Crowded Superchargers in CA....

[HankLloydRight]

There is a new wave of MS owners out now. They don't troll owner forums or really care about pairing, etc. They bought the car for other reasons (status). I also wouldn't call them 'ignorant', they just want it to work... find a spot, plug in and move on. Expecting them to learn about paired stalls and amps is a lot of silly minutiae. TM could easily pop-up a window giving some basic info, however I expect they don't really want to... for other reasons (marketing).

I've said this before, but clearly the entire "pairing" numbering thing was designed and implemented by engineers. Stalls 1A,1B,2A,2B,3A,3B,4A,4B, etc is meaningless and confusing, even to those who know about pairing. First of all, the As and Bs are meaningless.. they are essentially identical stalls -- what differs is which one is plugged into first. Second of all, the numbers are also meaningless, other than telling which stalls are paired up. I've run into a few folks who knew about the pairing issue, but had it backwards -- that the "A" stalls are all paired banks, and if someone is already in an "A" stall, choose a an empty "B" stall. Ugh.

Anyway, if the entire thing had been designed by someone who knows anything about USER INTERFACES, each set of paired stalls would just have color stickers, say "Blue". So if you see someone already at a BLUE stall, pick one of the open RED, YELLOW, or GREEN stalls.

Instead of saying "All the numbered stalls are paired, so if you see someone at 1A, don't go to 1B, but rather one of the other NUMBERED pairs that's not occupied"... all you need to do to convey the entire concept is: "Choose a color where nobody else is already charging, unless all colors are occupied'.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

 

[Saghost]

I've said this before, but clearly the entire "pairing" numbering thing was designed and implemented by engineers. Stalls 1A,1B,2A,2B,3A,3B,4A,4B, etc is meaningless and confusing, even to those who know about pairing. First of all, the As and Bs are meaningless.. they are essentially identical stalls -- what differs is which one is plugged into first. Second of all, the numbers are also meaningless, other than telling which stalls are paired up. I've run into a few folks who knew about the pairing issue, but had it backwards -- that the "A" stalls are all paired banks, and if someone is already in an "A" stall, choose a an empty "B" stall. Ugh.

Anyway, if the entire thing had been designed by someone who knows anything about USER INTERFACES, each set of paired stalls would just have color stickers, say "Blue". So if you see someone already at a BLUE stall, pick one of the open RED, YELLOW, or GREEN stalls.

Instead of saying "All the numbered stalls are paired, so if you see someone at 1A, don't go to 1B, but rather one of the other NUMBERED pairs that's not occupied"... all you need to do to convey the entire concept is: "Choose a color where nobody else is already charging, unless all colors are occupied'.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Agree that it could be simpler, but I think I'd take a different approach.

Put a prominent status light on each stall/cabinet (maybe sticking out of the top of the cabinet?) and give it a simple color coding.

Since the car uses Green for charging, keep that for one that's actively charging.

A stall that's degraded (either because the paired one is in use at high current or because of equipment failure) but available shows Amber.

A stall that's out of order entirely shows Red (or no light at all.)

A stall that's got full power and is ready shows Blue.

Still plugged in to a car but no longer charging could show Green, or Red, or no light at all, as Tesla chooses. (I'd lean towards no light or possibly Red.)

Pull in, look for a Blue light. If there aren't any, look for Amber. No thinking about what's in use and what's not, and the bonus of showing degraded and defective equipment as well as stall pairing.
Walter

 

[HankLloydRight]

Agree that it could be simpler, but I think I'd take a different approach.

Put a prominent status light on each stall/cabinet (maybe sticking out of the top of the cabinet?) and give it a simple color coding.

Since the car uses Green for charging, keep that for one that's actively charging.

A stall that's degraded (either because the paired one is in use at high current or because of equipment failure) but available shows Amber.

A stall that's out of order entirely shows Red (or no light at all.)

A stall that's got full power and is ready shows Blue.

Still plugged in to a car but no longer charging could show Green, or Red, or no light at all, as Tesla chooses. (I'd lean towards no light or possibly Red.)

Pull in, look for a Blue light. If there aren't any, look for Amber. No thinking about what's in use and what's not, and the bonus of showing degraded and defective equipment as well as stall pairing.
Walter

Yeah, we've hashed through this before (I think in the Network thread), and that's a great system for future Supercharger design or upgrades. But that's an expensive proposition to retrofit the existing SC network.

What I'm suggesting can be done for $4 in color stickers for all existing Superchargers then next time a service technician visits.

