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Charge queuing question

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I am new to Tesla and wanted to ask about the process of queuing in a parking lot for a turn at a busy EC. How exactly is this handled?

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I obviously meant SC rather than EC.:smile:

As you travel a bit, and go to more populated areas (and routes), you may actually have to occasionally wait.
I have seen cars pull up, patiently wait until the first (fully charged) car leaves and then they pull into the next open Supercharger bay.
If there is another car that arrives, it queues into line.
Et cetera.

And sometimes, the late arriving (local) Model S pulls up, sees that all stations are full and they decide to not wait and they go on to somewhere else for a while.

I have encountered full Supercharger stations @ Mt. Shasta, Las Vegas, Fremont, Hawthorne, Barstow, Laguna Seca (temporary), Huntsville, Waco and Denver, CO (mall).
And I have been to a whole lot more stations where I have been the lone car charging.

As Model S (and soon-to-be Model X) will be the only cars that can currently charge @ a Supercharger, you will probably be unobstructed for a while.
After Model 3 comes on-line and after a couple of years of ramped-up production, things might get a bit more interesting, especially during peak Summer and Holiday travel times.

However, I fully expect TM will continue to develop and improve on the projected Supercharger Network well past 2016.
 
Honestly, I'm expecting the crowding at Superchargers to decrease after 2016.

As long as Tesla keeps setting aside $2k per car for Superchargers, the pool of money available to install new chargers will scale with production.

Right now, most of the new installs are adding territory at the edges of the map. In 2016 Tesla will be mostly done with that in North America, except for Canada and Alaska. So they'll instead be spending the ever increasing new stall fund on the areas with the most traffic - and we know they have real time data on usage.

Obviously, a bigger fleet means more chance to slam a few stations unexpectedly - which is one reason I'm sure that you'll see an updated Navigation firmware that not only routes you through the Supercharger chain, but communicates its intentions back to Tesla and adjusts the recommended specific stops on the chain based on expected usage levels in the heavily traveled parts of the network (which will by that point have half a dozen overlapping choices to stop at.)
Walter
 
I am new to Tesla and wanted to ask about the process of queuing in a parking lot for a turn at a busy EC. How exactly is this handled?/QUOTE]

And since you are new, remember the "golden rule" when charging and think about the next person who may be arriving. If you plan on plugging in to a charger and leaving for an extended period (hotel outlet/charger, movie etc), consider leaving contact information on your dash. This is generally less of an issue at Superchargers but there have been some reports of folks plugging in at a Supercharger and going to a movie causing others to wait. And welcome to the forum!
 
I am new to Tesla and wanted to ask about the process of queuing in a parking lot for a turn at a busy EC. How exactly is this handled?

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I obviously meant SC rather than EC.:smile:

At the risk of dragging this into the gutter, its a lot like waiting for stalls in a crowded bathroom. For charging, the first car in line gets the first available charger. Its quite obvious who's waiting, so there's little chance of you unknowingly snaking someone.

On the unrelated future charging discussion, the inevitible faster charging rates will also relieve crowded supercharging locations.