HELP!! We are stranded in Pullman, WA!

[CarrieMullins]

Hello! I’m just reaching out to see if there are any Tesla owners in Pullman that can help us out. This is our first trip up here and we didn’t realize that the destination charger was only one. We don’t have our adapter and I’m trying to see if anyone has a garage charger that we can use. We’re down to 5%!

 

[whitex]

Yeah, this is a funny grey area at present, that will ultimately need some sort of better solution. Once EVs get popular enough so these are always booked up, it's going to be a problem to have wasted service time. And I don't think they'll build out so many connectors that it's not a problem. One partial solution is to have two parking spots covered per adapter, to give some parking and plug flexibility. Mostly I just see them all in a row, one per spot.

At a couple of the hotels I did destination charging, they had a 3 hour max rule for the parking spot. This was their solution to getting people to move, but it didn't work for me because arriving at 11 pm, there is no way I was waking up at 2 am to move my car. I just pushed my luck. I know the front desk doesn't want any auto liability about moving cars, so leaving a key with them was a non starter. They didn't even want to have to call or text someone to let them know to move.


We could use some sort of social contract where well behaved humans try to not hog the charger, but it's hard to see how this would be communicated or work. For my part for example, I'd be fine with someone moving my car to a new spot, activating the car to drive remotely. Especially for another EV owner, or a hotel employee, this would be fine with me. I know lots of folks would abolutely not sign up for that. I'd rather have a valet move my car as needed so I don't have to wake up to messages.

Currently the rule is first-come first-served with no time limits. That's also a possible solution, even if it's sub-optimal use of resources.

The only viable solutions (besides Elon's FSD where cars can move themselves after finishing charging) are:

1. valet parking (which I've seen at some hotels, chargers only available via valet parking)
2. more spots with chargers (which can all load share). Instead of installing 2 chargers for example, if this truly becomes an issue, install up to 12 chargers, up to 6 on each 80A branch
3. charge for idle time, have the EVSE ask for credit card number, state that charging is free, with maybe 60 minute grace period, then some per minute charge for idling

Personally I think #2 would be the least controversial and possibly lowest cost solution (the extra EVSE cost offset by not having to pay valet attendants and additional insurance, or installing and maintaining EVSE's with credit card idle fee processing).