The Richmond, VA location uses similar (maybe the same) signs. It's a compromise between Tesla and the owner of the parking lot/land. Tesla would prefer dedicated spots. The land owner doesn't want to dedicate 8 parking spots when they have no experience to help them judge how frequent the chargers will be used, and they don't want to end up causing friction for non Tesla customers.
So you end up with some spaces marked as general parking and others as dedicated. In Richmond they wired the A stalls together in general parking, and the B stalls together in the dedicated slots (I might have that backwards but it doesn't matter) to maximize the power available to the dedicated spots.
The problem, as started above, is nobody is going to understand what "supercharger general parking" means.
"You can park here if all other parking is taken".
you just helped me fully understand what is going on here in Vacaville.
similar, but different.
There are 8 spots. The first 4 are marked specifically for teslas, and the other 4 are marked as general time limited parking. The spots are labeled 1a 2a 3a 4a 1b 2b 3b 4b ... So each of the sites in the dedicated spots are paired with one in a non dedicated spot. They are hoping we fill these up left to right.
It would be nice if they put out some information on this, rather than having it so convoluted I, who has thought about that location a lot, figure it out long after the fact through deductive reasoning. There should be signage, and/or each specific web page should have the recommended stall usage order posted (and maybe some background as to why). There should also be a pop up notification with a link to the superchargers specific web page when the car is put into park in the vicinity of a supercharger (it knows when I'm near home, I think it can figure this out).
It would have been easiest if they would have just standardized the methods at all superchargers, but they screwed the pooch n that one a long time ago and there is no fixing it now. Some spots are 1a 1b 2a 2b, while others are 1a 2a... Like vacaville... Then they could just send an email to all owners with a "smart stall selection method"...
they should still email all owners and let them know that there is a smart method at all... Almost every time I have up used one, I have had to advise someone that the stall they are about to park in isn't the best available option. All tesla would have to do is tell owners to look at the number on the chargers and if there are two spots labeled 1a and 1b and both are open, park in 1a... If not, look at 2a and 2b for the same info.... If all pairs have at least one car, park in 1b... They could also further explain that "paired chargers share charge".... Pairing is sharing
