How Accurate Is Super Charger Polling?

[smilepak]

Curious, on the Tesla MS Map, when you click on the super charger, it said how many stalls are available out of how many total.

How accurate is that? Is that showing how many stalls are available based upon functioning or occupied? I was driving back passing Burbank over the weekend. On both going up and down pass Burbank, it show 4 of 6 available. Being around 7:00 PM, it is hard to believe that many being available for Burbank.

 

[JasJ]

I'm my travels, it tends to underestimate availability from Texas to Florida.

 

[Haxster]

Be careful if it shows one or two stalls open. Cars may be in transition…with a dozen still in the queue.

I've actually seen this at the Mountain View supercharger.

It would be useful to know how many cars are in the queue before choosing to go to a station. Even a live image of the cars lined up would be helpful.

 

[dhcp]

Be careful if it shows one or two stalls open. Cars may be in transition…with a dozen still in the queue.

I've actually seen this at the Mountain View supercharger.

It would be useful to know how many cars are in the queue before choosing to go to a station. Even a live image of the cars lined up would be helpful.

Ditto in San Mateo, too. Would show 1 or 2 available but none were ever free, just in transition. Could be it take a snapshot every few minutes and keeps displaying that until the next snapshot.

 

[ecarfan]

How accurate is that? Is that showing how many stalls are available based upon functioning or occupied?

I believe it shows how many cars are currently plugged into a pedestal. They may or may not be actively charging.

I recently made an 830 mile roundtrip in California using the 101. I found the nav Supercharger status display pretty accurate, and if I left it up on the nav I could see it update fairly frequently.

 

[Haxster]

Ditto in San Mateo, too. Would show 1 or 2 available but none were ever free, just in transition.

Could be a nice enhancement for Waze.

 

[TR5642]

My observations suggest that it is pretty accurate and latency seems to be less than a minute (sitting at charger and watching). As others have noted, when it shoes close to fully utilized there is always the risk that a 'free' one is in transition.

One trick I've started using (particularly on a trip where I could stop at A or B with different tradeoffs), is to click on the SC and leave the dialog open. Look at it from time to time as you drive toward it. You'll readily get the flow for whether it is likely to have capacity when you get there. (no guarantees of course) Yes, it DOES update while the dialog is open.

BTW, if you have choices and the options are showing full-ish, ALWAYS charge at the first. If it turns out to be blocked, move on. If it's ok, you've covered your bet and won't have the tesla-nanny telling you that you should drive more slowly the rest of the way

 

[smilepak]

My observations suggest that it is pretty accurate and latency seems to be less than a minute (sitting at charger and watching). As others have noted, when it shoes close to fully utilized there is always the risk that a 'free' one is in transition.

One trick I've started using (particularly on a trip where I could stop at A or B with different tradeoffs), is to click on the SC and leave the dialog open. Look at it from time to time as you drive toward it. You'll readily get the flow for whether it is likely to have capacity when you get there. (no guarantees of course) Yes, it DOES update while the dialog is open.

BTW, if you have choices and the options are showing full-ish, ALWAYS charge at the first. If it turns out to be blocked, move on. If it's ok, you've covered your bet and won't have the tesla-nanny telling you that you should drive more slowly the rest of the way

Interesting about it being update while open. I tried that with Burbank last weekend. Brought it up while still 10 miles out. It show 4 of 6 stall open the entire time even as I drive pass the location and close the app.

 

[smilepak]

Interesting I'm at the SpaceX SC and the map said only 7 of 12 stalls available. Only five active charging, 2 out of service. I guess its pretty accurate.

 

[BerTX]

My experience is that some are accurate and some not. I suspect it has something to do with connectivity of the site, but I'm not sure.

I think it is useful to local traffic, who would know whether that particular site gives accurate info. Also, the sites with wrong readings are often the less used sites, so it is really not too critical. Basically, pretty accurate on the West Coast, and in most other places it's not critical to know whether there is one car or two charging.

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

In my experience they can be accurate at certain times of the day. If you closely track a supercharger you should be able to note the time they are packed. Usually this is when they are not accurate. However when there is lighter usage, then it can be accurate. The data is delayed a bit so keep that in mind but overall it is much better than before when we did not know at all and had to guess.

My rule of thumb is if the there is 1-2 available at a busy site with 10 or more 12 stalls, then I would avoid and wait until it has 4 or more stalls available before coming because they can fill up quickly.

 

[cpa]

I have noticed that the Supecharger at Topaz Lake/Gardnerville has shown one stall in use each time I hop into my car. (I keep the SC status live on my touchscreen just to see how busy they are here in the Valley.) This usage has been constant for over two weeks.

I find it quite hard to believe that there is always one person plugged in at that location, whether at 6AM, noon, 3PM, or later.

So, which is it?

--a stall is out of service?
--someone parked their car and plugged in and took off on the Pacific Crest Trail?
--the Tesla traffic on US395 at the California/Nevada line is so dense, that there is always someone charging there when I happen to look?
--the usage software has some sort of display problem?

If the stall is out of service, the display should show usage with a different color from red. Or perhaps the battery symbol could be split in two: one side to show out of service pedestals and one side for operational ones when there is one or more pedestals that are down.