 

[linkster]

I've said this before, but clearly the entire "pairing" numbering thing was designed and implemented by engineers. Stalls 1A,1B,2A,2B,3A,3B,4A,4B, etc is meaningless and confusing,

So if you see someone already at a BLUE stall, pick one of the open RED, YELLOW, or GREEN stalls.

Instead of saying "All the numbered stalls are paired, so if you see someone at 1A, don't go to 1B, but rather one of the other NUMBERED pairs that's not occupied"... all you need to do to convey the entire concept is: "Choose a color where nobody else is already charging, unless all colors are occupied'.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

HLR

Great idea! Even I can understand this solution. Should colored Tesla "T" stickers be centered above or below "T E S L A" or on the side (L or R) of each stall cabinet (with their permission of course)?

Btw, Good luck in getting the stickers to adhere to the stalls at Santee and Lumberton since some bored nutcase seems to have cleaned and waxed them this past Sunday morning.

 

[Kipernicus]

Maybe this is a spot where there's room for improvement. Perhaps using Tesla utilization data, they could set it up so that if all of the stalls are in use, the "your car is done" message has a higher level of notification (beep/vibrate) and includes a "and someone is waiting for the stall" piece. (Not sure if there's an existing way to know that there are cars waiting for certain.)
Walter

This is a great idea. If someone just gets a message that their car is done charging, most of the time it the thought is "nice". But if the message was "your car is done charging and there are 2 others waiting in line" then people just might be a bit more inclined to interrupt/finish what they are doing and go move their car.
Follow-up messages should indicate how long their car has been sitting there not charging while others have been waiting.

I drove up the 101 on Sunday the 28th and when I pulled in to Atascadero there were 3 cars there. We had lunch at Denny's and when we were done eating there were 2 cars waiting. My car had not finished charging but we had enough to get to Gilroy and promptly left.

 

[scaesare]

You all aren't thinking grandly enough.

With auto-pilot/auto-park and the new metal snake charging cable connection, you drive to the front of the queue, give a voice command of "Robocharge!", get out of the car, and the S communicates with the mothership and determines status of the charging stalls, auto-drives to the one with the greatest current capacity, auto parks itself, and then plugs in.

When it's finished it then unplugs moves itself to a waiting area and signals you via the app, at which point you have the opportunity for it to come pick you up at the curb of whatever establishment you were patronizing (determined by the GPS coordinates in your phone and facial recognition, of course).

 

[Saghost]

You all aren't thinking grandly enough.

With auto-pilot/auto-park and the new metal snake charging cable connection, you drive to the front of the queue, give a voice command of "Robocharge!", get out of the car, and the S communicates with the mothership and determines status of the charging stalls, auto-drives to the one with the greatest current capacity, auto parks itself, and then plugs in.

When it's finished it then unplugs moves itself to a waiting area and signals you via the app, at which point you have the opportunity for it to come pick you up at the curb of whatever establishment you were patronizing (determined by the GPS coordinates in your phone and facial recognition, of course).

Interesting. And plausible in the mid term, for Autopilot cars at least. I doubt that'll happen in the next few years, but it might be the standard pattern a decade from now. Valet parking and charging - but with no valets.
Walter

 

[HankLloydRight]

Should colored Tesla "T" stickers be centered above or below "T E S L A" or on the side (L or R) of each stall cabinet (with their permission of course)?

Anywhere where people standing or pulling into the SC area can clearly see the occupied stalls and the "color". So something near/at the top. Or just a 1" band that runs around the top, like a headband. In some SC locations, the numbers stalls are NOT next to each other, but interlaced, which makes it even more confusing at those locations. A simple color system would just work so much better across all SC locations.

Clearly, intelligent stalls that can just tell you which one is the best stall to charge is optimal, but in the short term, to explain to incoming MS/MX/M3 owners who might not get it, the 1A/2B system is really confusing.

That system must have designed by an MIT engineer. Scratch that.. if it were done by an MIT grad, it would have been: 0A,0B,1A,1B,2A,2B,3A,3B.

 

[bxr140]

So out of curiosity, how much of a problem is pairing, really? The most I've experienced is 13 minutes of reduced charging. Annoying, yes, but it was also a full house so I didn't have any options anyway.

I think the only real negative out of it is the potential bad PR (regarding slow charging) from those not in the know, but its probably easy for enthusiasts to overstate that potential.

 

[HankLloydRight]

It's only a problem for people that don't know about it, and pull into a pair that's already charging at full throttle. Their charging is going to be very slow. If they pulled into an unoccupied pair, they'd also be charging at full throttle.


