Getting EV'd at Superchargers

[SSonnentag]

Some people still think it's Ev parking spot.
People aren't that bright nowadays..... Who parks at the gas station and not fill up? Common sense right? Apparently not for everyone.

It's a charging spot, when your done move out.... Simple. People are just ignorant or dumb

Actually, I've parked my Tesla at a gas pump for a few minutes on several occasions. I stop to wash my windshield and then run in to buy something really quickly. Of course, if it's a busy station I don't leave the car at the pump while running into the store.

 

[gambit48]

Thanks for the info. That seems like the habit to build, periodic checking of your time left and/or setting an early alarm timer, so you don't get surprised by the 5 min gap between reaching 100% charge and getting charged for charger blocking.

I do that at parking meters too. In San Francisco, they always seem to run faster than my iPhone timer. Not by much. Maybe a minute or so, but I do notice it.

I don't get it though, why park like that when you could park at the restaurant etc. and just drive over later, no walking involved? I'm missing something here?

My guess is no danger of door dings. The way the Superchargers are often set up, there's plenty of room so door dings are unlikely. Especially not from a fellow owner of an expensive car. My particular situation is especially strange. It's at a mall, but it's in the farthest part of the outer parking lot. No one EVER parks out there unless they're employees or something or it's Black Friday. The mall has plenty of parking in the "inner" lots. So much so that they literally have a circus set up in one of the inner lots periodically with no real bother to people in terms of parking. The only people who ever go to this outer lot are Tesla owners.

If someone is not plugging in to avoid idle charges, then they might also pull into the spot nose first. This would prevent anyone from plugging them in.

If someone is going to cheat the system, they are going to cheat. Especially after the first time someone plugs them in and they get idle fees.

If it becomes a problem, maybe Tesla will allow reporting via app? That or vigilantism might become more common.

 

[tpatana]

After we fix the SC park/idle problem, we can start to ponder how to teach the people who drive 55 on HOV just because they feel entitled by having 2ppl in the car.

 

[Evoforce]

After we fix the SC park/idle problem, we can start to ponder how to teach the people who drive 55 on HOV just because they feel entitled by having 2ppl in the car.

Just pass them on the right in the designated fast lane. They can legally go 45 mph if they wanted to. Be especially glad they don't usually do that!

 

[eprosenx]

So I have a couple of points that I don't think others have covered here:

1. I think the real solution is to reduce the scarcity of superchargers. Look, for EV's to really hit mass-market they need to be convenient for the masses. While most of us here on the forums are leading edge adopters and enthusiasts who may be willing to run out and move their car during lunch, this may not reflect the general population. The superchargers already effectively have two stalls sharing one power source. Perhaps in the future (at least for certain supercharger locations where folks like to "dwell" while having lunch) they will go say three or four wide (ratio of spots to chargers). This would make it less of a big deal to leave a car parked in a spot a little longer while finishing up lunch.

2. I have only supercharged once so far in my Model 3, however, I do wonder if it is going to be a pain in the butt since in some ways the Model 3 may charge *too* fast. i.e. If you are at a lunch or dinner break it might not be enough time to reasonably complete a meal. (yes, I want it fast if I am just sitting around waiting of course, so I am not advocating to actually slow it down naturally...) Again though, the solution here is to solve for the scarcity issue by just having a lot of chargers. That way you don't get hit with idle fees.

I should also call out that I don't mind being aggressive with idle fees if a station is extra slammed due to some rare event (i.e. the solar Eclipse, peak holiday travel days, etc...) When there are surge demand peak days I think it is reasonable to ask folks to inconvenience themselves a little in order to keep the max number of vehicles pumping through the charging station.

 

[tpatana]

Just pass them on the right in the designated fast lane. They can legally go 45 mph if they wanted to. Be especially glad they don't usually do that!

For one, the Seattle I-405 HOV/ETL lane has double-white line which (in theory) is illegal to cross at any other point than the intended merging sections. So passing them is difficult to do legally.

Also, WA has left-lane camper law which makes it illegal to drive slow on left lane. Probably not enforced too much, but still it's not legal to go slow there. In theory.

I just can't figure out why people go camp on the left lane. I've been to Germany ~20 times. The traffic just works. Each lane goes ~10-20mph different to the next one (in areas where they don't have speed limit). The leftmost goes some 100-140mph even on fairly heavy traffic.

And to continue ranting, the Seattle 405 HOV/ETL caused two things: traffic got worse, and city sucks more money from drivers. On paper it sounded like decent idea but in practice it turned out to be spawn from hell. And because the city was making ~10x more money than they estimated, it's not going away. I'm pretty sure they extend it other areas too.

