Multiple CA Supercharger locations down in past 5 months: breakdowns, vandalism, or theft?

[cranker2k]

I decided to use an official source for information: the in-car nav. What I see in my S right now is that Vacaville is not operational. I also see that Gustine, Buttonwillow, and Bakersfield continue to be not operational.

All other California Superchargers show as fully operational except for Fremont (#1, the location at the factory right next to the delivery center area) which shows "Reduced service". That is likely not related to any of the non-operational locations.

IMPORTANT: Now that we have realtime Supercharger status in the car nav, use it! Before starting out on any trip where you will be using a Supercharger, check its status in the car nav.

While on the road, I would call the 24/7 Tesla Service and inquire. Sometimes the status are wrong. For example, earlier this year coming back LA to Bay Area, Harris Ranch showed non-operational. i called and the person said they are operational but use stalls 4-6 for maximum power. Another time I was going to Fremont station late and all were down but nav showed up. I called the 24/7 and they apologized and said someone forgot to update.

So the moral of the story is when in doubt (or need double confirmation), call Tesla 24/7 (e.g., road side assistance if you are driving). They'll forward to the center that can tell you the real status plus some hints on individual charging units.

 

[Ulmo]

I just returned from my car to check on these outages:

First, the bad news: The touchscreen display indicates that Manteca is down.

The good news is that Bakersfield-West and Buttonwillow are active, and the map showed chargers in use.

Gustine indicated that there was temporarily reduced service. All but two of the spots on the little displayed battery were red.

Repairs seemingly are underway! That was decent turnaround for a pandemic; 2.5 days, most of which was weekend, and mostly Sunday, at that, and mostly of. I wonder how much stock spares vs. shipments were used to repair.

 

[beths11]

To clarify my "indio" post. Yes, I was on sight. The repair truck was on site. The repair person indicated it was vandalism and that the outdoor areas would need to be made more secure.

 

[skitch23]

I really hope this gets addressed sooner rather than later. As a 60 owner, I don't have a lot of room for error if a SC is down either for maintenance or vandalism. Had I been returning home from Indian Wells two days later I would have been stuck in Indio.

I don't even want to imagine if Quartzsite gets hit.

Calling roadside ahead of time to verify SC status doesn't really help much. If they tell you a station is down, you are left scrambling to find an ICE (last minute rental cars aren't usually super cheap). Or worse if you are on your way home and a station is down, you are SOL since you aren't going to abandon your car. You'd either have to have Tesla tow you to the next stop or wait for repairs to be made which who knows how long that would take.

 

[PLUS EV]

I really hope this gets addressed sooner rather than later. As a 60 owner, I don't have a lot of room for error if a SC is down either for maintenance or vandalism. Had I been returning home from Indian Wells two days later I would have been stuck in Indio.

I don't even want to imagine if Quartzsite gets hit.

Calling roadside ahead of time to verify SC status doesn't really help much. If they tell you a station is down, you are left scrambling to find an ICE (last minute rental cars aren't usually super cheap). Or worse if you are on your way home and a station is down, you are SOL since you aren't going to abandon your car. You'd either have to have Tesla tow you to the next stop or wait for repairs to be made which who knows how long that would take.

Well it's not like Superchargers are the only way to charge a Tesla, so I think you are exaggerating a bit here.

 

[4SUPER9]

Well it's not like Superchargers are the only way to charge a Tesla, so I think you are exaggerating a bit here.

Really? How so? If he leaves with a full SOC, and arrives, let's say, at Indio needing a 90% charge to get home, is he supposed to find a L2 charger and charge for 8 hours? No, I would think not. While he may not be entirely "stuck", this would certainly put a damper on things, in a pretty significant way for most of us. I think a call Tesla asking for a tow to the next SC would not be unreasonable.

 

[TexasEV]

Really? How so? If he leaves with a full SOC, and arrives, let's say, at Indio needing a 90% charge to get home, is he supposed to find a L2 charger and charge for 8 hours? No, I would think not. While he may not be entirely "stuck", this would certainly put a damper on things, in a pretty significant way for most of us. I think a call Tesla asking for a tow to the next SC would not be unreasonable.

I agree, if I'm on a road trip out west and a supercharger is not available, it would kill a whole day.

 

[skitch23]

I agree, if I'm on a road trip out west and a supercharger is not available, it would kill a whole day.

Exactly. I made a full charge when we went up to the factory stores in Cabazon and then used those miles to drive all over Palm Desert over the weekend so I was pretty low on juice when we pulled into Indio on the way home. If I would have had to find an L2, we wouldn't have made it home til 4am the next morning.... not the worst thing in the world, but certainly not fun especially when you are traveling with family and you have to be at work at 6:30am that morning.

 

[DOCAL]

Well it's not like Superchargers are the only way to charge a Tesla, so I think you are exaggerating a bit here.

