How bad do you think Superchargers in NH & VT will be on the day of the eclipse (4/8/24)?

[Mrdrbot23]

I'm planning to drive up to the southern edge of where the total eclipse can be seen. It will be just the two of us and we're not looking to make a day of it to do other stuff, just an out and back trip. How crowded do you guys think the Superchargers will be on that day? We may aim for around Lancaster, NH or Barre, VT. It's far enough where I can't charge to 100% and make it there and back, I will need to do at least 1 charging stop. At the moment, I'm planning to head straight to a supercharger up there to charge up, then watch the eclipse, and get on the road back home.

I've just ordered a Lectron CCS charger to have on hand to open up my charging options just in case. I've had my MYLR for less than a year and have no experience for a day like this when there could be a lot of people on the road around a very small window of time. Any thoughts or past similar experiences?

 

[Farmer]

I'm driving to my house outside Houlton, ME several days before. Usually, the southern ME Superchargers are at best 50% busy while Augusta, Waterville, and Bangor never have more than one other car or two. This will be interesting.

Not you in NH, but if anyone else is passing through the Boston area, the chargers along I-95, Newton, Lexington,, etc. can be almost 100 % on any ordinary afternoon/early evening, so I would stay west of that.

 

[Tdreamer]

Tesla Owners Club of New England is having a meetup at the Rockland, Maine supercharger on Sunday 4/7, and for those interested in "one more thing", an overnight in Waterville and a drive up to Jackman to see the eclipse. At least that's the plan. We really have no idea what to expect for the eclipse drive itself. We're confident we won't be the only cars on the road.... It will be an adventure.

The Rockland, Maine v4 supercharger is not yet open, but the hope is it will be prior to April 7th for the meetup.

For those interested who may not have received a direct invitation, a link to the e-vite can be found below or by clicking on the image.

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[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'm planning on driving up to the Jackman area in my Kona. I took the day off some time in 2022.

Hoping it won't be too cold so we can make the round trip easily. But even if we bale, as long as we get a reasonable distance we'll get totality.

BTW, we've found in the past that at the Jackman chargers we don't have Verizon coverage, but you don't have to drive much south to

Jackman is 3:26 of totality to max the time. But could bail at the Forks and get 3 minutes, head to Greenville and get 3 minutes as well.

 

[JSNH1919]

You should be OK. I was in the worst tesla regional jam for the Starship launch #1 last April in south Padre Texas. The navigation skipped me over the first charger that was jammed up and sent me to the second one. Would have been fine but they picked a bad day to do maintenance. The charger was full up with 12 cars waiting. it took about 20 minutes to get to the charger. Everyone lined up fine and were patient. 10 minutes on the charger and I was out of there.
I93 in NH has quite a few chargers if you pick that route you should be fine. There is nothing north of Franconia notch for charging. I would top off in Lincoln on your way up.

 

[bjrosen]

It looks like St Johnsbury is in the path of the eclipse, there is a Supercharger there.

What are you using for eclipse glasses. I just bought a set off of Amazon, they claim to be ISO 12312-2:2015(E) but they are worryingly cheap.
Also will phone camera's work or id there a filter for those also.

 

[Mrdrbot23]

I'm planning on driving up to the Jackman area in my Kona. I took the day off some time in 2022.

Hoping it won't be too cold so we can make the round trip easily. But even if we bale, as long as we get a reasonable distance we'll get totality.

BTW, we've found in the past that at the Jackman chargers we don't have Verizon coverage, but you don't have to drive much south to

Jackman is 3:26 of totality to max the time. But could bail at the Forks and get 3 minutes, head to Greenville and get 3 minutes as well.

Sounds like a good plan! Fingers crossed that we get a nice cloudless day!

 

[Mrdrbot23]

You should be OK. I was in the worst tesla regional jam for the Starship launch #1 last April in south Padre Texas. The navigation skipped me over the first charger that was jammed up and sent me to the second one. Would have been fine but they picked a bad day to do maintenance. The charger was full up with 12 cars waiting. it took about 20 minutes to get to the charger. Everyone lined up fine and were patient. 10 minutes on the charger and I was out of there.
I93 in NH has quite a few chargers if you pick that route you should be fine. There is nothing north of Franconia notch for charging. I would top off in Lincoln on your way up.

I will definitely rely heavily on the trip planner to tell me about Supercharger status that day, good to hear that this is reliable with lots of traffic around. I'm leaning towards Berlin, VT because it lies in the path of the totality and relying on the Lincoln charger (I've been there, it's small and 150kW slow) worries me.

It looks like St Johnsbury is in the path of the eclipse, there is a Supercharger there.

What are you using for eclipse glasses. I just bought a set off of Amazon, they claim to be ISO 12312-2:2015(E) but they are worryingly cheap.
Also will phone camera's work or id there a filter for those also.

I didn't think about St. Johnsbury! I'll keep it in mind but I'm hoping to not have to go so far north and just barely get into the southern edge of the path of totality.

I was too late getting glasses for the last partial eclipse so I ordered some back in 2022 to avoid any last-minute price gouging for the one this year. I got to this list of manufacturer's from NASA's site (I was also leery of what's sold on Amazon): Suppliers of Safe Solar Viewers & Filters. I picked Rainbow Symphony on that list and bought a 3-pack from them. Looks like they still have some glasses in stock.