(pun intended)

 

[snellenr]

Agree that it could be simpler, but I think I'd take a different approach.

Put a prominent status light on each stall/cabinet (maybe sticking out of the top of the cabinet?) and give it a simple color coding.

Since the car uses Green for charging, keep that for one that's actively charging.

A stall that's degraded (either because the paired one is in use at high current or because of equipment failure) but available shows Amber.

A stall that's out of order entirely shows Red (or no light at all.)

A stall that's got full power and is ready shows Blue.

Still plugged in to a car but no longer charging could show Green, or Red, or no light at all, as Tesla chooses. (I'd lean towards no light or possibly Red.)

Pull in, look for a Blue light. If there aren't any, look for Amber. No thinking about what's in use and what's not, and the bonus of showing degraded and defective equipment as well as stall pairing.
Walter

Color blindness (red-green or blue-yellow) afflicts 8 percent of males and 0.5 percent of females.

Numbers, letters, and additional education will be sufficient. A short hands-on session at a supercharger pedestal in the Service Center (even if it has limited power) at delivery time would be really, really useful to new drivers, and "here's what these letters & numbers mean" should be part of the training.

 

[roblab]

Yeah, we've hashed through this before (I think in the Network thread), and that's a great system for future Supercharger design or upgrades. But that's an expensive proposition to retrofit the existing SC network.

What I'm suggesting can be done for $4 in color stickers for all existing Superchargers then next time a service technician visits.

The problem is that it's easy to come up with suggestions for what the service tech could do, but this is something ANYONE could do, just like the "bored nutcase" that washed and waxed the Superchargers at one location. Why not? We have nothing else to do. I plan to buy a sheet each of blue, green, red and yellow and cut them into strips so the next time I'm at Harris I will be the bored nutcase putting up stripes on pairs.

I also plan to put up a simple sheet explaining pairing, printed black on white plastic sheet. How hard is this? Hopefully someone else beats me to this and it spreads to other chargers. One stripe on the leading edge where people will see it. Might cost me ten bucks. Compare this to charging a Leaf at WalMart.

I'd better buy a couple other colors for sites where there are more pairs. Black, obviously, and a light purple maybe.

 

[bxr140]

It's only a problem for people that don't know about it...

Right, so why is it such a topic of conversation among those who do? Everyone on the webforums knows about it (or inevitably will after reading a few random topic posts...), so why the crusade? The problem only exists for those not 'in the know', and it only really becomes a problem for them if they actually understand and monitor charge rate AND they actually cares about charge time. Otherwise, ignorance is bliss.

Hell, the less people that know about SC pairing, the more likely the rest of us are to find an unoccupied pair!

 

[roblab]

The problem is that it's easy to come up with suggestions for what the service tech could do, but this is something ANYONE could do, just like the "bored nutcase" that washed and waxed the Superchargers at one location. Why not? We have nothing else to do. I plan to buy a sheet each of blue, green, red and yellow and cut them into strips so the next time I'm at Harris I will be the bored nutcase putting up stripes on pairs.

I also plan to put up a simple sheet explaining pairing, printed black on white plastic sheet. How hard is this? Hopefully someone else beats me to this and it spreads to other chargers. One stripe on the leading edge where people will see it. Might cost me ten bucks. Compare this to charging a Leaf at WalMart.

I'd better buy a couple other colors for sites where there are more pairs. Black, obviously, and a light purple maybe.

OK, here's my notice, which would fit a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet. Any complaints???? "Speak now or forever hold your peace". I suppose Tesla could rip them off if they're offensive.

Or, I could just leave religiously oriented literature, hey??

SUPERCHARGER
PAIRING
1. Chargers are paired.
2. First car at a pair gets a higher charge rate which ramps down as battery fills.
3. Second gets lower rate of charge which ramps up as the first car ramps down.
4. For faster charging, new arrivals should seek to be the first car in a pair .

TESLAMOTORSCLUB.COM

 

[liuping]

Color blindness (red-green or blue-yellow) afflicts 8 percent of males and 0.5 percent of females.

A two light system would work for color blind people as well, with out having to add more expensive alphanumeric displays.

I just learned last week (when visiting a color blind relative), that there are smart phone apps now that can tell you the color of objects. Just point your phone at the object, and it tells you the color and color family. There are also apps the high lights adjusts colors that are not distinguishable to people with any of the color blind types.

- - - Updated - - -

OK, here's my notice, which would fit a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet. Any complaints???? "Speak now or forever hold your peace". I suppose Tesla could rip them off if they're offensive.

