Crowded Superchargers in CA....

russman · Dec 28, 2014

I don't know about other places, but did my first longer trip and used a few superchargers. Tejon, Harris, and Gilroy. All 3 had over 50% spaces filled and two of them were 100% or more filled at some point I was charging. Did get to see a P85D, but also noticed that most of the people there charging had no understanding. One person couldn't disconnect the cable, because his car was locked. No one I spoke to understood that the chargers were paired. It's only going to get worse... At Harris, someone had to wait for a spot to open up. Unfortunately, there were at least 3 cars that were there before I got there and after I left. The one good news was that none of the spots were iced.

Just some observations.

ecarfan · Dec 28, 2014

Post-Christmas weekend travel is typically heavier than normal. Not surprised by your report. Thanks for posting.

randompersonx · Dec 28, 2014

Most people are never going to understand things like pairing.

Not understanding how to disconnect the cable because the car is locked ... Don't they run into that at home?

omarsultan · Dec 28, 2014

randompersonx said:
Most people are never going to understand things like pairing.

Yeah, that's getting into "inside baseball" territory. It does not help that they don't seem to use a consistent scheme for placement of A and B chargers.

Vger · Dec 28, 2014

California is the only place I have seen saturated or nearly saturated SC's, but clearly, capacity will need to continue to got up.

russman said:
No one I spoke to understood that the chargers were paired.

I have also found most owners I have met at superchargers ignorant on the pairing. I have explained it patiently to many!

The one fun exception was at Truckee last week on my Gigafactory pilgrimage. I inadvertently started to pull into the paired spot of a car already charging. Before I even got my car parked, a young girl (about 12) bounded out of the other car and pointed out that I was about to slow down their charge. She was sitting reading alone in the car, while her Mom was shopping, and clearly keeping a sharp eye out-- kids these days! :wink:

I immediately apologized and moved to the adjacent slot. In the dark, I had trouble reading the labels.

EarlyAdopter · Dec 28, 2014

Vger said:
California is the only place I have seen saturated or nearly saturated SC's, but clearly, capacity will need to continue to got up.

I have also found most owners I have met at superchargers ignorant on the pairing. I have explained it patiently to many!

The one fun exception was at Truckee last week on my Gigafactory pilgrimage. I inadvertently started to pull into the paired spot of a car already charging. Before I even got my car parked, a young girl (about 12) bounded out of the other car and pointed out that I was about to slow down their charge. She was sitting reading alone in the car, while her Mom was shopping, and clearly keeping a sharp eye out-- kids these days! :wink:

I immediately apologized and moved to the adjacent slot. In the dark, I had trouble reading the labels.

I thought the pairing meant your charge would be slow until their car starts to taper, but their charge wouldn't be affected at all. Clearly, we all still have something to learn about the pairing.

Saghost · Dec 28, 2014

EarlyAdopter said:
I thought the pairing meant your charge would be slow until their car starts to taper, but their charge wouldn't be affected at all. Clearly, we all still have something to learn about the pairing.

I'm pretty sure that is the case - the car that plugged first gets whatever it wants, the second car gets whatever is left. I have no experience, of course, but that's what I've always read.

Assuming that is the case, it wouldn't have affected the girl at all, but Vger might have experienced some delays.
Walter

russman · Dec 28, 2014

The other issue that I came across was knowing which of the 2 open spots had the most available juice and if it made sense to move from my slow spot to the spot that someone just pulled out of. I decided not to change spots, then someone else pulled in to the other spot and got a ton more juice then I did.

bluetinc · Dec 28, 2014

Not in the case when car 1 pulls in near empty, and then car 2 pulls in soon after. In that case car 1 wants to pull 120kW to charge, but car 2 will pull some of that reducing the charge on car 1.

Peter

Saghost said:
I'm pretty sure that is the case - the car that plugged first gets whatever it wants, the second car gets whatever is left. I have no experience, of course, but that's what I've always read.

Assuming that is the case, it wouldn't have affected the girl at all, but Vger might have experienced some delays.
Walter

tdiggity · Dec 28, 2014

Harris ranch is the worst offender, followed by gilroy. People think they can take off and go eat for hours while their car charges.

aronth5 · Dec 28, 2014

randompersonx said:
Most people are never going to understand things like pairing.

Probably already mentioned in another thread but a software enhancement would help with a diagram of the stalls with the best charging rate and open highlighted in green and the other open stalls where paring would reduce the rate of charge highlighted in yellow. And stalls in use highlighted in red. This would alert the driver even before they pulled in which stall to use.

SFOTurtle · Dec 28, 2014

tdiggity said:
Harris ranch is the worst offender, followed by gilroy. People think they can take off and go eat for hours while their car charges.

