Chuq
Active Member
I emailed Blueshift about this earlier, has now been added to supercharge.info as an eight bay SC (I assume he uses that as the default)
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Minnesota Superchargers (location speculation, discussion)
- Thread starter Thxdude
- Start date
Nice work. I had flipped through the meeting PDFs back through March and then decided to go to bed
24/7 grocery stores seem to be popular locations. The upcoming Green Bay one should also be in a Festival parking lot (like Sheboygan's).
Looking forward to having this SuperCharger available to make travel to the Twin Cities much more painless for charging.
Nice work. I had flipped through the meeting PDFs back through March and then decided to go to bed
24/7 grocery stores seem to be popular locations. The upcoming Green Bay one should also be in a Festival parking lot (like Sheboygan's).
Looking forward to having this SuperCharger available to make travel to the Twin Cities much more painless for charging.
The trick is to do a Google search like this: Tesla site:ci.oakdale.mn.us so you don't have to look through all the minutes by hand.
I think grocery stores are actually a poor choice of location. It is way too easy for locals to use the superchargers to save some money while getting their weekly groceries.
No easier than stopping while eating out.
In Minnesota, the savings is not all that much. Most EV owners are paying between five and eleven cents/kWh
Yeah, did that (via DuckDuckGo) but I must have fat fingered something (was on my iPad).
Great news! We knew something was coming, just a matter of time. Now, I've been wondering about the I-94 corridor. Fargo ND is a forgone conclusion due to the crossing interstates, but will there be one (say Alexandria or Sauk Center) or two SC's (St. Cloud and Alexandria/Fergus Falls) on I-94 between MSP and Fargo? With the future M3 and extreme winter temps, will Tesla target 100 mi spacing in these areas?
I think grocery stores are a great location. I'll probably never use this SC because it's MUCH easier to just charge in my garage every night. But for people who don't have garages, such as apartment dwellers, having it at the grocery store means you can fill up once a week while you do your shopping.
Chuq
Active Member
I expect they'll go with the shorter spacing.
Until now, most of the SCs on long distance routes have been at a gap of about 120 miles / 180 km, give or take 10%. This appeared to be a distance where an 85 or higher could hit every second one (or alternatively, one SC being down or busy wasn't a distaster). Back then, no-one knew what sort of rate of growth to expect.
I imagine with the increase in number of vehicles on the road, Tesla will want to afford the same distances of the initial rollout to the shorter range vehicles. They'll want to get to the point where you don't have to meticulously plan your trip and there is a SC every hour.
I expect Tesla now know that eventually density of SC locations will have to increase, so they may as well put them slightly closer together now. Not to mention the other Minnesota locations are a shorter distance apart.
Stopped at the Hy Vee tonight and looked around, but no signs of construction so far. I took some pictures, but there's really nothing to show. Asked the fellow overseeing the checkouts (manager-on-duty?) if he'd heard anything about Tesla putting in chargers, and he said he had not. It's a nice big parking lot. My guess is the chargers will be located in the SW corner of the lot, near the Hy Vee sign along 10th St, which would be quite visible from the street and far enough away from the building that ICEing would not be a problem.
ElectricTundra
P85D AP1
I agree. I also have a strong preference for a good coffee place (Starbucks or, ideally, better) and a couple of good restaurant choices that are safe to walk to from the chargers.
I guess I would see this the other way around. In this case, Hyvee is going to be employee owned = probably easy to strike a deal to install the stations on the property. For the grocery store, almost guarantees you are going to go in and pick something up. The only negative as you mentioned is really if the stations "fill up" because of too many Telsas. In this case, they would just add more station and densify the area with another location. Win, win for everyone. I actually think the "habit" of charging (filling up) while doing your grocery run makes perfect sense for Telsa. The one caveat is perhaps the smaller grocery stores and parking lots where it would be challenge to give up slots to only Tesla's.
The nice thing about Hy-Vee is that they have a coffee place inside the store (Starbucks in the stores I've been too, including Oakdale), along with a quick service "restaurant". At least in Rochester, where 2 chargepoint chargers are installed, they have a full on restaurant attached, plus a grill for short order items and a complete salad bar. There's also a comfortable area to sit and eat/work, with outlets and free wifi. There's one very close to the Albert Lea SC as well that is now our go-to spot when we drive through because they offer all of this. I'm a fan.
ElectricTundra
P85D AP1
How nice of a place? And how much does atmosphere matter?
Many that I've seen in grocery stores are windowless affairs or they're right by checkout so you have to listen to that. Not a very nice place to sit with your laptop for 30 minutes while your car charges (and a surprising number don't even have any tables or chairs).
I haven't had a similar experience to the HyVee's I noted in the post, not sure what the layout is elsewhere. For me, it was similar to going to a starbucks, but with booths.
hockeythug
Active Member
*Apologizes to Minnesota owners who don't live on the West side of the city. *
Can debate if grocery stores are a good idea or not separately but this spot specifically looks very strategically placed. A lot of current owners live and work on the West side of the Twin Cites and traveling crosstown to supercharge would be going a little far.
It's also good for people traveling to Northern Minnesota coming from Eastern and Southern Minnesota via I-94 west and 35e North. Good decision to put it off 694. You can use the 494/694 loop and bypass downtown St.Paul/Minneapolis. The network is for long distance travel and this location fits the bill.
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ElectricTundra
P85D AP1
It looked like they had just started.
Yeah, my wife and I drive out there to grocery shop just because we like it better than the other options around in STP.
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