Should I avoid Montreal's superchargers on a road trip?

Chrisizzle said:

I have a business trip from Toronto to Boston and will stop for hiking in the White Mountains on my return through New Hampshire over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend.

Most apps (especially Tesla's in car navigation) route me through Montreal. I am concerned about stopping when there are only two superchargers... that appear to be occasionally glitchy... over a major travel holiday. I don't mind charge time but the prospect of lining up to charge makes me bonkers.

Should I go to Cornwall directly even if it means some combination of driving slowly, taking a ferry, using Chademo, and a paper map because every electronic device will argue with me?

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Depending on your route to Boston, you could charge up at Cornwall and take Hwy 30 south of Montreal and charge in Drummondville.
I've never had an issue charging in Montreal. They have always been available. They also have 3 HPWC next to them.
If there is someone charging on both stalls, you know 30 minutes later , they will be available.
You could always cross the Decarie Expressway next to it and pop into the local strip bar to kill time.
Montreal is famous for those. There's also Orange Julius and Eggspectation close by.

Its variable, sometimes they are unused, sometimes they are both used. The key is that most of the time people stop for 20-30min, and with the 3x 80A HPWC just beside, you are still getting some range while waiting.

The main issue is the potential of horrible traffic in the vicinity. If you have the CHAdeMO adapter, you can do Cornwall--Magog--(Whites)--Hookset.

I had to supercharge 2 times Sunday in Montréal (was doing round trips) and both times they we're both taken. I had to wait 30 minutes each time to get a spot. I only have single charger so it was charging slowly at the HPWC at 40 amps. I can't believe Drummondville have 10 and Montréal have only 2. They really need to add more supercharger in Montréal. Either at the store or at some other place where there is less traffic maybe.

I've Supercharged at every location between central Wisconsin and eastern Québec except Montréal. I don't wish to rely on something unreliable. (On a long trip HPWCs are too slow unless there's a long stop required for other reasons. I'd rather pay for Chademo, at twice or more the speed of an HPWC.)

Unreliability is the name of the game with CHAdeMO, in my experience. I've had problems with 100% of the 5 differnet stations I've used in Vermont going between Boston and Montreal. And the worst past is most CHAdeMO locations have only one plug, so if it's busy or offline, that's it. I'd only rely on CHAdeMO during a road trip now if another Model S owner has confirmed a successful charge within the last month on PlugShare. And I'd still be nervous.

I would take waiting for a two stall SC over CHAdeMO every time. However, traffic in the area is a good point - it could be killer. The two times I've used the Montreal supercharger, I haven't had issues, but I was there early morning and then late evening.

The Circuit Electric CHAdeMO units in Quebec are reliable and have never had a compatibility issue with Tesla. They are the same AddEnergie model as the one in service in Markham, Ontario. For this reason and due to favorable exchange rates, anyone planning a CHAdeMO/CCS installation in the USA should request a bid from AddEnergie.

Of course, it is a completely different story in Vermont where the Fuji stations haven't been compatible with Tesla for months and the Nissan units tend to overheat or otherwise break.

We were in Vermont and Montreal back in July. We tried the CHAdeMO charger in Middlebury, VT and it worked great for us. However, there have been reports that the CHAdeMOs along I-89 have problems (I think someone reported all but one failing). That was a few months ago now, so perhaps they're better. As others have said, check Plugshare for recent successful charges.

We also tried the CHAdoMO at Ben & Jerry's factory--the parking lot attendant was excited to see a Tesla pull up to it--but it wouldn't work. I don't think it recognized that the car was plugged in, although my memory is fuzzy about that. Regardless, it didn't work for us. Fortunately, we didn't really need the charge as we had enough to reach out destination. And the ice cream *was* delicious.

Montreal was busy--there was some Tesla event going on but I forget what--but both SC spaces were open when we pulled in. However, another Tesla pulled in about five minutes after we did, so if you had arrived thereafter, it would have been full. And that is the problem with Montreal: It's so small that it ends up being unpredictable. BTW, we saw a Fiskar Karma on our way to the Montreal SC, just a few blocks away.

I just can't understand why they did only 2 booth. This is the biggest Tesla store in North America and it only have 2 supercharger. The parking lot is so small that they have to park cars in the parking lot in front of the store. Anyway even if it's the biggest store, 75% of the store is empty. One employee even to me that they have this superduper huge office upstair that is empty and ready to use if Elon one day come to the store -_-