 

[Evoforce]

@tpatana That is different than in Arizona.

 

[ℬête Noire]

1. I think the real solution is to reduce the scarcity of superchargers. Look, for EV's to really hit mass-market they need to be convenient for the masses. While most of us here on the forums are leading edge adopters and enthusiasts who may be willing to run out and move their car during lunch, this may not reflect the general population. The superchargers already effectively have two stalls sharing one power source. Perhaps in the future (at least for certain supercharger locations where folks like to "dwell" while having lunch) they will go say three or four wide (ratio of spots to chargers). This would make it less of a big deal to leave a car parked in a spot a little longer while finishing up lunch.

The new "Urban SuperCharger" configurations are 75kW per parking spot, with a shorter pole at the end of each spot rather than the the 135kW split (max 120kW to a single charger) between a pair of "big hoop" stations on two lanes. As far as I know, though, overstay fees still apply when more than 50% are in use?

2. I have only supercharged once so far in my Model 3, however, I do wonder if it is going to be a pain in the butt since in some ways the Model 3 may charge *too* fast. i.e. If you are at a lunch or dinner break it might not be enough time to reasonably complete a meal. (yes, I want it fast if I am just sitting around waiting of course, so I am not advocating to actually slow it down naturally...)

The Model 3 is similar time as percentage of battery as the late model S/X, it'll still take an hour to go from 0-100% SOC. The Model 3's faster charging speed is in how many miles/hour it'll charge at the lower end SOC. It'll accept near the nominal limit of 120kW like the Model S but it get more miles out of that power when you turn around to drive.

 

[nogajim]

They enforced that in the simplest and best way they could in my opinion because some people may not be as thoughtful and you may be on the receiving end one day. You don't get with fees when the stalls are half empty. You only get hit with fees if the stalls are at least 50% or more occupied and you exceed the grace period and there probably just some flex in that too, but I've never been hit with a fee so I don't know for sure.

Yes it is sometimes a pain to walk back and forth to the restaurant you want, but that is your choice. When your car is finished charging, you should have to pay idle fees so it will be available for the next person.

 

[Dana1]

So I have a couple of points that I don't think others have covered here:

1. I think the real solution is to reduce the scarcity of superchargers. Look, for EV's to really hit mass-market they need to be convenient for the masses. While most of us here on the forums are leading edge adopters and enthusiasts who may be willing to run out and move their car during lunch, this may not reflect the general population. The superchargers already effectively have two stalls sharing one power source. Perhaps in the future (at least for certain supercharger locations where folks like to "dwell" while having lunch) they will go say three or four wide (ratio of spots to chargers). This would make it less of a big deal to leave a car parked in a spot a little longer while finishing up lunch.

2. I have only supercharged once so far in my Model 3, however, I do wonder if it is going to be a pain in the butt since in some ways the Model 3 may charge *too* fast. i.e. If you are at a lunch or dinner break it might not be enough time to reasonably complete a meal. (yes, I want it fast if I am just sitting around waiting of course, so I am not advocating to actually slow it down naturally...) Again though, the solution here is to solve for the scarcity issue by just having a lot of chargers. That way you don't get hit with idle fees.

I should also call out that I don't mind being aggressive with idle fees if a station is extra slammed due to some rare event (i.e. the solar Eclipse, peak holiday travel days, etc...) When there are surge demand peak days I think it is reasonable to ask folks to inconvenience themselves a little in order to keep the max number of vehicles pumping through the charging station.

Cost. How much do you want to pay per kW? The price charged has to cover electricity and the cost of building the station. Have you ever seen the rental bike stations? Those are $40,000 to install once you factor in concrete, etc. you can put 50 chargers in but they have to be paid for...that’s a super expensive parking space.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Cost. How much do you want to pay per kW? The price charged has to cover electricity and the cost of building the station. Have you ever seen the rental bike stations? Those are $40,000 to install once you factor in concrete, etc. you can put 50 chargers in but they have to be paid for...that’s a super expensive parking space.

Agreed. To supply Supercharger rates of charging you need all the copper plus the AC to DC converter sized to back up that charge rate and the electrical service sized to supply all that. It's expensive to build enough to handle the potential peak demand for a given stall. Then you pay the peak surcharge for the small window it's being used (it's the peak usage that kills you on commercial power, the kWh is relatively cheap).

The concept of charging because you're parked anyway is also a valid thing but L2 is appropriate for that. The gear required costs much less because it's a smaller "pipe". Even a very modest 4.8kW charger, about 20miles/hr charging in a Model 3, would cover that and I suspect you could easily outfit a dozen of those for the cost of a single SC stall. That's only maybe 35 cents to $1 per hour for the electricity depending on local rates.

