Destination Charge is no practical now...still rely on SC only?

[Quesder]

Hi all,
many people may have red this trip report:
Trip Report - Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe and Napa

and to me his south Tahoe night charging experience is HORRIBLE. Spend more than 1.5 hr searching for a charge point. My wife or your girl friend will not have another road trip with you and your Tesla (or any EV). A lot of the so called destination charger or even ChargePoint charger are not available.
And when I check Tesla.com for destination charger, I found that many hotels has only 1 charger. If two Tesla owners stay at that hotel the same night, only one will be able to charge and the other one who booked that hotel simply has a 5000 lbs. brick the next morning.

Looks like we still have to do a 80% ~ 90% charge at the last SC before your hotel. Destination charge is WAY to be practical yet.

 

[ricardocabesa]

Let us know if you find a solution.

 

[whitex]

On couple of occasions tried to use the destination charging - both times the problem was not the availability of the charger but availability of rooms. I did not book ahead and both times the places were fully booked. If I'm going to sleep in the car, it might as well be at the supercharger rather than destination charger.

PS) A little lesson learned from my 6000+ mile trip last October. If you have a choice to charge at the SC before or after an overnight trip, charge before as the car can get cold overnight and charging in the morning can be really slow. Unless of course you need max charge the next day, then charge in the morning so you start with 100% and a warm battery.

 

[kort677]

ok boys and girls. I really don't have an answer, I've had mostly good like with destination charging but I can see where there could be issues. issues like lack of capacity leads the list, if you arrive at a hotel with one or two chargers but other cars are using those chargers shutting you out can be troublesome.
I used to go to Tallahassee FL to visit my son in school, in the early years I'd have to park the car at one of the schools chargers and walk 1+mile back to my hotel, then the hotel installed two tesla HWPCs and a j1772 chargers, however access to them is not guaranteed. I've seen up to 5 teslas in the hotel, so you really cannot always be assured of getting a charge. lastly after he graduated tesla put a SpC in Tallahassee so now there's no issue finding a charge.
the moral to the story is the we are still in the infancy of this dramatic change in the automotive world and issues like this will be problematic, call it growing pains. we are the pioneers and we need to be flexible and creative at times.
in time it is the dream that chargers will become as ubiquitous as gas stations are today.
good luck and safe travels

 

[NovemberXray]

We took a 9,000 mile cross country road trip last summer and used dozens of destination chargers (I planned ahead and had them all booked before we left), and we had no trouble. As the number of Teslas continue to grow it may be more of an issue, but it seems to me the hosts of the charger could be more helpful in letting you know if another person has already "booked" the charger(s). Also, if you can reach out to he other person(s) staying at your location if there are multiple you can take turns and both get some charge. There may be some challenges, but I would hardly say it's impractical, I find it extremely useful.

 

[brkaus]

Perhaps some of them could be upgraded to the new HPWC that can share a single circuit.

 

[jerry33]

I've not had a problem with destination charging (or RV park charging for that matter) in about 40K miles of road trips. Most destination charging locations I've been to have had two Tesla HPWCs. The ones with J1772 often only have one.

 

[roblab]

Hi all,
many people may have red this trip report:
Trip Report - Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe and Napa

and to me his south Tahoe night charging experience is HORRIBLE. Spend more than 1.5 hr searching for a charge point. My wife or your girl friend will not have another road trip with you and your Tesla (or any EV). A lot of the so called destination charger or even ChargePoint charger are not available.
And when I check Tesla.com for destination charger, I found that many hotels has only 1 charger. If two Tesla owners stay at that hotel the same night, only one will be able to charge and the other one who booked that hotel simply has a 5000 lbs. brick the next morning.

Looks like we still have to do a 80% ~ 90% charge at the last SC before your hotel. Destination charge is WAY to be practical yet.

I call ahead, reserve the charger. I also leave my cell number on the dash for that hypothetical second arrival. I probably would also make sure I have enough to get there by stopping by Folsom supercharger a few minutes. Being 80 miles away, I could likely get to South Lake Tahoe and back without any need to charge at Tahoe, or at least you won't need more that a couple hours of charge, certainly not all night.

With your 17" screen in the car, it should be able to tell you of all destination charger locations. Shouldn't take an hour and a half.

 

[TexasEV]

Hi all,
many people may have red this trip report:
Trip Report - Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe and Napa

and to me his south Tahoe night charging experience is HORRIBLE. Spend more than 1.5 hr searching for a charge point. My wife or your girl friend will not have another road trip with you and your Tesla (or any EV). A lot of the so called destination charger or even ChargePoint charger are not available.
And when I check Tesla.com for destination charger, I found that many hotels has only 1 charger. If two Tesla owners stay at that hotel the same night, only one will be able to charge and the other one who booked that hotel simply has a 5000 lbs. brick the next morning.

Looks like we still have to do a 80% ~ 90% charge at the last SC before your hotel. Destination charge is WAY to be practical yet.

A little dramatic, are we? I think people can figure out a way to share.

 

[dhcp]

We live in the bay on the peninsula and have a place up at SLT. You can charge to 80% on an 85D and make it easily to Folsom and then use the SC and make it up to SLT. Going down is easy but if you want to top off there are several easy places to charge that aren't a fight including the local power company (near the Y) and a Tesla charger at one of the real estate places in town.

