I'd love to see a virtual queue and also which of the paired spots is almost complete. It's a gamble, when you have to pair, to know if the person next to you just started charging or is tapering down.
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Holiday travel availability / congestion at CA Superchargers; possible solutions, complaints, comments, discussion
- Thread starter SilverSp33d3r
- Start date
cpa
Active Member
Allowing the in car navigation to route you to the most efficient set of Superchargers on your trip gets you a nice perk. You get priority at each Supercharger you charge at, a "reserved" spot so to speak. Those arriving "cold" do not get this benefit. It incentivises people to use the in car planner, and then allows Tesla to more efficiently allocate charging resources.
Cars with lower SOC are sent to the V3 chargers, and those with higher SOC or older batteries that can't use V3 power levels are routed to the slower chargers.
A new site across the street could be for Model 3s only and using this protocol. Frees up the legacy site for slower charging cars. When you pull in, the in car navigation tells you which stall to pull into. Larger LED numbering above each charger makes this easier. The Mothership supercomputer doesn't need to assign the stall until moments before arrival, so as to be able to account for conditions at that moment.
Smart software making most efficient use of valuable physical and electrical resources. Work smarter not harder. Some smart coders with access to all of Tesla's data could put this together in a few weeks. Look for this all to be in place by next Thanksgiving
RT
RT, I guess I am just a Luddite that cut my teeth when pay phones were a nickel. I hate, detest, and refuse to have a machine tell me what road to take and where to stop. Part of the fun of road trips is planning the route. Equally fun with a Tesla is planning where to charge.
I don’t want some faceless, impersonal, and sterile computer controlling my life choices. I loath having the navigation on the screen. Your thoughtful suggestion is anathema to me.
I respectfully disagree with your idea to use the trip planning function to assign priority charging availability during busy travel days.
Tesla could just as easily upgrade the stall count display on the touchscreen with turnover data in real time.
Tesla could also expose and display the expected wait time for a given Supercharger site based on the cars in the area that need charging. Personally, I would want to weigh the expected wait times against the amenities available to choose a charging stop. Especially in CA, there are usually many different possible charging strategies and I want complete control over that whole decision matrix.
This is where Tesla could really add value if they wanted to. They pretty much know which cars are coming to which supercharges and when. I’m pretty sure that most Tesla drivers when traveling on road trips are navigating to a supercharger at least for the last 20-50 miles, maybe more. Tesla also knows what speed they are traveling on, what route they are taking and what SOC they will most likely arrive at. Overall, they could certainly give an expected supercharger utilization in addition to the actual stalls available at any given time and for a predicted time. It’s just data. Not even big data
Yep - just let people know when a Supercharger is going to be less than 50-60% full (green), close to full, 60-90% (yellow) or 100% full and queues expected (red). Give people this basic data and they will either adjust accordingly, or deal with the queues. As a bonus - this should also reduce queues, too.
Pluto
is a Planet
The one thing Tesla doesn’t necessarily know is what SOC an owner will leave at. I’d bet they could probably estimate this based on the average charge time people are spending at the designated station to take into account slow station charging speeds and distance from destinations/other superchargers.
Great post! Informative and well thought out. Thanks also to the moderator who created this thread. Let’s move this thought experiment to 2025, when half of the cars sold in California are Teslas, plus there are enough “other” EVs to clog all of the CCS-CHAdeMO chargers. Solutions?Getting 16 of the Kettleman chargers switched over to V3 was hugely important, for the relief it provided, but also from a data acquisition standpoint. The question that needs to be answered here, and at other soon to be realized choke points, is what is the optimum solution taking everything into account. You can model what you think is going to happen when V3s are in place versus V2s, but that only goes so far, you need real people traveling during the peak period to see how they behave. Tesla now has V3 vs. V2 utilization data for the biggest Holiday choke point in their system. This will let then know precisely what benefit upgrading the remaining V2 chargers to V3 will accomplish. I'm assuming that they also have visibility into the number of line waiters via the in car data connection.
The solution space includes such things as: 1) Upgrading V2 to V3 chargers, 2) Only allowing charging to 80% based on users anticipated route and other charger availability down the road, 3) Raising idle fees to get people motivated to unplug as soon as they are done (only during Holiday rush), 4) Altering the in car navigation routing to send people to less used Superchargers depending on their usage and the drivers intended route. Thats just a start, but most of the list is nothing more than smart software upgrades. The last resort is building another large Supercharger across the street unless it is absolutely necessary. Of course, given Model 3 sales rates, it is going to be necessary at some point, just when is the question.