Or, I could just leave religiously oriented literature, hey??

SUPERCHARGER
PAIRING
1. Chargers are paired.
2. First car at a pair gets a higher charge rate which ramps down as battery fills.
3. Second gets lower rate of charge which ramps up as the first car ramps down.
4. For faster charging, new arrivals should seek to be the first car in a pair .

TESLAMOTORSCLUB.COM

This is a good start, but it only helps when there is an open unpaired spot available.

It would be helpful to know which cars are ramping down, so if we do need to pick a paired charger, we pick the best one.

Only Telsa can do it properly.

I think the best solution is an in car screen that pops up when you arrive at a supercharger site, with a layout of the chargers, and a indicator of the best one(s) to pull into. No retrofitting the Hardware at the SuperChargers, just a software update for the cars.

 

[Lloyd]

Color blindness (red-green or blue-yellow) afflicts 8 percent of males and 0.5 percent of females.

Numbers, letters, and additional education will be sufficient. A short hands-on session at a supercharger pedestal in the Service Center (even if it has limited power) at delivery time would be really, really useful to new drivers, and "here's what these letters & numbers mean" should be part of the training.

And a side effect of taking Viagra!! :scared:

 

[bxr140]

Any complaints????

Yes. If you're going to go through the trouble of grassroots education, explain more than just pairing. Explain the taper, explain the un-coolness of topping off while others wait, etc. Otherwise, your note doesn't actually solve any problems.

Other random thoughts, specifically on the 'splaining of pairing:
--We take for granted that pairing means electrical equipment is shared. It may be helpful to make that connection for someone not in the know.
--#2 bullet is irrelevant and confusing as it can imply car #2 has some affect on car #1.
--You'll need 1000 words of the paired chargers for each location you tag

 

[markb1]

All these ideas are over-complicated. The best user interface would be to not expose us to the concept of pairing at all. If they really wanted to make sure the charge rate is prioritized by order of arrival, then the solution is to design the system such that charging pedestals can be automatically switched between superchargers. An even simpler solution (and the best one, IMO) is to just let everyone be ignorant of pairing.

I'm actually happy with the way it is right now. I understand the numbering scheme, and I don't think I'm much affected by people who don't. It seems there is only the potential for small penalty if you are the first to plug in. The system mostly penalizes those who don't understand the numbering scheme, but even that penalty is mild.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Color blindness (red-green or blue-yellow) afflicts 8 percent of males and 0.5 percent of females.

The incidence of color blindness is minuscule compared to the incidence of stupidity/ignorance that is going to happen when more of the "masses" get access to Tesla vehicles.

If a color system helps solve the pairing problem, that incidentally 8% of the population can not use, that's 92% of the population that is helped by it. And for the 8% who are color blind? Well, that's not any better than the confusing system we have now (we can leave the letters/numbers on the stalls... they don't need to be removed.)

Numbers, letters, and additional education will be sufficient. A short hands-on session at a supercharger pedestal in the Service Center (even if it has limited power) at delivery time would be really, really useful to new drivers, and "here's what these letters & numbers mean" should be part of the training.

I disagree. There's a reason that simple, intuitive, user interfaces exist. They don't require "education." Meaningless numbers and letters are not intuitive at all, and cause confusion. The person I ran into at the SC location *was* "educated" on how pairing works at the service center upon delivery, and he *still* got it backwards and thought all the "A chargers were on one shared bank, and all the "B" chargers on a second shared bank.

It would be very hard to confuse a simple color system that simply says "don't charge with a pair color already charging" or "pick an empty color pair if available'. No numbers, letters, banks, confusion, tapering, etc. Just pick a color. No "education" needed.

 

[liuping]

If a color system helps solve the pairing problem, that incidentally 8% of the population can not use, that's 92% of the population that is helped by it. And for the 8% who are color blind? Well, that's not any better than the confusing system we have now (we can leave the letters/numbers on the stalls... they don't need to be removed.)

If 8% of the male population was prior to Viagra, the number is going to climb.

Why implement a system you know will fail for 8.5% or more of your customers, when there are alternatives that will work for everyone?

Why not just have a single light on each pedestal, and turn it on when it's a "good" charger to use. If there are 8 stalls, initially only 4 lights would be on (one from each pair). When one charger from each pair is filled, light the paired stall with the most power available, etc.. The rule for the drivers is simple: pick any stall with the light on, and everyone is guaranteed to get the fastest possible charge.