Tesla was planning on putting in an SC in SLT last year but was held up for some reason but they still have it on the schedule. If you get desperate you can drop me a note and use my 40amp circuit if you bring your charger.

 

[LuPapa]

RV park charging for that matter

This seems like something everyone should keep in mind. The RV parks are all over the USA and each one has many 30 amp outdoor electrical outlets. Some higher amp outlets too.

 

[jerry33]

This seems like something everyone should keep in mind. The RV parks are all over the USA and each one has many 30 amp outdoor electrical outlets. Some higher amp outlets too.

The 30 amp outlets aren't of much value because to use them you need a cobbled together converter. Only the 50 amp outlets are useful for charging. Still, there are a lot of them.

 

[GHammer]

We used the destination chargers very successfully this last summer on a 3000 mile road trip. Even though all the places we were at did have more than one hookup we were the only ones using one.

 

[kort677]

This seems like something everyone should keep in mind. The RV parks are all over the USA and each one has many 30 amp outdoor electrical outlets. Some higher amp outlets too.

many have 50 amp service, that is what you need to ask about, if you say a 14-50 outlet most places won't know what you are referring to.
www.rvparky.com is something that should be on your phone if you do road trips off the "grid"

 

[Trunk Gap]

Had no idea about the RV parks, thanks all!

I just charge as much as possible at the supercharger and hope to find somewhere to leave the car overnight and charge either from a trickle, to get to another supercharger, or at a faster outlet at a place that offers them. Not ideal, but is what it is.

 

[calisnow]

Hi ...My wife or your girl friend will not have another road trip with you and your Tesla

Au contraire mon amie. Your wife is begging to go on another road trip with my girlfriend and I in my Tesla. Truth hurts.

 

[somnambule]

I can certainly see the potential for not getting access to a destination charger. However, I personally don't rely on destination chargers if I need to charge on an overnight stop during a trip. However, I have had good luck with destination chargers at my, um..., destination. If I'm staying somewhere for a few nights and don't plan to drive around all that much (just short-distance driving nearby) I can afford to miss access to the charger some nights as long as I get access to it at some point.

 

[heytae]

Anyone know how much typically a RV Park might charge for plugging into their 50amp outlet? Going to S. Lake Tahoe next month and that might be a good option for us if we want to top off before heading back to the Folsom supercharger on the way back to the south bay.

 

[whitex]

Anyone know how much typically a RV Park might charge for plugging into their 50amp outlet? Going to S. Lake Tahoe next month and that might be a good option for us if we want to top off before heading back to the Folsom supercharger on the way back to the south bay.

Call them and ask. In the old days some just let you plug in for free, then some started charging by the hour, then some realized it's a $100K car so they can charge more, some even required you to book a whole night stay - depending on how greedy and what they felt they could get away with. I've heard different people reporting between free and $5/hr.

 

[dhcp]

@heytae - saw your email but thought I'd reply here:

I just came back from SLT yesterday so it's still fresh in my mind.

There are two places you can charge at that are free and easy and not very used.

- Chase Realty - 989 Tahoe Keys Blvd. They have a Tesla 80-amp charger in the lot, call ahead and make sure it's available but they fully welcome anyone to use it, not just clients. They move a lot of the houses in SLT so they know it's a cheap way to connect with the right people. I think they charge at like 60mi/hr.

- Liberty Utilities - 933 Eloise Ave - this is the local power company and they have a bunch of free charges that are almost never used. They are free but require a Chargepoint card are are J1772, so bring your adapter. I think they are the 18/mi/hr kind.

I think Uber is operating in SLT now so you could also drop the car off and go hit the grocery store or something (Railey's is awesome there) and come back to some additional juice.

Going up to Tahoe, I charge to 80% at home and make it to Folsom with about 30-40% left if I remember right. I hit the second Folsom (more east) stop. The first one has a 24hr McDonalds if you are super late at night, the second has a little outdoor mall with various restaurants. Only a few times have I seen more than a couple cars at either and they both charge at high rates (300+mph).

I usually charge up to 80 or 90% here just because I'm paranoid and tend to overcharge to play it safe. I use Teslafi.com to keep track of my drives and I can tell you exactly what I used on a typical weekend:

Going from San Mateo to SLT:

San Mateo to Folsom: 140RM used (130 actual driven miles)
Folsom to SLT: 132RM used (80 actual driven miles)

Going SLT to San Mateo:

SLT to Folsom: 47.5 rated miles used (84 actual driven miles)
Folsom to San Mateo: 175 rated miles used (149 actual driven miles)

I typically drive 75mph with autopilot going to Folsom from San Mateo and from Folsom to home. Last weekend I charged all the way up (267RM) and made it to home from SLT without stopping with 26% left. I had the A/C going the whole time yesterday on the way home as it was 108F through central valley and Pleasanton.

Does that help? There are also casinos and stuff there with chargers, get the plugshare app (or web site) for a list of places, check the comments for each one to know the real story on them. Drop a note if you have any more questions. If you get desperate you can use the charger at my house up there, just drop me a note.