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All but one supercharger spots used for hotel parking

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I just supercharged at Springfield, OR (9-10 pm 1/11/14). 7 out of the 8 stalls were occupied by hotel guests (not Tesla). The entire hotel parking lot appeared to be completely full. There are no signs telling people not to park there, just the small signs saying something like "Tesla Vehicle Charging". I think Tesla should ramp up the warnings - saying this is NOT hotel parking, even to the point of saying that your car may be towed. In any case, if all of the spaces are unavailable due to parked cars, someone needing a charge is going to be pretty unhappy... I thought you should know. (Also posted in General section on Tesla Motors forum.)
 
The East Greenwich, RI Supercharger appears to have a similar issue, many of the 8 spaces are located just 20-30' from the front entrance of a Walgreens. Tesla has stated they don't want to be seen as hostile to ICE drivers.. The solution might be the all too familiar "orange cone", most ICE drivers will move on, the Model S driver will have to get out of their car and move the cone (replace it when you leave as well). Signage and orange cones is about all we are going to get...

East Greenwich, RI - notice the ICEing and Walgreens

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That's just idiotic. Tesla might not want to be hostile against ICEs, but they are hostile to their own customers in this way!

Why not paint the parking spots green or something? That will scare people away.
 
Tesla is treading a fine line here. They sell the idea that it will bring in more customers, but if too many non-Tesla customers complain about no parking because of the Tesla spaces...

Hotels are not ideal spots for Superchargers unless they can be installed way out of the way, then there will only be a conflict a few days per year.
 
Tesla's Supercharger network is amazing. Not just how fast the chargers are, but the handle design, how they take advantage of Tesla's large batteries for speed and spacing, how fast they are deploying them, the frictionless business and usage models, ownership by the automakers so there's no finger-pointing when there are problems, the co-location sites, etc. Tesla put a lot of thought in to this, and they are doing way better than anybody else in the space.

But, yeah. Using non-dedicated spots can be a huge problem. When I talked to them about site planning a year and a half ago, the key point I made was that unusable chargers are WORSE than no chargers. The chargers have to be available when people get there. This is something that could really bite them (though so far, we mostly seem to be seeing close calls rather than true problems, at least in terms of ICEing).

But at the same time, a startup company doing this sort of work has to watch costs, and they are getting the parking spots MUCH cheaper (as in, free) this way. Perhaps a Supercharger network with a few hiccups is better than no Supercharger network at all (assuming the cost difference meant whether the whole network was viable or not; I don't know). Maybe at some point - presumably after studying what they have for a while - they will be able to do something better.

I think the key to improvements going forward is to make sure Tesla knows when there are problems. So if you ever arrive at a Supercharger and can't charge (no matter what the reason), please make sure you either call the phone number on the chargers, or email 0[email protected].

In the mean time...what would it take to make a 25' Supercharger extension cord just in case? :smile:
 
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Let's just hope Elon notices this when he takes his trip. Maybe if he pulls into a supercharger and all the spots are ICEd then they will start doing something about it.

I don't want to sound sarcastic, but I'm relatively certain that when Elon does make his trip, SC / parking issues will have been sorted out for him in advance, VIP-style.

I would love to be wrong, and for him to notice Tesla spots being ICE'd with the inconvenience that ensues.
 
This simple solution is to quit putting them in prime parking locations. People are basically laze and will not park any farther than they have to. If they supercharger slots are the most far away, they will fill up last...

For conventional J1772 characters in most cases this is impractical because it means running long power lines from the nearest building. It's usually most cost-effective to put charging facilities near established buildings. I couldn't say whether the same logic applies for superchargers, or if the infrastructure requirements are met in different ways because of their extremely high power requirements.
 
For conventional J1772 characters in most cases this is impractical because it means running long power lines from the nearest building. It's usually most cost-effective to put charging facilities near established buildings. I couldn't say whether the same logic applies for superchargers, or if the infrastructure requirements are met in different ways because of their extremely high power requirements.

Because Superchargers need their own gigantic 500 kVA transformers (enough to power a BIG hotel), all new infrastructure has to be put in, and electrical connection cost is not usually an issue.