If you're on a road trip, reaching the next supercharger with low SoC, you might not have another option that's close enough to make it to.

 

[mudfud]

I am driving up I-5 from San Diego.

SD, Burbank were fine.

3 Bakersfield slots are wrapped w yellow tape. The one that I used was full power.

2a is not working at Harris Ranch. I called Tesla and it's been reported. I'll put a plastic bag on it when I leave. I asked what was going on w all the chargers and service person isn't sure but they're thinking vandalism or theft.

Guess it's good that we can see on the maps what is or isn't working, and how full the slots are

Hope they don't have to put vaults around the equipment.

 

[jeffro01]

All I can say is whomever is doing this vandalism, whether it be one person or many different ones, when they are eventually caught I hope it's the high voltage that catches them and they end up like a piece of chicken from KFC... I have no sympathy for vandals and hope they get the most severe punishment available which when working with high voltage electricity, electrocution seems fitting...

Jeff

 

[ecarfan]

All I can say is whomever is doing this vandalism

My opinion: I think it is unlikely these Supercharger problems are due to vandalism, as a Google search defines the word.

1. action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
   
   I think the most likely explanation is theft of valuable parts, like circuit breakers, that can be resold. It is true that in the process of stealing the parts "destruction or damage" does certainly occur. But the common usage of the term "vandalism" is destruction or damage solely for the purpose of causing destruction or damage. While that may be occurring at the Supercharger locations I listed at the beginning of this thread, it seems more likely that most of the instances were about theft, not simple vandalism.
   
   In my opinion.

 

[bmah]

Just to provide a cross-reference, someone just arrived at Vacaville and confirmed that it's down. (There's a little more to the story, although I'm not exactly clear on some of the details and asked for more...he's probably busy right now though.)

Supercharger - Vacaville

Bruce.

 

[Merrill]

I do not think that if these were down from vandalism Tesla would tell anyone that was the case.

 

[beths11]

I do not think that if these were down from vandalism Tesla would tell anyone that was the case.

I sent a note to Tesla Technical support asking specifically about the above mentioned SC outages. It was forwarded to the SC team. I am not holding my breath, but I do believe as users of a system, which is a critical component of the ability for long distance travel, we are owed an explanation of the issues, and Tesla's solution to prevent further problems.

 

[Merrill]

I sent a note to Tesla Technical support asking specifically about the above mentioned SC outages. It was forwarded to the SC team. I am not holding my breath, but I do believe as users of a system, which is a critical component of the ability for long distance travel, we are owed an explanation of the issues, and Tesla's solution to prevent further problems.

I did the same and all I got was our service team has repaired both the Vacaville and Petaluma superchargers. No explanation of the cause.

 

[PLUS EV]

I sent a note to Tesla Technical support asking specifically about the above mentioned SC outages. It was forwarded to the SC team. I am not holding my breath, but I do believe as users of a system, which is a critical component of the ability for long distance travel, we are owed an explanation of the issues, and Tesla's solution to prevent further problems.

I don't think it's in our best interest for them to release to the public the steps they've taken to increase security. There's security theater and then there's actual security. I prefer the latter.

 

[PLUS EV]

I noticed round the clock security at Buttonwillow today so that might answer some questions (or at least lead to more accurate speculation .

The funny part is I was charging middle of the night and was fairly uncomfortable with this guy just sitting in his unmarked car in the corner of the parking lot watching me the whole time. It was only later when I saw him get out of his car that I noticed his security uniform. Then this afternoon there was a different employee in a different car (they appear to use their personal cars) sitting and watching with the same security uniform on.

Drove past the Stockdale Highway Supercharger this afternoon out of curiosity and didn't notice any security. Then again it was a fairly busy area during the afternoon so maybe they don't bother at that time or I just couldn't notice the security officer sitting in one of the many cars.

 

[wdolson]

I noticed round the clock security at Buttonwillow today so that might answer some questions (or at least lead to more accurate speculation .

The funny part is I was charging middle of the night and was fairly uncomfortable with this guy just sitting in his unmarked car in the corner of the parking lot watching me the whole time. It was only later when I saw him get out of his car that I noticed his security uniform. Then this afternoon there was a different employee in a different car (they appear to use their personal cars) sitting and watching with the same security uniform on.

Drove past the Stockdale Highway Supercharger this afternoon out of curiosity and didn't notice any security. Then again it was a fairly busy area during the afternoon so maybe they don't bother at that time or I just couldn't notice the security officer sitting in one of the many cars.

They may have security cameras up in some locations, but are using live security people at the locations that don't have cameras yet.

 

[suraj1194]

I stopped by Vacaville to charge last Friday (24th) evening past 9pm. It was raining heavily, and yet between 5-7 stalls were taken, out of 8 total. Never seen that place so crowded, and I figured it was related to the recent outages resulting in diverted traffic. Even parking was a little hard since the rear camera was being obscured by the rain drops and cascading water over the lens.