Supercharger - Newark, DE

[HankLloydRight]

TITLE 2 - CHAPTER 13. DELAWARE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

Really? To prove your point you post a 48 page document that establishes the DETA? Was there a particular section that was of interest you wanted to point out? Because posting a generic document doesn't really help your case any to show that DE has a transportation authority in charge of the roads.

Also, we've learned that the DE/95 rest area is operated by a commercial third-party management company(HMSHost, a Marriott company), not the DETA directly.

I'd bet that the powers that be aren't too friendly to a temporary generator in their rest area.

And all of this is moot, because if Tesla has agreements in place to build and operate a 12 stall supercharger (which they obviously do), I would think those contracts would have easements or covenants that allow temporary generators to be brought in in case of emergency, and that decision wouldn't be based on the flippant whim of some DETA bureaucrat ("the powers that be") who just doesn't want them there.

 

[vdiv]

What are the lessons learned from this event?

Are there any issues that Tesla needs to resolve, near and long term with communication, and the navigation system?

What should Tesla drivers keep in mind when traveling?

What should TMC posters keep in mind when venting?

 

[AlMc]

I was just at the Newark SC. It IS OPEN. I did have to use my touch screen to open the charge port.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Are there any issues that Tesla needs to resolve, near and long term with communication, and the navigation system?

Yes! The navigation system is already capable of displaying when a Supercharger Site goes down in near real time but what needs to be fixed is the Trip Planner (Beta) such that when a site goes down it does not try to route you through that site.

Tesla had to physically remove the site from the database in order to get the Trip Planner to quit routing and they only did that after the site had been down a couple of days.

Mike

 

[3PHASE]

I had a TV reporter I know in DC ask me if someone with a Tesla could drive up to DE on Mon. or Tues. It may be a non-issue now that the station is up, but would/could anyone meet the reporter there? They could get to the bottom of the problem to help resolve the same issue in the future. I've done other interviews with her and she has helped us promote EVs in our area. It might also be a good time to shine a spotlight on other Fast Chargers in the area as a backup, so the public knows about them.

"Mark - Do you know a Tesla driver I could ride up there with on Monday or Tuesday? Kimberly Suiters"

I have her phone and email if you send me an email at [email protected].

 

[DFibRL8R]

Supercharging is a good thing, especially in a 60 with a full load

 

[CHRGIT]

Looks like a "X" with a bike rack.

It's funny how my smiley face comment is now being reported as the cause of the Newark outage.

 

[Syd]

Age sxhowing, but the JFK Memorial Highway, aka Delaware Turnpike, aka Route 95 was a 'traditional' toll road when built, with on/off ramp cash only buckets and the main toll at the MD border. Over the years, it was decided to phase out the cash buckets at the on/off ramps and only charge those travelling through the state to MD the toll, avoiding all tolls for the locals. And yes, toll avoidance on this route is trivial, and done by a lot of people, adding often less than 10 minutes and a few miles to the trip. (Note: toll avoidance is legal, toll evasion is not.)

 

[jdo]

What are the lessons learned from this event?

Are there any issues that Tesla needs to resolve, near and long term with communication, and the navigation system?

What should Tesla drivers keep in mind when traveling?

What should TMC posters keep in mind when venting?

Communication was nonexistent, for all intents and purposes. No statement from Tesla, and depending on how you used the Nav, you could be plotted a course that depended on recharging at Newark.

We know they can do this better when they want to. Compare this to how Tesla handled the seat-belt recall, or the claims about the alleged suspension problems/nondisclosure.

Recommendations:

(1) Tesla should update SC issues through Twitter, SMS, and email (as an opt-in list if necessary).
(2) The Navigation system needs to deal with SC outages in a more robust way.

 

[Half Dollar Bill]

With hind-sight, better communication would be expected if Tesla knew it was going to be a 4 day outage.
My suspicion, though, is that Tesla was as much in the dark as the rest of us. How do you tell someone when you expect to resolve the issue if you have no idea when the issue will be resolved?
Bad communication is just as unhelpful as no communication.
I think the owners did a great job getting the word out and troubleshooting the nav issues.
We can speculate until the cows come home, but without actionable information then there's really no point.

 

[TexasEV]

The last time something like this happened, when Corsicana was unavailable for days because of a nearby construction accident, Tesla said they planned to update trip planner to include such a notification. That was more than a year ago and it hasn't been updated yet. I think they're more focused on the shiny object of autopilot than making needed improvements to the more mundane but necessary existing software.

 

[TexasEV]

With hind-sight, better communication would be expected if Tesla knew it was going to be a 4 day outage.
My suspicion, though, is that Tesla was as much in the dark as the rest of us. How do you tell someone when you expect to resolve the issue if you have no idea when the issue will be resolved?
Bad communication is just as unhelpful as no communication.
I think the owners did a great job getting the word out and troubleshooting the nav issues.
We can speculate until the cows come home, but without actionable information then there's really no point.

