Supercharger - Augusta ME

http://www.augustamaine.gov/vertical/sites/%7B6E7443C5-2137-4D7A-8C5F-7E7A74A5CDFE%7D/uploads/October_2015_Building_Permit_Report.pdf

October 2015 Permit Report for Augusta.

15987
Commercial Additions & Alterations
13 Stephen King Drive.
Tesla Motors
$140,000

Google Maps puts Stephen King Drive in the Sam's Club area of The Marketplace retail mall area of Augusta near Exit 112. But Google Maps generally sucks for accurate numbering here.

I'll email Code Enforcement to see if I can get some details.
I'll try to get there tomorrow at lunchtime and take some pictures.

I'll keep looking to see if I can nail down the address better.

Theoretically it could be a Tesla Store, but I don't think it makes sense in the market.
EDIT: unless they're going to have a store/service center/Supercharger there to help serve a wide area of Maine and catch some tourists. Should be a cheaper location than in Southern Maine.

It's happening, TMC! Something's actually happening, TMC!

EDIT:
So:
- I can't find any reference to 13 Stephen King Drive other than Tesla Motors' permit.
- The area with retail like Ulta and Dress Barn is also Stephen King Drive, so the site might not be up by Sam's Club.
- Longhorn Steakhouse is 12 Stephen King Drive, Dress Barn is 14 Stephen King Drive. Ulta is 10 Stephen King Drive. But those are all even.
- But Google Maps has a place nearer to Sams Club with 19.
- Chipotle is in the building with address #1.
Hopefully I can get information from Code Enforcement that would give me a more exact location. And maybe scouting the site will tell me more.

AudubonB said:

Via my awesome powers of putting data into Goggle Maps...

I get 121 miles to this address from the Seabrook SpC. That's fantastic.

Sure, I'd prefer the SpCs to be strung along the coast - Rte 1, of course. But Tesla has demonstrated a fairly consistent tendency to keep SpCs along Interstates; this location shares that. Not MY preferred mode of travel; this is a very significant difference between TM's view of the world and mine.

Putting the putative Augusta site into map-perspective, from there to a variety of desirable destinations it is a feasible....

* 118 miles to Bar Harbor (Mt. Desert, of course)
* 144 miles to Millinocket (Baxter State Park)
* 75 miles to Rangeley (Rangeley Lakes)
* 168 miles to Calais (hey! Almost in Canada!)
* 191 miles to Houlton. This is the location of the SpC dot on TM's 2015 or 2016 map at, of course, the eastern terminus of I-95 on the ME-NB border.
* 168 miles to Lubec (Machias, etc.)

Pretty good radius of locations, provided, naturally, there are Destination Chargers near most of the sites I suggested.

Good luck to all of you in that corner of the country!

Click to expand...

It also helps with the Sugarloaf (Carrabasset Valley) ski area.

From Augusta you can take 17 to get to Camden, or 3 to get Belfast and points further Northeast. So people won't have to drive Interstate all the way Downeast.

Tesla plans to add a Bangor Supercharger, which will help reduce anxiety with some of the trips north and Downeast. Once Bangor is in place, then people heading to Mt Desert Island without destination charging should be able to use Bangor as the fast or emergency route.

I've now emailed Code Enforcement and hopefully I can get some more information tomorrow.

Gwgan said:

Great news
http://www.augustamaine.gov/vertical/Sites/%7B6E7443C5-2137-4D7A-8C5F-7E7A74A5CDFE%7D/uploads/Tax_Map_5B.pdf
What the tax map calls Stephen King Dr. Google calls Xavier Loop. My guess is it will be a supercharger in the northern half of the Marketplace parking lot, 5B-9A.

Click to expand...

Clear now that it'll "only" be a Supercharger.

That's great, thanks. The "Tesla" lot is where Home Depot is. But next to it (5B-8) is a bunch of retail, mostly clothing.
There's a Longhorn Steakhouse in that area (upper left corner of 5B-8), but there's also Chipotle in that area, and Panera should be walkable (as long as you can handle the hill, since the road you need to cross isn't busy. (The stretch of road where there's a Subway is busy and tougher to cross on foot.)

I have to say that's a good location. Not 24 hour, but good overall.
You could get unlucky with lights to be held up a bit coming off the Interstate (more southbound than northbound).

One small negative is that leaving the area to get out means going down quite a short, steep slope and then visibility is poor taking a left onto Stephen King Drive. Just be a little cautious there.

EDIT: oh, across the road at the northern end of the area with Home Depot is a Red Robin.

Actual location will be "far corner of the Home Depot lot". WRONG!
EDIT: WRONG! Actual location will be "in upper lot, close to Red Robin".
So, closest food are actually Red Robin and Ruby Tuesday.
Bit of a walk to get to Longhorn, Chipotle and Panera.
Could cross a road and walk over to some other stores, or just across the Home Depot lot to get the retail in that area.

