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How long is your wait at a supercharger?

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I'm eagerly waiting for the Model E, and am curious to know your typical wait time, not the charging time, at a supercharger location. It's probably not long at all, but if the more affordable Model E becomes popular, that wait time may become an issue for some. Imagine a line 3-4 cars deep (both S and E), each car taking what, about 20 minutes to charge (?). I'm reading that at this time, you can stop at a SC for restroom break, grab a snack, relax for a few minutes and the charging is done. Do you guys think the wait time will be a problem?
Thanks,
 
I have visited 38 different Superchargers and have never waited. I've charged 5 times at Barstow (before it was expanded) and twice at San Juan Capistrano. When I traveled cross country, I only saw one other Tesla charging between Colorado and New Jersey.
re: Model III, I wasn't aware Tesla had announced they would be eligible for supercharging. Not saying they won't be, just saying I haven't heard an answer to that.
 
How long someone waits now isn't relevant to what might happen a few years from now. New locations keep being added and busy ones are being expanded. But no, I've never had to wait, though it wouldn't bother me if I did have to wait a few minutes.

Superchargers are Tesla's best marketing tool. It wouldn't be good for marketing if there wasn't reasonable availability.
 
Right now, there are 116 Supercharger locations open in the US, with a total of 759 charging stalls, according to supercharge.info - more than half built in the last nine months. According to InsideEVs, Tesla has delivered 31,300 Model S cars in the US - about a third built in the last nine months.

There's a thread around here somewhere with a bunch of complicated math about utilization rates and surge occasions, but the bottom line is that as long as Tesla continues to add Supercharger stalls in places people need them at least as quickly as they build cars, it won't become an issue.

Right now they are still expanding the coverage areas, so they're install superchargers faster than they are building cars, and not necessarily in the places that cars will most often be - but I'm sure they'll be studying the utilization data carefully and using it to drive future expansions.

Superchargers are relatively cheap (the $1200 retail price for dual chargers suggests the hardware involved costs Tesla less than $15k since the Supercharger is basically 12 Model S chargers ganged together and a utility transformer,) and at the current car-Supercharger ratio Tesla is holding ~$80k of new car purchase price ($2k per car, though this analysis assumes that all 60 kWh cars are enabled) to cover each lane and the electricity used in it (or the solar panels to drive it - in many places the Superchargers are powered by solar panels installed with them.)

What's more, as EVs move more mainstream, Tesla may even get folks to pay for the privilege of having a supercharger installed at their business area - once the businesses realize that they can have a captive audience for 30-60 minutes at a time.
Walter
 
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On my last trip, I had to wait at the Harris Ranch Supercharger for 20 minutes.

IIRC, 2 cars were gone the entire time I was there (50 minutes), probably eating at the restaurant. 1 car left after 20 minutes (I took his spot) and I asked 2 drivers that were waiting in their car if they expected to be done soon. The funny thing is that the two drivers I talked to had enough range to get to the next supercharger, but they could have been going somewhere else and didn't want to pry because they were already giving me weird looks...
 
I charge almost every day at various different SC. The ONLY time I had a wait (and it was a short 20 mins. or so) was at Syosset, NY, at the Tesla Store. I am at Hamilton, Edison, & JFK regularly, and have never waited. Yes, there are more cars being built. But lets not forget that the new SC are being built also. And, they are coming at the rate of one per day! So, short answer, it is my opinion there will almost never be a wait, unless there is some unusual activity occurring. Like a local concert, or some other large event that happens to draw more than a few MS, and then more than 8 want/need a charge. Odds are against it...
 
Like others, this is a non-issue. We did a 4,250 mile road trip this summer that included stops at 22 different superchargers (some a couple times). We had to wait at two -- one wait was less than a minute (Gilroy), the other was about 5 minutes (Fremont). Both were on the same day -- and right after TMC Connect ended...
 
Recently drove from Santa Cruz, California up to Vancouver, Canada and back including one day during the Labor Day weekend. Total wait time at all superchargers on the trip? Zero. We never arrived at any bank of chargers that was more than half in use. It was quick and painless and we both agreed it was the easiest road trip either of us has ever taken.

The one time we had to wait was at Hawthorne, and we waited for roughly two hours. Putting superchargers in a big city is a huge mistake, much less a city with as many Teslas as Los Angeles. I think their general pattern of using mid-points between destinations is exactly the right strategy.
 
The one time we had to wait was at Hawthorne, and we waited for roughly two hours. Putting superchargers in a big city is a huge mistake, much less a city with as many Teslas as Los Angeles. I think their general pattern of using mid-points between destinations is exactly the right strategy.

Two hours? Unless people are charging past 80 percent or jumping the queue that means there are at least three cars in front of you for every charging lane, right? Wow.
Walter
 
Its funny this topic came up. I thought about this long and hard. I tried to imagine what the world would look like with EVERYONE driving an EV. I think the truth is it would be a lot easier then we think. If we are worried about lines with the Model 3, I would not be. I think Elon is quoted as saying they open a new super charger location every 20 hours. Now this is likely more in the EU and not the US, but still that is crazy fast.

Also, we are not keeping in mind how fast maybe the Model 3 will in fact charge. If Tesla can wow us like they've done in the past two years, whats to say they can't cut the charge time in half? Even if they don't, I would be beside myself if we didn't have enough charging locations in between cities. I think also in 2017 hotels will be more apt to have plugs for EV's, already its fairly easy to find hotels with them, I think in 2 years it will be the staple of most hotels to have at least some plugs.
 
I'm eagerly waiting for the Model E, and am curious to know your typical wait time, not the charging time, at a supercharger location. It's probably not long at all, but if the more affordable Model E becomes popular, that wait time may become an issue for some. Imagine a line 3-4 cars deep (both S and E), each car taking what, about 20 minutes to charge (?). I'm reading that at this time, you can stop at a SC for restroom break, grab a snack, relax for a few minutes and the charging is done. Do you guys think the wait time will be a problem?
Thanks,

I've done a fair number of supercharger-powered road trips and I've had to wait a total of three times- twice at Gilroy and once at Hawthorne. I also charged pretty slow at Barstow when the only open spot shared a supercharger with another car. All of these were back when Gilroy, Hawthorne, and Barstow only had four charging stalls. All of these locations have now been upgraded to have more charging stalls and since then I've never had to wait and only shared a charger very briefly in Las Vegas a couple of months ago until one of the other cars left. Basically waiting at superchargers has been a complete non-issue since Tesla added more charge bays to the busiest locations. As long as they continue to do this, it shouldn't be an issue for the Model 3 either.