Map routing/super charger question

[sleepydoc]

I was driving from Madison, WI to Minneapolis, MN last week. When I tried plugging the route into the Tesla mapping app, it routed me through Rochester, MN rather than straight up 94, despite the fact that this route would add almost 1.5 hours to the trip. I looked on Apple Maps and Google maps and both showed no accidents or traffic that would cause delays and gave approximately the same travel time. I ended up putting in the Super Charger as my destination to force it to give me a reasonable route, but what the heck?

The Tesla Nav app is already a bit behind Apple and Google in that it doesn't give you any options or allow you to add stops, but to give such a horrible route makes it all but worthless except you're forced to use it if you want to precondition for charging. It makes me want CarPlay even more. Has anyone else had this issue?

 

[jcanoe]

The Supercharger in Eau Claire may have been experiencing degraded service, i.e. when more than 50% of the charging spaces are unavailable. It could have be an electrical outage or simply paving, striping the lines in the parking lot.

 

[sleepydoc]

The charger in Eau Claire was busy, but I’m not sure how the map software could predict how busy it would be 90-120 minutes ahead of time, and even if I had to wait, there’s no way it would compensate for an extra hour and a half of travel time.

 

[jcanoe]

The charger in Eau Claire was busy, but I’m not sure how the map software could predict how busy it would be 90-120 minutes ahead of time, and even if I had to wait, there’s no way it would compensate for an extra hour and a half of travel time.

Issues like this will be solved when there are many more Supercharger locations.

 

[Darblish]

Tesla made a comment during/after their shareholder meeting to the effect of “we take into account how busy a supercharger is when deciding how many people to route there,” so it might not just be that the charger is busy now. It could be that the charger has more people currently navigating towards it than their algorithm (accurate or not) believes it can handle.

Say - Mark P.'s Question

Service remains an issue with appointments available weeks, or even months, out. Likewise, Supercharger wait times have become untenable at some locations. What concrete steps is Tesla taking to improve the customer experience in these two key areas?

saytechnologies.com

If you generally know the route, just start driving it. Eventually the vehicle will reroute/recalculate and accept where you’re going. Otherwise, I sometimes just use ABRP and navigate to the next charger it suggests.

 

[sleepydoc]

Tesla made a comment during/after their shareholder meeting to the effect of “we take into account how busy a supercharger is when deciding how many people to route there,” so it might not just be that the charger is busy now. It could be that the charger has more people currently navigating towards it than their algorithm (accurate or not) believes it can handle.

Say - Mark P.'s Question

Service remains an issue with appointments available weeks, or even months, out. Likewise, Supercharger wait times have become untenable at some locations. What concrete steps is Tesla taking to improve the customer experience in these two key areas?

saytechnologies.com

If you generally know the route, just start driving it. Eventually the vehicle will reroute/recalculate and accept where you’re going. Otherwise, I sometimes just use ABRP and navigate to the next charger it suggests.

So Tesla advertises its supercharger network as a feature and benefit to buying a Tesla. But they don’t upgrade or expand the network enough so they send you out of the way, wasting time, miles and money. If that‘s true, it seems kind of like a bait and switch.

I did end up simply driving because I knew the route and I suspected that may be the case, but it also means I can’t really trust the tesla mapping app, either.

 

[Darblish]

So Tesla advertises its supercharger network as a feature and benefit to buying a Tesla. But they don’t upgrade or expand the network enough so they send you out of the way, wasting time, miles and money. If that‘s true, it seems kind of like a bait and switch.

I did end up simply driving because I knew the route and I suspected that may be the case, but it also means I can’t really trust the tesla mapping app, either.

It could be that what you saw is what was being referenced, where the vehicle was trying to avoid a line at the charger (and you were unlucky enough to have the range/timing to get a weird or delayed route). It could also be, based on the fact that sometimes my phone does similar things, that their routing engine just did a dumb thing and for some reason excluded the “correct” route from its calculation.

I’m completely willing to call out Tesla when they do something stupid, but I can’t agree that the supercharger network is a “bait and switch.” Get ABRP and plan a trip in a Model Y, then switch to a Leaf or ID.4. We’re still nowhere near the point that EVs can charge as flexibly as gas cars can fill up (and I don’t think anyone is saying that’s the case), but of the things to get on Tesla’s back about, the size of their charging network compared to competitors is a confusing one to choose.

If the network was “done” and no longer being significantly expanded, then I’d agree with you, but it’s literally twice the size it was a couple of years ago and is supposed to be 3 times the size it is now in the next year or two.