(Edited) 8 (eight) Supercharger stalls, 4 cabinets.

Just emailed to ask for confirmation about public posting of the plan, which I presume will be OK, but you know, it's just polite.
If/once I get the OK, I'll upload it and you can all pore over it.
I'm planning to eat lunch fast and head over and take some pictures for you/vous/y'all/yinzers (who knows where visitors will be from!) to get some idea of distances and location.

EdA said:

Thanks for all your efforts!

Click to expand...

You're welcome.

But I was wrong on the location and it's worse than I thought.

The red arrow points to the spots.
The red line and box are areas where they seem to be doing some paving of a sidewalk. So while pedestrian access is currently poor to try to get across the road to the other places it might become a bit easier if they're planning to put a crosswalk in to Red Robin.

I have some brisk walk timings from near the red box to the other eateries in the bottom of the second picture, and some other pictures that I'll post later.
But I'll have to go again some time to give timing from the actual parking spots as well as any progress when construction actually starts.

There's a bunch of construction in the area due to adding natural gas, but that'd be done by the time Tesla owners would be there.

And I forgot to add: the stalls are 2 x 4 back-ins.
EDIT Wrong again. Doh! 2 x 3 back-in with posts* at rear. 1 back-in with posts rear left. 1 pull-in with post rear left. 9' wide, 16' 6" parking spaces.**

* Failing to come up with correct word.
** Person at Code Enforcement said that I should ask the company whether I could post the document on the Internet. It's Tesla/Black and Veatch, so I'll not bother.

RiverBrick said:

I have to lobby for my province, after all the electricity is 99% from renewable sources here. This will finally make the Quebec City--Maine route along A-73, QC-173 and US-201 possible.

It will be approximately 215 miles to an eventual Supercharger in Lévis. A bit long, but CHAdeMO is coming all over Quebec.

From Augusta,

213 miles to an existing CHAdeMO in Lévis.
185 miles to CHAdeMO in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce (opening next month.)
151 miles to CHAdeMO in Saint-Georges-de-Beaue (opening in the next three months.)

Click to expand...

Nice. Would be good to get Lévis up and then get something in between. Jackman, ME would split the difference nicely.

And if you don't mind the even more scenic route, Augusta is 128 miles from Lac Megantic, where there is an 80A destination charging station in service with CHAdeMO coming next year. From there, it's a quite easy 105 miles to Levis

Click to expand...

Shouldn't mind that scenic route at all. We've driven up that way a couple of times, the first time taking the long way round to Niagara Falls* and the second time just a day trip.

* It was at a restaurant in La Patrie that poutine suddenly made complete sense.

JRod0802 said:

So is this supercharger meant to replace the proposed supercharger in the Portland area?

Click to expand...

No, it's in addition. The plan is to have Portland, Augusta and Bangor. Portland was agreed, but fell through just as the technical issues were being resolved, possibly due to overall cost. Originally Tesla just had Portland and Bangor, but added Augusta to their map. Augusta seems the best compromise for coverage and dealing with winter.

For the Portland area I'd assume they're working on a new site. The most natural site would be somewhere at the The Maine Mall in South Portland.

I had the location wrong, but here's some "reasonably brisk walk" timings from the red box in the 2nd image to various eateries.

Longhorn: 2:35
Chipotle: 3:35
Panera: 5:15
Orange Leaf: 3:59
Elevation Burger: 4:04

All pretty much irrelevant if the access from the actual lot to the other lot is difficult. Or irrelevant in winter when you'd just want to get into Red Robin as soon as possible.

Well. My apologies (again).

Not only did I get the location wrong yesterday, but I didn't notice what was happening across the road. In my defense there were a number of vehicles obscuring a clear view which would have made things more obvious.

I went this evening just to do some more scouting and get some more pictures but for some reason my phone didn't save any of the pictures!
Not that they'd have been great since my phone's a Moto E, but I'm sure you'd have liked to see pictures of the construction that is well underway!

Pedestals in place, with all 8 uncovered whatever-you-call-thems in place.
Supercharger cabinets and distribution center in place.
Empty transformer pad.
The plans indicate that there needs to be conduit run from a transformer next to the Red Robin to the Supercharger. I did see a trench, but I didn't think to look all the way, and it was dark and 34F and falling, so, you know, show a little kindness.

I'll try again tomorrow lunchtime when I'll have more light, and maybe there'll be construction crew around to whom I can speak.

It also appears quite clear that there will be sidewalk that will get you to the Home Depot parking lot. I think it adds about 1:35 to my previous timings for a briskish walk to Longhorns and other eateries. In better conditions if you or someone else were wanting to get to the retail beyond Home Depot, you should be able to step/clamber over metal barrier and walk down a short, somewhat steep slope instead of walking along the sidewalk. That method would also put you closer to buildings with less hassle with cars. I think a photo will help to explain.

Again, apologies for my camera failure and my posts being all over the place.