How can I see superchargers in use?

[damp]

I was in my car yesterday and I wanted to check out a supercharger near the town I am moving to this summer (1000 miles away). However I could not see how many stalls were in use. How can I see that online or from my car?

NB: I can not see it in the car due to the supercharger being too far away from my right now (I think).

 

[boaterva]

Yeah, just gave this a try myself. It seems to be limited to a couple of hundred miles (300 KM?). Perhaps about the range of the car without recharging? From here, Northern Virginia in the US, I can see Supercharger status in Pittsburg, PA, and South Carolina, but not in Orlando, Florida, for example.

The status API was limited to the cars back when to reduce the load on it, and it looks like now it’s only when you are ‘close’ to it.

 

[XHabjab]

Touch the map on the monitor. Full screen is better. Touch the lightning bolt on the lower right of the screen. The map will zoom in or out to show nearby Superchargers. Each will have a row of red rectangles next to the locator pin, corresponding to the number of stalls. Some might be all red. These are stalls currently in use. The ones that are "hollow" or white in the center are not in use.

 

[boaterva]

Touch the map on the monitor. Full screen is better. Touch the lightning bolt on the lower right of the screen. The map will zoom in or out to show nearby Superchargers. Each will have a row of red rectangles next to the locator pin, corresponding to the number of stalls. Some might be all red. These are stalls currently in use. The ones that are "hollow" or white in the center are not in use.

We know how to use it. It doesn’t work more than a few hundred miles from where you are. Did you actually try it?

 

[XHabjab]

We know how to use it. It doesn’t work more than a few hundred miles from where you are. Did you actually try it?

Okay, navigate to your destination. Superchargers on route show up.

 

[boaterva]

Okay, navigate to your destination. Superchargers on route show up.

Did you try it? . It only works for a few hundred miles.

 

[XHabjab]

Okay, I just tried it, and the "other end" doesn't show the details, as you say. Mea culpa, but I swear I've done this before. I don't think it's brain fog.

 

[ucmndd]

At some point this changed to only query status for superchargers you’re in range of.

 

[boaterva]

Okay, I just tried it, and the "other end" doesn't show the details, as you say. Mea culpa, but I swear I've done this before. I don't think it's brain fog.

Yeah, I think it was all the overload on the API, as I mentioned. There was even an online webpage that used it and they were asked by Tesla to not do so. And now, of course, the only place where it works, in the car, can’t do it unless you are closer that ‘one car range unit’.

You’d think all these API servers would be (have been, could be) moved to AWS so they could be automatically sized as needed by the load. But nope, we can’t use something useful because.

I ageee, if I was moving to Orlando or Palo Alto, say, I’d like to be able to check on the Supercharger status from here.

 

[brianp6621]

I think it's also meant to dissuade people from trying to stretch and get to a charger out of range. Also it's of little to no use to look at a charger you can't reach as the status will certainly change by the time you get there.

 

[damp]

Yeah, I think it was all the overload on the API, as I mentioned. There was even an online webpage that used it and they were asked by Tesla to not do so.

API overload? That is bullshit. API's should be able to handle thousand and thousand of requests per second. If a website wanted to display this info they could cache the data in their own backend.

I see absolutely no reason for Tesla to have to restrict their API other than that they don't want anyone to use it outside of their cars. Which is a shame.

This is just a lack of willingness from Tesla, not a "api overload" kind of thing.

 

[whitex]

API overload? That is bullshit. API's should be able to handle thousand and thousand of requests per second. If a website wanted to display this info they could cache the data in their own backend.

I see absolutely no reason for Tesla to have to restrict their API other than that they don't want anyone to use it outside of their cars. Which is a shame.

This is just a lack of willingness from Tesla, not a "api overload" kind of thing.

Thousands and thousands of requests per second, times thousands and thousands of cars is an unnecessary load. Every time someone plugs in or unplugs, in any of the thousands of supercharging stalls, all cars would be getting the update (or all car would have to keep on querying, even worse). This is a smart optimization - supercharger status more than few hours away is irrelevant to the driver, unless it's out of service.

 

[TaoJones]

Long ago forgotten/neglected feature request was/is to have red/yellow/green pedestal health (polled at the usual intervals) along with grey and probably white, the latter two to show occupancy as red and grey do today.

Pedestal and site health is very useful info for the approaching driver. Pedestal roulette is not fun. For trips of longer duration, there’s time to drive 750 miles in a day, time to eat/shower/work, and there’s time to sleep. Pedestal roulette robs sleep time. Extrapolate from there.

Add flashing icons to show problem sites and yet more info is available to the traveling driver.

In the absence of pretty much any useful pedestal info, what I do now is wait until encountering the first bad pedestal. I then call Tesla with a list of the next 6-8 pedestals in that trip leg. They then tell me which pedestals are bad or good (whichever’s the shorter list per site), and off I go. 5 minutes up front can save hours as a result.

How much nicer it would be for the information to simply be automagically available to drivers en route.

Instead, we have “new” navigation that is “light years ahead”, but of course really isn’t.

More Kool Aid!

 

[P85_DA]

This feature was taken away back in 2016 on one of the earlier builds of 8.x ...when I got Tesla in early 2013 I could see all superchargers in the country .....

 

[bob_p]

NOTE that the console display will list the chargers currently in use. It will not list the chargers that are blocked (and inaccessible) or chargers that are having issues or not working.

On a recent trip, we stopped at one of the older supercharger locations, with 6 stalls. Only 2 were show in use - so we thought we'd be in good shape.

But...

1 stall was blocked with an ICE parked.

And the other 3 stalls had charger problems.

So there were really only 2 out of the 6 charging stalls that were working and available.

It was disappointing when I called Tesla after our car failed to charge in several of the stalls - only to hear, "yes, we are aware that several of the chargers are not working" - but that wasn't reflected on the console display, when it shows used and total stalls...

 

[P85_DA]

Which SC was this at ?

 

[damp]

Thousands and thousands of requests per second, times thousands and thousands of cars is an unnecessary load. Every time someone plugs in or unplugs, in any of the thousands of supercharging stalls, all cars would be getting the update (or all car would have to keep on querying, even worse). This is a smart optimization - supercharger status more than few hours away is irrelevant to the driver, unless it's out of service.

I hope you are not being serious right now. You think each car makes thousands of request per second? I don't even think the car updates Supercharger stalls every minute.

How is it irrelevant? I want to learn more about the trends at the supercharger to where I am moving. It is not irrelevant information at all.

 

[boaterva]

It would be nice to have more info than ‘occupied’ when what you care about is ‘available’ and the currently ‘available’ isn’t that but the negative of the other number, which is actually useless.