Malfunctioning Supercharger Stalls

[David99]

My recommendation is to NEVER mark a stall as inoperative unless it fails to begin charging, or results in a hard charging error after multiple attempts. Once you conclude that the charger is truly busted, notify Tesla... Probably best via email to [email protected] ... Placing a call to Tesla support can result in lengthy hold times (as we all know) and they really don't want you to call them about Superchargers anyway (as anyone who's listened to the prompt message already knows). Then, and only then, place a traffic cone to block the stall. Do not throw the wand and cable over top of the pedestal *please*, as this adversely wears the cable over time. It's just not a positioning that the cable was designed for.

I respectfully disagree. I am supercharging a lot and visit many sites over and over. The method has been working great. I have been testing stalls 'marked' like that and almost always found it to be not working or giving me a useless charge rate (less than 5 kW). It certainly isn't vandalism. And to be honest, since Tesla is the only charge network provider without accepting phone calls when a site or stall isn't work, I'm all for users helping each other out. If Tesla, as they claim, has a robust system to find out if a site has issues, hanging the cable up should not make a difference. Just the fact that a site is frequently full yet one stall never gets used should cause their system to set a red flag on this stalls/site. The cable is just fine at this angle. No one has traffic cones in their cars, let alone to just leave them behind.

The problem is really that Tesla's Superchargers have become far less reliable and they not enough people to fix maintain and fix them. I have seen sites getting serviced and just days later another stall isn't working again and not getting fixed for another 4 weeks. That's nnot acceptable on sites that are full every single day. The first years after I bought my Tesla in 2014 were different. I never had a single issue on any site. Now it's common.

 

[PLUS EV]

Would be nice if Tesla would at least allow us to crowd source information. Like click on the supercharger in the Nav, select a stall and type a note about the problem. Kind of like Plugshare, but they could limit it to only people who are currently plugged into the supercharger or even the particular stall to increase the signal:noise ratio. For that matter, they could also only allow people with say 100 supercharges at a minimum of 10 different locations under their belt to prevent n00bs from spreading bad information. I have seen at times an incredible amount of misinformation shared by fellow Tesla owners in various Tesla groups. For example, I recently saw a new Model 3 owner report that an urban supercharger was "broken" because it only provided 72kW

 

[mathwhiz]

I respectfully disagree. I am supercharging a lot and visit many sites over and over. The method has been working great. I have been testing stalls 'marked' like that and almost always found it to be not working or giving me a useless charge rate (less than 5 kW). It certainly isn't vandalism. And to be honest, since Tesla is the only charge network provider without accepting phone calls when a site or stall isn't work, I'm all for users helping each other out. If Tesla, as they claim, has a robust system to find out if a site has issues, hanging the cable up should not make a difference. Just the fact that a site is frequently full yet one stall never gets used should cause their system to set a red flag on this stalls/site. The cable is just fine at this angle. No one has traffic cones in their cars, let alone to just leave them behind.

The problem is really that Tesla's Superchargers have become far less reliable and they not enough people to fix maintain and fix them. I have seen sites getting serviced and just days later another stall isn't working again and not getting fixed for another 4 weeks. That's nnot acceptable on sites that are full every single day. The first years after I bought my Tesla in 2014 were different. I never had a single issue on any site. Now it's common.

David, no argument here over Tesla having slacked on Supercharger maintenance... And although we both have roughly equivalent Supercharger experience, I can only fully witness to San Clemente, having been there nearly every single day since last September. Nevertheless, there's no way it makes sense to have up to six (6) out of 21 pedestals going unused when there's a lineup of up to a dozen owners waiting to charge. Even stalls operating at reduced rate charge faster than closed off ones... And I've dutifully taken the time to test and reopen the 90% (+) of stalls incorrectly marked as inop, and reporting all those actually busted... It hasn't been easy... Remember, I'm there every morning, so I can see any that get repeatedly marked, and this hasn't substantially happened... Encouraging Tesla owners broadly to adopt this 'marking protocol' can only be detrimental to charging availability. I've seen this first hand at San Clemente.

As far as getting Tesla to step up Supercharger maintenance, pestering them with reports is the best route.

 

[mathwhiz]

Would be nice if Tesla would at least allow us to crowd source information. Like click on the supercharger in the Nav, select a stall and type a note about the problem. Kind of like Plugshare, but they could limit it to only people who are currently plugged into the supercharger or even the particular stall to increase the signal:noise ratio. For that matter, they could also only allow people with say 100 supercharges at a minimum of 10 different locations under their belt to prevent n00bs from spreading bad information. I have seen at times an incredible amount of misinformation shared by fellow Tesla owners in various Tesla groups. For example, I recently saw a new Model 3 owner report that an urban supercharger was "broken" because it only provided 72kW

I agree wholeheartedly with your idea. This is something that Tesla should be able to implement effectively, and with reasonable effort. Whether Tesla is into the idea of wading thru a flood of written feedback is another issue...

On the issue of Tesla Supercharger maintenance, I must recognize detailed effort from them in the past months or so, to improve the charge availability of San Clemente. Yes, it took a withering amount of complaint reports but, they took notice and acted... Getting more version 3 sites will, over time, reduce the pain of that the sharing protocol adds.

 

[David99]

Whatever system they come up with to report broken stalls, it is not helping unless they actually send service people out there to fix the issues. That's the root of the problem. They just don't have enough people to maintain the sites properly.

 

[cpa]

Whatever system they come up with to report broken stalls, it is not helping unless they actually send service people out there to fix the issues. That's the root of the problem. They just don't have enough people to maintain the sites properly.

Indeed. But Tesla could mitigate the problem if they figured out a way to communicate to us in our cars which stalls were out of service, and which stalls were "reduced" power, and which stalls were functioning as intended. I would think that it would be easy to display on the touchscreen when we dial into a Supercharger that stalls 2A, 2B, and 4B do not work and stall 4A has reduced service.

I remember the Supercharging data screens that used to show the stalls at the busiest Superchargers. Tesla could implement that same sort of display on the touchscreens once we were proximate to the stalls. Only the display would depict the broken stalls with a red "X" and the reduced output stalls with a yellow "R" or something. Fully functioning stalls would be green.

 

[David99]

Indeed. But Tesla could mitigate the problem if they figured out a way to communicate to us in our cars which stalls were out of service, and which stalls were "reduced" power, and which stalls were functioning as intended. I would think that it would be easy to display on the touchscreen when we dial into a Supercharger that stalls 2A, 2B, and 4B do not work and stall 4A has reduced service.

I remember the Supercharging data screens that used to show the stalls at the busiest Superchargers. Tesla could implement that same sort of display on the touchscreens once we were proximate to the stalls. Only the display would depict the broken stalls with a red "X" and the reduced output stalls with a yellow "R" or something. Fully functioning stalls would be green.

There would be many ways to do that. Tesla has been very consistent in never communicating or providing any info that could possibly be showing a flaw, issue or weakness. So I don't expect them to do anything in that regard