Supercharger - Decatur, GA - East Ponce de Leon Ave

[ChrisC]

I stopped by today. I did not see a meter but there's a small metal cabinet that it could be enclosed in. And the stripes are still wrong.

What's really interesting though is that there was a crew here, on the top level of the deck, working on the pedestals. They had them all apart. I noticed that many of them had the plugs on the wrong side, like the pedestals have been installed backwards. As surely everyone here knows, the Tesla standard is to have the plug hanging on the left side of the pedestal and the other end of the cord fixed to the pedestal on the right side. Many of them today were in the reverse / wrong orientation, and I vaguely remember seeing that problem before at one or two of them, but today just glancing at them it seemed like ALL of them were backwards. I only drove through, not stopping so as not to spook the work crew.

Yeah I know, it's really confusing that they would have been mostly correct before but they're backwards now. Of course they were in the middle of the work, so we'll see what it looks like when they put them back together. I have a theory that I'll keep to myself for now...

 

[Dirtman16]

I stopped by today. I did not see a meter but there's a small metal cabinet that it could be enclosed in. And the stripes are still wrong.

What's really interesting though is that there was a crew here, on the top level of the deck, working on the pedestals. They had them all apart. I noticed that many of them had the plugs on the wrong side, like the pedestals have been installed backwards. As surely everyone here knows, the Tesla standard is to have the plug hanging on the left side of the pedestal and the other end of the cord fixed to the pedestal on the right side. Many of them today were in the reverse / wrong orientation, and I vaguely remember seeing that problem before at one or two of them, but today just glancing at them it seemed like ALL of them were backwards. I only drove through, not stopping so as not to spook the work crew.

Yeah I know, it's really confusing that they would have been mostly correct before but they're backwards now. Of course they were in the middle of the work, so we'll see what it looks like when they put them back together. I have a theory that I'll keep to myself for now...

I'll say it for you. Magic Docks!!!

 

[ChrisC]

Nah, that wasn't the theory, and I don't think Tesla will stray too far from their factories with that rollout just yet. But it's certainly possible that they were doing that retrofit, and either way I'll be back by there in a couple days to check.

 

[ChrisC]

All right folks here we go. I stopped by this afternoon and a Tesla technician was on site at the cabinets, pushing firmware, and was kind enough to answer my questions.
- Utility power is on.
- He says the cords ARE long enough to reach the cars, which I find really hard to believe but he said he actually did it. OK then.
- He was pushing firmware to the cabinets. As you all know, a Tesla tech visit like this is typically the very last step before a site goes online. So it could be even be online later today. Obviously keep an eye on your navigation screens.
- No magic docks, sorry He agreed that it'll probably be a while before we see any of them down here in Georgia. I personally think they're going to stay close to the Tesla factories for now and radiate out from there only after they have confidence from initial field ops.
- Don't know how the pay parking is going to work.
- I don't think I'd mentioned it here before, but one of the white cabinets is a step down transformer, which I've never seen at a supercharging site before. He explained that it's for the three Level 2 (J1772) stations that are part of this installation. A big cabinet-sized 75 kVA transformer is obviously overkill for that but you do what you gotta do

 

[JulienW]

....
- He says the cords ARE long enough to reach the cars, which I find really hard to believe but he said he actually did it. OK then.....

I'm calling BS on that. He may have checked the ones with the Red arrow but the angled ones???? The cables are about 6' and you must have enough slack to put in the plug. If that works it is a HUGE optical illusion because I can't believe it works without actually seeing it. I NEED to see it in action. May drive over and check this weekend.

 

[ChrisC]

I'm totally willing to bet a beer that I'm still right and they will end up restriping. And as some here know, I do pay up

 

[Big Earl]

I'm calling BS on that. He may have checked the ones with the Red arrow but the angled ones???? The cables are about 6' and you must have enough slack to put in the plug. If that works it is a HUGE optical illusion because I can't believe it works without actually seeing it. I NEED to see it in action. May drive over and check this weekend.

View attachment 920220View attachment 920221

Stay calm. Back up until your wheels hit the wheel stop, and you'll be fine.

 

[Dirtman16]

When I stopped by last week, I believe there was no charge for the first 30 minutes of parking, which should cover must SC stops.

 

[zayrhodes]

They finally turned it on..

 

[ChrisC]

Also confirmed in a Plugshare checkin last night.

Note that the plugs hang in the pedestal on a hook on the RIGHT instead of the usual left. I think that's how they got barely enough to reach. It's not even tight. As long as you do back all the way up to the curb stop!

I'll test the Level 2 stations.

 

[Dirtman16]

View attachment 920573
They finally turned it on..

Great! @Pluto, can we update supercharge.info?

 

[ChrisC]

The supercharger pedestals are powered up, but the Level 2 / J1772 stations are not yet.

Parking is indeed free for 30 minutes. I've been taking advantage of that weekly since October 13th

 

[ChrisC]

Level 2 stations still inoperable.

Supercharger stations are working though. Is this site appearing in the in-car nav system yet?

 

[JulienW]

Level 2 stations still inoperable.

Supercharger stations are working though. Is this site appearing in the in-car nav system yet?

Not in my car now but here it is in the App.

 

[ChrisC]

The Level 2 / J1772 stations are still inoperable.

I assume this site still isn't appearing in in-car nav. I do see a steady stream of users here, who I think are rideshare drivers, perhaps via the Uber/Hertz program.

 

[ChrisC]

The Level 2 / J1772 stations are still inoperable.

Is this site still not appearing in in-car nav?

 

[JulienW]

...Is this site still not appearing in in-car nav?

 

[ChrisC]

The Level 2 / J1772 stations are still inoperable, but they've now at least been unwrapped.

I expect that these are here per agreement with the City of Decatur as a nod to equity. If still inoperable after another couple weeks, I'll start asking around about it. I imagine there's a problem with the step-down transformer, but they do need to get these working, now that the supercharger stations are at full bore.

And on that note, the site was quite busy today, with about 8 or 16 stations in use.

 

[ChrisC]

The Level 2 / J1772 charging stations continue to be powered off. I did reach out to the City, and after some persistence (no replies, multiple addressees) I did get a response, sort of. This parking deck is NOT city property as I thought. Since it's privately owned they can't give me any information about the project other than what I can find though open records requests, and they pointed me to that process. They wouldn't put me in touch with the property owner or the contractor either.

My next step would be to figure out who owns the property and contact them, but I'm just going to stop for a little while here and see if these lazily resolve themselves over the next few months.

 

[JulienW]

The Level 2 / J1772 charging stations continue to be powered off.....

Maybe in anticipation of the imminent death of the 1772/CCS standard.