That's not the issue. The issue is when an entire supercharger site is down, the navigation system should say so and stop routing people to it. It doesn't need to say when it will be available if that's not yet known, but it does need to tell people not to go there to charge.

 

[GlmnAlyAirCar]

you guys are fixated on the actual tolling, using the term toll road isnt about paying the toll, it is a road operated by a highway authority which also controls the operation of the rest area where that SpC is located.
almost all of the SpCs are on private property where tesla has more flexibility than the few, mostly in the NE and in FLA, where they are placed in rest areas of toll roads where they are more limited in what can be altered.

TITLE 2 - CHAPTER 13. DELAWARE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

I seem to recall you started this discourse with the unqualified statement that the other poster was very, very wrong.

 

[st50maint]

Is it known exactly what the problem was and how it was fixed?

 

[3PHASE]

Is it known exactly what the problem was and how it was fixed?

That's the #1 problem with this whole event...you nailed it on the head.

We can all guess. From the outside, it appears like a "we'll get to it when we can" situation, but we really don't know. Did the utility people replace equipment? Did they not have what they needed to replace? Or did they just throw some switches? We just don't know.

 

[jaguar36]

That's the #1 problem with this whole event...you nailed it on the head.

We can all guess. From the outside, it appears like a "we'll get to it when we can" situation, but we really don't know. Did the utility people replace equipment? Did they not have what they needed to replace? Or did they just throw some switches? We just don't know.

Knowing what the issue is doesn't really matter, it doesn't help you charge your car if its a power issue or an equipment issue or whatever. An ETA would be useful, but if Tesla doesn't have that there isn't much they can do.

What we need is a better status indicator (which Elon has said is coming soon), and a mitigation plan. More superchargers (like Laurel) will soon mean that Delaware isn't a critical location, however Tesla needs to have a plan in place to deal with cars that arrive at a supercharger without enough juice to get to the next one. Newark fortunately had a J1772, but that is a bit unusual.

Did anyone actually get stuck here? I would have to imagine with the length of the downtime that someone got stuck, how did Tesla handle it?

 

[kort677]

I seem to recall you started this discourse with the unqualified statement that the other poster was very, very wrong.

and he was.

 

[3PHASE]

Knowing what the issue is doesn't really matter, it doesn't help you charge your car if its a power issue or an equipment issue or whatever. An ETA would be useful, but if Tesla doesn't have that there isn't much they can do.

What we need is a better status indicator (which Elon has said is coming soon), and a mitigation plan. More superchargers (like Laurel) will soon mean that Delaware isn't a critical location, however Tesla needs to have a plan in place to deal with cars that arrive at a supercharger without enough juice to get to the next one. Newark fortunately had a J1772, but that is a bit unusual.

Did anyone actually get stuck here? I would have to imagine with the length of the downtime that someone got stuck, how did Tesla handle it?

Some type of communication would give people the confidence that a future event would be handled appropriately.

 

[mikeash]

The cause and resolution matter a lot. Consider these three scenarios:

1. A simple part failed in the Supercharger cabinet. Due to an oversight, we didn't have any replacements ready, and it took some time to source them. We're performing a thorough audit of our Supercharger repair parts inventory and will make sure that all critical parts are kept in sufficient supply around the country.
2. A simple part failed in the Supercharger cabinet. The guy who handles our east coast repairs was on vacation. Sorry, hopefully next time he won't be.
3. The utility blew some equipment and had to cut power to the site. They're a bunch of useless ninnies and took days to handle a simple repair.

(This list is not meant to be exhaustive, of course.)

#1 would give me a lot of comfort, #2 would have me worried about the entire Supercharger network and would have me trying very hard to convince Tesla to change their attitude, and #3 would make me plan more carefully to have an alternate for Newark specifically.

 

[kort677]

The cause and resolution matter a lot. Consider these three scenarios:

1. A simple part failed in the Supercharger cabinet. Due to an oversight, we didn't have any replacements ready, and it took some time to source them. We're performing a thorough audit of our Supercharger repair parts inventory and will make sure that all critical parts are kept in sufficient supply around the country.
2. A simple part failed in the Supercharger cabinet. The guy who handles our east coast repairs was on vacation. Sorry, hopefully next time he won't be.
3. The utility blew some equipment and had to cut power to the site. They're a bunch of useless ninnies and took days to handle a simple repair.

(This list is not meant to be exhaustive, of course.)

#1 would give me a lot of comfort, #2 would have me worried about the entire Supercharger network and would have me trying very hard to convince Tesla to change their attitude, and #3 would make me plan more carefully to have an alternate for Newark specifically.

#3 seems to be the answer, somewhere along the line it was reported that tesla said that the issue was the utility and that it was out of their control. I do not know what utility services that SpC. but I suspect that since the toll plaza is on an authority operated toll road there where bushels of bureaucracy to be overcome.