiting in line at the Supercharger for 2 hours is good for no one. Battery swapping should help when it gets rolled out, but until then I'll be waiting nervously.

thelastdeadmouse said:

This is the only thing that worries me about superchargers, is what do the lines look like on Thanksgiving / Christmas. A news story of dozens of Tesla owners missing the Thanksgiving turkey because they were waiting in line at the Supercharger for 2 hours is good for no one. Battery swapping should help when it gets rolled out, but until then I'll be waiting nervously.

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Plan accordingly and leave earlier..... Always your best bet when taking a road trip in an electric car :smile: even with Superchargers.

Aaron

I have been discussing an idea with a friend for building a webpage that would allow owners to check-in and check-out at Superchargers. It would also enable owners to send a message to other owners currently at a SC to inform them they were waiting for a charge when the SC station was full.

We've started flushing out all the details and I just wanted to get input from the rest of the group to see if there would be interest in using this web page and if anyone had any other suggestions for features for it.

Liz G said:

I have been discussing an idea with a friend for building a webpage that would allow owners to check-in and check-out at Superchargers. It would also enable owners to send a message to other owners currently at a SC to inform them they were waiting for a charge when the SC station was full.

We've started flushing out all the details and I just wanted to get input from the rest of the group to see if there would be interest in using this web page and if anyone had any other suggestions for features for it.

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We only have 5 to 10% of owners on this site. If you were able to put a sign up with your web page to inform other owners to indicate if they are waiting it could work. Tesla would have to participate to allow the sign.

My two cents: It's kind of like deciding to set up a reservation page for a restaurant that has decided to not take reservations. Nice idea and all, but unless the restaurant (in this case, Tesla) agrees to the idea and tells all the diners about the system, then it will still be first come, first serve. If I don't know about the webpage and show up and start charging, I don't much care there is a webpage where someone reserved -- unless Tesla has told me that is the protocol. We can't really decide how to decide who gets first dibs on a resource that belongs to someone else. Make sense?

On another note, Liz ... I have a sister and bro-in-law in Wentzville. One of these days they're going to tell me they saw a Model S and I'm going to tell them the name of the driver. That will surprise them!

Liz G said:

I have been discussing an idea with a friend for building a webpage that would allow owners to check-in and check-out at Superchargers. It would also enable owners to send a message to other owners currently at a SC to inform them they were waiting for a charge when the SC station was full.

We've started flushing out all the details and I just wanted to get input from the rest of the group to see if there would be interest in using this web page and if anyone had any other suggestions for features for it.

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There is a web site coming from another member on the forum, who I met while supercharging in CT and DE!
I don't want to steal his thunder but he has two domains reserved.

Bonnie, my take would be, a popular restaurant that does not take reservations, but the website shows you when people are most interested in going so you can judge how long the wait is and make an informed decision on when its worth the wait and when it might not be. It would be great if Tesla released usage data but this voluntary web app is a way to aggregate it and extrapolate for now.

So if you pulled up the app and saw five people expecting to charge at grants pass in two hours when you will arrive, you know someone is waiting. So you can opt to wait and have dinner now and leave later. But it's still first come first serve of course, and only maybe 10% of folks would be using the app.

dbfish said:

Bonnie, my take would be, a popular restaurant that does not take reservations, but the website shows you when people are most interested in going so you can judge how long the wait is and make an informed decision on when its worth the wait and when it might not be. It would be great if Tesla released usage data but this voluntary web app is a way to aggregate it and extrapolate for now.

So if you pulled up the app and saw five people expecting to charge at grants pass in two hours when you will arrive, you know someone is waiting. So you can opt to wait and have dinner now and leave later. But it's still first come first serve of course, and only maybe 10% of folks would be using the app.

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That works, as long as people understand it doesn't guarantee them a reservation. But uhh, yeah. You and I both know what is going to happen ...

I agree that it's useful to know what kind of congestion to expect and plan accordingly.

bonnie said:

That works, as long as people understand it doesn't guarantee them a reservation. But uhh, yeah. You and I both know what is going to happen ...

I agree that it's useful to know what kind of congestion to expect and plan accordingly.

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Bonnie the intent was never to have a reservation system. Perhaps I should have been clearer. It would allow people to indicate they were charging and when they finished and also give owners arriving the ability to notify people charging that they were waiting for a charge, in case someone didn't need a full charge and could give up a spot to let the new arrival start charging.

I think instead of reservations, it would be better to notate an "intent to use" at a certain time/day. Several options would pop up here:
1. If the driver gets there before the intended time, the future "intent to use" leaves the system.
2. Since the Model S keyfob has an NFC chip inside, it could be used for some kind of mini kiosk that says "I'm here". Just wave it there for a quick "check in" and you wave over it again for a "check out". Also, the checked in (or occupied) stall use would automatically expire your "intent to use" after 60-75 minutes if you didn't manually check out.
3. All of this could be sync'ed and integrated into the Tesla smartphone app. When another driver pulls up with intent to charge and sees all stalls are occupied, if the cars sitting there are at 80% and over, their phone gets a notification that someone wants a charge. The driver waiting for the charge would use the Tesla app to send a request to the drivers that are currently charging. They can choose to ignore it if they want to either top off, or just don't care.

I'm sure Tesla is looking at something like this, but location based charge notifications would also be good. As a Model S approaches a Supercharger, it will go online and see if the stalls are all in use. If they are, a UI prompt asks the driver if they intend to charge. If they choose "yes", the same requested intent to charge is sent to the smartphones of the drivers that are occupying the stalls.

Maybe it will make the world a little bit more polite, too

Without controls, any internet site will have "vandals" messing with information. The more disruptive, the better. So, not a no go, but high potential for junk. Like products on Amazon like the steering wheel desk that attract joke reviews so even if you could find it useful, it's hard to filter the info.