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Completely ICEd at Ellensburg Superchargers! Grrr

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I was traveling to silverwood (coeur de Alene, ID) on Tuesday last week and when I arrived at the ellensburg superchargers to charge up they were completely ICED! I only had 42 miles on my battery and wouldn't make it all the way to ritzville supercharger, so I went inside the hotel and kindly asked the staff if they would get their guests to remove their cars from the tesla slots.

The staff member complained about how they don't have enought spots for their guests to park and they were completely full etc. I said that I understood that however parking in a marked EV spot with green painted lines is a $124 ticket and a $350 impound fee I'm sure their guests would much rather find other places to park than be inconvenieced with all those fees. I was then told that tesla pays them a monthly fee like rent for those 5 spaces. Which made me even angrier that they ALLOW their guests to park there just because they don't have enough places for them to park. Then the staff member said that they were parked in one of places themselves and would move their car. Good grief. Why didn't you just say so in the first place.

I have checked with a sheriff and Teslas signage does comply with the EV rcw with the green lines. If we are completely iced there and the hotel chooses not to get their guests out of bed to move their vehicles then they CAN in fact be ticketed for the $124 and because we are completely plug in and cannot get gas into our cars they will actually impound the vehicles if need be. I'm not saying this is the correct route to take. I don't want to get our superchargers taken away from this location especially since I realize that tesla doesn't own them. I get that. It's just a bummer that this is the second time this has occurred.

I actually mentioned to the to the staff member that it might be a good thing for them to park there with a note on their dash that they are staff and to come inside the hotel to move their vehicle for us....they said they would be willing...on full nights....
 
As a temporary fix, they could have the guests that park there register at the front desk, and/or leave their keys as a "valet" service. Management accepted the contract from Tesla. They need to come up a strategy to meet their end.
 
We are traveling through Ellensburg tomorrow (Tuesday) and need to charge there. At 220 miles from Seattle to Ritzville, it's just a little too far on a range charge for my 85. I've wondered before if I would be able to park sideways in front of the end two cars and reach the end charging unit which is a pull in spot.
I do have a roadster adapter, so I could go back into town and charge at the HPC and have lunch at the Tav.
Alysashley, what time of day did you have the problem at?
 
If it is a continuing problem with guests icing the spots, then the hotel might encourage their own staff to park there, to keep the spots unavailable to guests -- and leave notes on all the cars that staff will come immediately move the cars upon request by a Model S owner.
 
One consideration with employes using their own car to hold the spots is that it leaves them vulnerable to a ticket if they are parked in violation of the Washington state law. I'd hate to have a well-meaning hotel worker get penalized because someone who didn't see the note or is not familiar with the arrangement complains to the police.

If Ellensburg proves to have a consistent problem with ICEing at night when the hotel lot fills up, it might be time to roll out the orange barrels with "NO PARKING Tow Away Zone" signs like they have at Glenwood Springs, CO Residence Inn.

photo-1.JPG


Lanny
 
Glenwood Springs CO again, upping the ante by doubling those heavy super-cones. I didn't have to move them, that's just how I found it Saturday afternoon 19 July 2014. Seems like a good pro-active solution that will get the message across.

Glenwood-cone.solution.jpg

--
 
If it is a continuing problem with guests icing the spots, then the hotel might encourage their own staff to park there, to keep the spots unavailable to guests -- and leave notes on all the cars that staff will come immediately move the cars upon request by a Model S owner.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I read the first post...much easier to have the employees move their cars than guests.
Thinking outloud that they could add to the sign "Employee Parking Only" to double the warning to customers.

Sorry to hear the OP got iced.
 
If it is a continuing problem with guests icing the spots, then the hotel might encourage their own staff to park there, to keep the spots unavailable to guests -- and leave notes on all the cars that staff will come immediately move the cars upon request by a Model S owner.

Hey Bonnie - remember this thread by teo? Teo Takes Tesla To Task Now do you think this is a problem? Or is Teo just being a trouble maker all the way from England?

This is going to be a large problem as more and more of these cars get on the road. We shouldn't need 100+ different organizations coming up with their own work-arounds to a ICE'ing problem, Tesla should be building this network out with more dedicated spots and enforcing stricter guidelines, especially if they are paying for these spaces (with my $2000 Supercharger fee).
 
Email [email protected] and let them know your experience. I'm sure they will reach out to the hotel and hopefully try to remedy the situation.

Ditto this, but do more than email. This is Tesla's problem to solve. It should not fall on you ( us, Tesla owners ) to deal with this.
Please complain to them repeatedly until you get satisfaction. Call every number you can find.

If I ever get iced out of a supercharger, I will call Tesla over and over.

If Tesla doesn't do something to solve the problem, I would be very very tempted to go by that parking lot every day and call the Sheriff to ticket every illegally parked vehicle until everybody hates me.
 
There are green painted lines in accordance with washington state law. I sent tesla an email an received a response yesterday that basically said they are well aware of the situation and are working with the owners to come up with a viable solution that woks for everyone involved. They also said they are changing out their signage that will include the rcw codes in the next two weeks.
 
Hey Bonnie - remember this thread by teo? Teo Takes Tesla To Task Now do you think this is a problem? Or is Teo just being a trouble maker all the way from England?

This is going to be a large problem as more and more of these cars get on the road. We shouldn't need 100+ different organizations coming up with their own work-arounds to a ICE'ing problem, Tesla should be building this network out with more dedicated spots and enforcing stricter guidelines, especially if they are paying for these spaces (with my $2000 Supercharger fee).

I didn't understand why you fixated on me before and definitely don't understand why you're directing this at me now. Seems a bit ... personal. What's up?
 
Hey Bonnie - remember this thread by teo? Teo Takes Tesla To Task Now do you think this is a problem? Or is Teo just being a trouble maker all the way from England?

This is going to be a large problem as more and more of these cars get on the road. We shouldn't need 100+ different organizations coming up with their own work-arounds to a ICE'ing problem, Tesla should be building this network out with more dedicated spots and enforcing stricter guidelines, especially if they are paying for these spaces (with my $2000 Supercharger fee).

Not sure why you are directing this at Bonnie either. Anyway, we never said it couldn't be a problem, just just to date it hadn't been. When I called the hotel (which Teo didn't do even after hours of research) they said they'd contact Tesla about proper signage and paint which it sounds like they are doing. People had more of a problem with how Teo went about things scolding locals from thousands of miles away, not that his point that ICEing could be a problem.
 
This is going to be a large problem as more and more of these cars get on the road.

Could you please explain why you feel this way?

Your blanket statement here seems to conclude that every single incident of "Icing an EV" is malicious...I think that the majority of ICE vehicle drivers will learn over time to simply "stop parking in EV charging spots"...hence, the problem of "Icing" will diminish over time...
 
Could you please explain why you feel this way?

Your blanket statement here seems to conclude that every single incident of "Icing an EV" is malicious...I think that the majority of ICE vehicle drivers will learn over time to simply "stop parking in EV charging spots"...hence, the problem of "Icing" will diminish over time...

I remember a lot of the same problems when handicap parking spaces came out -- eventually, people learned to respect them. The trend to striping with green lines seems like a good idea -- people have been trained to avoid blue lines. Hopefully, the imprint is more towards "any line that's not white or yellow".