 

[shiz]

First time future EV owner, but how do airport EV charging spaces work? Obviously the parked individual is flying out, i assume they just hold that spot til they return? Are these limited in most airport parking and can you count on finding availabilities?

 

[Acps110]

First time future EV owner, but how do airport EV charging spaces work? Obviously the parked individual is flying out, i assume they just hold that spot til they return? Are these limited in most airport parking and can you count on finding availabilities?

For airport parking, all you need is your Mobile Connector and the 120V adapter. You will be gone for several days, and the car will be at 90% when you return. (The Mobile Connector locks in the charge port, so no worries of theft.)

 

[TexasEV]

For airport parking, all you need is your Mobile Connector and the 120V adapter. You will be gone for several days, and the car will be at 90% when you return. (The Mobile Connector locks in the charge port, so no worries of theft.)

Maybe that’s true at your airport, but at most airports the charging stations are J1772. This is the only place where it’s acceptable (actually it’s expected) to leave you car plugged in after it’s finished charging. Some lots have attendants who unplug you when you’re done and plug in the car in the next space, but that’s uncommon.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

What would be good is if there was an extension cable.
That way you could back your car right up until they were just on touching & charge also.
And they get inconvenienced also in learning their lesson.

 

[Lasairfion]

They could just add number plate cameras to the supercharger spots. I would imagine that a tech company like Tesla could manage to create a system that captured the registration number and checked if the car had been plugged into a charger or not?

 

[Saghost]

They could just add number plate cameras to the supercharger spots. I would imagine that a tech company like Tesla could manage to create a system that captured the registration number and checked if the car had been plugged into a charger or not?

The car knows where it is with precision that's tight enough to identify a single parking space. It's also already programmed to do things based on geotags. It would be simple for Tesla to define a Supercharger stall geotag, and have the car take whatever action seemed appropriate if parked in a stall and not plugged in (send owner alerts? send mothership an alert? move itself to a holding area? Assess idle fees starting after five minutes of parking unplugged, like the idle fees if plugged and not charging?)

 

[eprosenx]

Cost. How much do you want to pay per kW? The price charged has to cover electricity and the cost of building the station. Have you ever seen the rental bike stations? Those are $40,000 to install once you factor in concrete, etc. you can put 50 chargers in but they have to be paid for...that’s a super expensive parking space.

My callout is that they could change the design of the supercharger stations to say share one charging cabinet between three or four stalls vs. just between two. They would still have some added costs per stalls (physical space lease/rent, and the power whips, etc...) but I would guess the majority of the supercharging costs are around the utility transformers and the rectifiers.

As someone else mentioned in this thread, it sounds like they kind of do this already with the urban superchargers.

But yes, the economies have to all work out here clearly.

 

[drawfour]

As a non-owner (please, Elon, I want my Model 3 now!!!), I just can't help but wonder if they could have a sliding scale for parking fees. Such as:

Stalls in use < 50% : no overage, or perhaps a fee after 30 minutes or so
Stalls in use 50% - 70% : overage fee after 20 minutes, and another every 20 minutes after that
Stalls in use 70% - 85% : overage fee after 10 minutes, and another every 10 minutes after that.
Stalls in use 85%-100% : overage fee after 5 minutes, and an added one every 5 minutes after that.

Subsequent ones could be a lesser charge than the initial fee, but still would be better than just giving a one-time fee. After all, once the fee is hit, there's no incentive to go move it, because you've already been dinged. And also, when a subsequent fee is assessed, it should check to see the stalls in use and adjust the next overage fee/check interval appropriately.

 

[TexasEV]

As a non-owner (please, Elon, I want my Model 3 now!!!), I just can't help but wonder if they could have a sliding scale for parking fees. Such as:

Stalls in use < 50% : no overage, or perhaps a fee after 30 minutes or so
Stalls in use 50% - 70% : overage fee after 20 minutes, and another every 20 minutes after that
Stalls in use 70% - 85% : overage fee after 10 minutes, and another every 10 minutes after that.
Stalls in use 85%-100% : overage fee after 5 minutes, and an added one every 5 minutes after that.

Subsequent ones could be a lesser charge than the initial fee, but still would be better than just giving a one-time fee. After all, once the fee is hit, there's no incentive to go move it, because you've already been dinged. And also, when a subsequent fee is assessed, it should check to see the stalls in use and adjust the next overage fee/check interval appropriately.

Haven’t heard of the KISS principle, have you?