Having said all that, I don't believe the "goal" for Tesla is to never have a line at any Supercharger during busy Holiday periods. Not much consolation for people having to wait in line for 30 minutes yesterday. EV drivers already know that charging takes longer than using a gas car. Adding another 20 minutes for a line wait once a year isn't going to result in the death of the company or any amount of people selling their cars. The worlds finest Tesla lounge is right there, plenty of beverages on tap, clean restrooms, etc. People are adaptable and many will rethink their travel timing if it bothers them enough. Exhibit A for first world problems. BTW, listening to the radio, they were telling passengers to arrive 3 hours in advance for domestic flights and 4 hours in advance for International flights. It seems the airports also have an issue during Holiday periods
The bottom line here is that Tesla the company is uniquely (currently) in the position of having to solve this problem, and the methodology they use to solve it will be used over and over down the road as other site also need to solve the Holiday travel issue. The big difference with the EV competition is that nobody else has this problem yet, but it is coming. And because the other EV drivers are going to be using a different set of DCFCs that aren't part of a single ecosystem, they are going to end up having an ever worse problem than Tesla has during the Holiday periods. And the other players will not have the ability to alleviate it like Tesla does. This is yet another area that Tesla has a huge advantage versus other companies, but one that the other companies won't be able to "catch up" due to the fact that so many different players are involved.
RT
1) V4 Chargers across a bus-like connection that allows complete, dynamic sharing of power. I’m not sure how to do this or if it’s possible, but that not my problem. Maximum individual stall output near 400 KW, probably >800 V. That way people just plug in anywhere and get the maximum that their car can take.
2) Megapak batteries for backup, surge charging, load leveling, demand moderation, and grid stabilization.
3) Full lot covered with solar panels, with autonomous cleaning.
4) Minimum of 40 stalls, maybe even 60 but this leads to the where question. Duplicating more asphalt is just dumb charging, not smart charging. Tesla lounge will definitely be needed, but what about utilizing underutilized parking lots during this time (everyone is on the road, so they’re not shopping or at work/church). Perhaps Tesla can contract with governments, churches, malls, cinemas, theaters, stadiums, and big box shopping for location of temporary charging.
5) Portable megapak on semis. We saw this at SLO-Madonna Inn. Taking this a step further, Tesla can contract with companies that they sold semis to for temporary use during these high demand days. How many beverage or delivery trucks are in use on Wednesday before TG, Black Friday, weekend after TG, or Christmas week? Probably very low utilization because their drivers are at home. Furthermore, new semi delivery can be delayed until after Christmas, and “tested“ during these peak times.
6) Dynamic road closure prediction and mobile megapak deployment. The I-5 grapevine closure and various snow or fire events dramatically impacted SC use.
7) Software AI, routings, %utilization, wait time/number as mentioned by others
8) Really outside the box: on-road charging. This futuristic idea has been talked about by many before, but Tesla could have the boring company create a partial tunnel from LA to Vegas where vehicles are charging while traveling. It could be just long enough to complete charging, say 50-100 mi. Pull in, autonomous attachment, 100 KW charging while taking a quick nap. Exit back to the surface. Aren’t there just a few skippable miles on that route as well as SF-LA?
That’s enough for now. Others?
V3 is already structured like this. Up to 7 V3 charging cabinets serving up to 28 V3 stalls share a common DC power bus that shares power across the entire group. As long as the transformer is sized appropriately and there is battery storage on site, V3 should be able to provide the maximum charging rate for all cars that are plugged in - at least until the stored capacity is depleted, at which point charging would get throttled to the maximum AC input available.
cpa
Active Member
Let’s use Kettleman City: I hazard a guess that ~90% of the usage here is by drivers taking Interstate 5. However, I am among the small but vocal minority who travel SR41 between Pismo Beach and Fresno. I can make the trip without stopping from home without stopping. But the trickle charging at Pismo is not enough for the return trip. Maybe I am selfish, but I won’t spend an hour driving to Madonna and back to get enough charge to drive home the next day.
I also see no need to dial into the navigation. Most of my travels are on familiar roads, and I know where the SC are.
Then there are the times we need to make an unplanned stop to visit the bathroom or to let the dog get a little exercise; might as well take the opportunity to plug in for 10 minutes as long as we are in the neighborhood.
In short, I am not statistically savvy, but culling data from diverse sources to predict the fundamentally unpredictable behavior of H. sapiens is futile.
Uncle Paul
Well-Known Member
My experience at a Supercharger with a line went pretty well.