 

[Tdreamer]

I will definitely rely heavily on the trip planner to tell me about Supercharger status that day, good to hear that this is reliable with lots of traffic around. I'm leaning towards Berlin, VT because it lies in the path of the totality and relying on the Lincoln charger (I've been there, it's small and 150kW slow) worries me.



I didn't think about St. Johnsbury! I'll keep it in mind but I'm hoping to not have to go so far north and just barely get into the southern edge of the path of totality.

I was too late getting glasses for the last partial eclipse so I ordered some back in 2022 to avoid any last-minute price gouging for the one this year. I got to this list of manufacturer's from NASA's site (I was also leery of what's sold on Amazon): Suppliers of Safe Solar Viewers & Filters. I picked Rainbow Symphony on that list and bought a 3-pack from them. Looks like they still have some glasses in stock.

Consider Thornton vs. Lincoln. 8 v3 stalls vs 6 (or less) v2 stalls at Lincoln.

 

[tga]

What are you using for eclipse glasses.

If I can stare at an arc through these for an hour, should be safe for an eclipse.

 

[JSNH1919]

Welding glass is available in hardware stores welding shops and home improvement stores. You can get it in glasses, replacement lenses, and hoods. As above harbor freight too. The adjustable one I have not really tried but it might have an advantage by being adjustable. Easy to test it before hand just look up at the sun.

 

[fholbert]

I'm planning to drive up to the southern edge of where the total eclipse can be seen. It will be just the two of us and we're not looking to make a day of it to do other stuff, just an out and back trip. How crowded do you guys think the Superchargers will be on that day? We may aim for around Lancaster, NH or Barre, VT. It's far enough where I can't charge to 100% and make it there and back, I will need to do at least 1 charging stop. At the moment, I'm planning to head straight to a supercharger up there to charge up, then watch the eclipse, and get on the road back home.

I've just ordered a Lectron CCS charger to have on hand to open up my charging options just in case. I've had my MYLR for less than a year and have no experience for a day like this when there could be a lot of people on the road around a very small window of time. Any thoughts or past similar experiences?

Many of the Superchargers in the SW US are solar powered… just saying.

 

[Gwgan]

Sunday Charge & Chat - Rockland, ME + optional Eclipse viewing Monday​

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[SpiritAdriftM]

I'm going up - possibly VT since we would have to go as far. NH is preparing for very busy travel.

 

[tga]

B&H still has glasses from American Paper Optics in stock - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/solar-eclipse-glasses-accessories/ci/32948
APO is on the AAS aproved list that @Mrdrbot23 mentioned above in post #8.

 

[bjrosen]

It was unimaginably bad. I charged to 100% before leaving which turned out to have been a wise decision because it allowed us to get to our destination in Montpelier without charging in West Lebanon or Berlin. On the way home we waited 3.5 hours at the Berlin Supercharger which could have been worse because by the time we left the line was twice as long and snaked out in the street all the way to the intersection.

The silver lining in the dark cloud was the great terrific efficiency we achieved on the way home because the traffic was moving at 12 MPH with bursts up to 30MPH until we got to NH. For a while I was getting 169Wh per mile, finished the trip at 202Wh per mile, was able to get home with 37% to spare starting with 80%.

This was a once in 90 years event but even so it's time they upgraded Berlin to V3 or V4.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It was unimaginably bad. I charged to 100% before leaving which turned out to have been a wise decision because it allowed us to get to our destination in Montpelier without charging in West Lebanon or Berlin. On the way home we waited 3.5 hours at the Berlin Supercharger which could have been worse because by the time we left the line was twice as long and snaked out in the street all the way to the intersection.

The silver lining in the dark cloud was the great terrific efficiency we achieved on the way home because the traffic was moving at 12 MPH with bursts up to 30MPH until we got to NH. For a while I was getting 169Wh per mile, finished the trip at 202Wh per mile, was able to get home with 37% to spare starting with 80%.

This was a once in 90 years event but even so it's time they upgraded Berlin to V3 or V4.

I'm sure that V3 could make some difference as at V2 there will be some people who would charge to high percentage and "waste" some power. As we drove back home in Central Maine, we passed 2 Superchargers, but I didn't glance. I was too focused on driving and getting to food.

BTW, there are charities collecting the eclipse glasses to send to Latin America for an eclipse there.
I'm keeping mine just in case I were to travel to another one. I think it'd be cool to wear 2024 glasses in 2044. Not that I think I'll travel to MT, ND or SD to watch it.

 

[SpiritAdriftM]

Looking back, remember that easy to access stations are going to be swamped on says like this past Monday. I aimed for the Shell Recharge in Bellow's Falls because I didn't want to wait for 3 hours to charge. Only one person there prior 3 arrived after me. Also, Keene has a new Chargepoint station downtown. We live in an adapter hell but if it means getting access elsewhere with no wait.....

 

[bjrosen]

I tried the EV Connection charger at the Chevy dealer in Montpelier, it didn't work, communication error. I would have saved myself several if CCS wasn't such a mess.