This is no doubt what happened on Friday, Boxing Day. I did a road trip down to Monterey and stopped at the Gilroy SC on the way back for a quick charge. All 10 spots taken. None of the drivers in sight. The outlet mall as a whole and In N Out were a total zoo. People were driving around in circles just to find parking spots. I've never seen it so crowded there. One MS pulled out after I waited for 5 minutes, and I grabbed the SC spot. When I came back to my car in 25 minutes not one MS had moved. I saw two MS just parked nearby not charging. I'm guessing that the majority of the folks were there shopping and probably were parked at the SCs for hours. The last time I stopped at Gilroy to use the SC was in August on a Friday afternoon, and I was the only car there.

liuping · Dec 28, 2014

Super Charging sure is different in Arizona.

We went from San Diego to Phoenix on the December 23rd, hitting Yuma and Gila Bend, with no one but us the whole time. On the 27th we went from Phoenix to Tucson, then that evening back home to San Diego. We hit Gasa Grande twice (on the way to Tucson and the way back to San Diego), Gila Bend, Yuma and El Centro. At every stop we were the only Tesla in sight the entire time. It was so strange compared to traveling in CA...

Tedkidd · Dec 28, 2014

tdiggity said:
Harris ranch is the worst offender, followed by gilroy. People think they can take off and go eat for hours while their car charges.

Teslas ICEd by other Teslas.

Lloyd · Dec 28, 2014

Vger said:
California is the only place I have seen saturated or nearly saturated SC's, but clearly, capacity will need to continue to got up.

I have also found most owners I have met at superchargers ignorant on the pairing. I have explained it patiently to many!

The one fun exception was at Truckee last week on my Gigafactory pilgrimage. I inadvertently started to pull into the paired spot of a car already charging. Before I even got my car parked, a young girl (about 12) bounded out of the other car and pointed out that I was about to slow down their charge. She was sitting reading alone in the car, while her Mom was shopping, and clearly keeping a sharp eye out-- kids these days! :wink:

I immediately apologized and moved to the adjacent slot. In the dark, I had trouble reading the labels.

That is not true...... 1st in is primary. 2nd in to the pair suffers til the other ramps down.

apacheguy · Dec 28, 2014

bluetinc said:
Not in the case when car 1 pulls in near empty, and then car 2 pulls in soon after. In that case car 1 wants to pull 120kW to charge, but car 2 will pull some of that reducing the charge on car 1.

Peter

Interesting. Didn't know that. I assumed that it car 1 was already pulling 120 then car 2 would only pull 15 kW until the taper began on 1.

bxr140 · Dec 28, 2014

tdiggity said:
Harris ranch is the worst offender, followed by gilroy. People think they can take off and go eat for hours while their car charges.

Hour? Yes. Hours? No... That place is tricky since there's really no other place to go but a full service restaurant. Some seats have a view of the SC slots, but not many.

I think what would be most helpful is a couple bullet point 'how to' sticker (heavy on etiquette) on the side of a SC pedestal, and possibly some more data and alerts from the mobile app...especially if the alerts can also identify capacity. Most people will read a sticker at least once, and most of them will probably try to adhere to the guidelines. There's never going to be full compliance, but it would be more helpful than a few enthusiasts complaining on some web forum. :wink:

Also, while probably not an actual reason for locating Swap there, its coincidentally convenient...

bluetinc · Dec 28, 2014

That may be true for a 135kW charger, I'm using all 90kW and 120kW chargers out here. These seem to like splitting off about 22kW/30kW to car 2 and work in discrete steps of divided power, rather than a perfect linear split as the two cars charge. Of course all of that depends on the health of the charger being 100%. I've been to quite a few that weren't at 100% so you get a double whammy.

apacheguy said:
Interesting. Didn't know that. I assumed that it car 1 was already pulling 120 then car 2 would only pull 15 kW until the taper began on 1.

FredTMC · Dec 28, 2014

Tedkidd said:
Teslas ICEd by other Teslas.

I can't believe how rude some owners can be. I never do this to fellow owners. The app helps too. You get a message that your car is done.

On a sidenote, it would be very easy for tesla to parse the supercharging files and look for repeat offenders that leave their cars at the stall after charging is done. Tesla should consider sending owners a gentle email reminder to have some courtesy for other owners. In other words, an owner's right to use superchargers doesn't include the right to block others from using them

Saghost · Dec 28, 2014

bluetinc said:
That may be true for a 135kW charger, I'm using all 90kW and 120kW chargers out here. These seem to like splitting off about 22kW/30kW to car 2 and work in discrete steps of divided power, rather than a perfect linear split as the two cars charge. Of course all of that depends on the health of the charger being 100%. I've been to quite a few that weren't at 100% so you get a double whammy.

It almost certainly is discrete steps - the Supercharger is made up of a stack of several standard Model S charger modules, and I would assume that each module can only be hooked up to one output at a time (different voltage on each car,) so it would presumably shift in 10-11kW increments.

I hadn't realized that the older units would take some power away from the first car to guarantee some minimal charge rate on the second car. If that's the case, then if/when a car that can eat >135kW comes up, it may happen on the faster ones, too.
Walter

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