Arrived at Morango (Palm Springs) busy outlet mall on Thanksgiving weekend.
There were 10 cars in line ahead of me.
The line moved amazingly fast, because there were a lot of chargers.
When it was my time, a slot opened up and some guy swooped into that slot ahead of me.
Said that the charger he had previously pulled into was not working. He unplugged and laid the hose down in the stand instead of putting it back into it's holder. This easily notified others not to use that slot.
Made sense to me, so I allowed him to re-position. Not even a minute later, another slot opened up for me.
I was happy to note that I was getting over 350 miles charging rate. Evidently the paired Tesla next to me was into taper, giving me full rate.
The chargers were full due to Thanksgiving travelers and also shoppers looking for Black Friday (actually Saturday) deals at the outlet mall.
End results was that we got some lunch and returned to move our car, so that others could charge, but by that time the line had disappeared and additional slots had opened up.
If someone had taken a picture of 10 cars in line, it would have given a false impression of the Supercharger experience. The line was only there around noon and was gone shortly there after.
Believe that Kettleman was full because of all the publicity about the new V3 chargers being installed recently. Imagine that a lot of owners converged on that site to try out the new, faster, chargers.
Overall believe that Tesla is doing an amazing job of rolling out the Supercharger network. A combination of more stalls,faster charging, greater range and posting of open slots is going a long way in enabling comfortable long distance travel.
Arrived at Morango (Palm Springs) busy outlet mall on Thanksgiving weekend.
There were 10 cars in line ahead of me.
The line moved amazingly fast, because there were a lot of chargers.
When it was my time, a slot opened up and some guy swooped into that slot ahead of me.
Said that the charger he had previously pulled into was not working. He unplugged and laid the hose down in the stand instead of putting it back into it's holder. This easily notified others not to use that slot.
Made sense to me, so I allowed him to re-position. Not even a minute later, another slot opened up for me.
I was happy to note that I was getting over 350 miles charging rate. Evidently the paired Tesla next to me was into taper, giving me full rate.
The chargers were full due to Thanksgiving travelers and also shoppers looking for Black Friday (actually Saturday) deals at the outlet mall.
End results was that we got some lunch and returned to move our car, so that others could charge, but by that time the line had disappeared and additional slots had opened up.
If someone had taken a picture of 10 cars in line, it would have given a false impression of the Supercharger experience. The line was only there around noon and was gone shortly there after.
Believe that Kettleman was full because of all the publicity about the new V3 chargers being installed recently. Imagine that a lot of owners converged on that site to try out the new, faster, chargers.
Overall believe that Tesla is doing an amazing job of rolling out the Supercharger network. A combination of more stalls,faster charging, greater range and posting of open slots is going a long way in enabling comfortable long distance travel.
Even before the 3 arrived, queues at SC's were a mess. Tesla is bad at capacity planning... period. Road trips with a Tesla suck and Supercharging in SoCal is stressful.
Battery swaps would have solved these issues.
We can try to spin that long charging queues is great for EV's... but I can guarantee most everyone else driving by a SC with long queues are shaking their heads...
Battery swaps would have solved these issues.
We can try to spin that long charging queues is great for EV's... but I can guarantee most everyone else driving by a SC with long queues are shaking their heads...
The California experience seems to be unique. I haven't driven a Tesla there, but I have in 25 other states without issue. I find Tesla road trips to be quite enjoyable, with charging times being significantly reduced compared to just two years ago.
Planner needs to be better. I often ignore the planner when we go on a road trip? The planner doesnt work efficiently. I hop in and start a trip. Driving along and the lets say we will arrive at a charger with 15% left. Lets say we still have more then 1 full charger needed to complete the trip. Lets assume car has range of 300 miles and chargers 100 miles apart. Planner will have us get a full charge more often then not. What it should do is have us stop more often for shorter charges. Rather then an hour charge I should have 2 20 minute charges.
Perhaps, but everybody's travel is different. I have a LR and frequently drive between LA and SF and prefer a one-hour stop midway (Harris Ranch) to refuel the body (while I charge 90%+). I may take a bathroom break along the route, but not necessarily at a SC. (SBUX br's are usually clean.)
CapnDave
Member
Ohmie
Member
After waiting 2.5 hours in the queue at San Luis Obispo this evening... all I can say is that I Hope Tesla reads these threads and takes action to remedy the situation. Kudos to all of the Tesla owners here with me tonight. As best I can tell everyone kept their cool and made the best of an inconvenient situation.
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