New Supercharger Locations

[Barklikeadog]

No, Superchargers are not the only way to charge a car.

Still, this thread is not about the value of destination charging vs. Supercharging. It is about how to influence the installation of chargers.

An outsider has a question...
Ive looked at locations and travel times for routes I would drive in a future Tesla pickup... obviously not happy and would want more locations.

I don't understand the idea that grocers or other entities should provide fuel for your vehicles. I don't expect trader joes to put gas in my truck for free while I shop. This seems a bit arrogant, am I wrong?

 

[RiverBrick]

I don't understand the idea that grocers or other entities should provide fuel for your vehicles. I don't expect trader joes to put gas in my truck for free while I shop. This seems a bit arrogant, am I wrong?

You're not wrong, but it's up to the business.

Similarly, a hotel could expect its guests to have data plans and not provide free WiFi, but that might put them at a competitive disadvantage.

 

[Barklikeadog]

You're not wrong, but it's up to the business.

Similarly, a hotel could expect its guests to have data plans and not provide free WiFi, but that might put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Hotels sure, you are paying for a service where the charge fee is baked into the cost of the room and you are paying for a parking space.
I don't understand the mentality that a costco, walmart, grocery store or wherever owes anyone free electricity for shopping there. Sure they
could do it, but it just doesn't make sense to me. not too long ago at a whole foods a guy was plugging in his car the same time I arrived. 20 mins later I'm
walking out and the car is gone. Do people really charge up their cars at night, drive 5 miles to the grocer, plug in for 20 mins, then drive 5 miles home only
to plug in again? I have to assume 99% of the traffic to whole foods is this type of scenario. I doubt the guy drove 200 miles before 10:30am. It's just odd.
Whole foods was getting that customer anyway, and what did he get out of it? If he is penny pinching then he is in the wrong store and bought the wrong car.
Anyway..

 

[israndy]

An outsider has a question...
I don't understand the idea that grocers or other entities should provide fuel for your vehicles. I don't expect trader joes to put gas in my truck for free while I shop. This seems a bit arrogant, am I wrong?

Hmmm... EVERY grocery store we frequent (2 Safeway's and one Nob Hill on our island, TJ's perhaps not) offer their own gas pumps and discounts based on shopping. Seems to me that putting in electricity for electric cars is exactly the same. With the gas cars, they offer a discount on the total price per gallon, with the electric cars they offer a discount on a full charge, as you cannot fully charge a car in 2 hours.

-Randy

 

[gnuarm]

Piecing together a few of your comments it sounds like you're maybe living in the Charlottesville, VA area and driving mostly US-15 to Frederick, MD and back. If so then you should be comforted by the current construction of the Supercharger in Haymarket, VA which is right along your route and once up and running (hopefully by year's end) will likely enable you to drive your round-trip route even in the deep cold without having to worry about a detour of more than maybe 500 feet.

Yes, I drove by it the other night and it looks nearly complete and it would be a big benefit. Rt 29 is not as heavily traveled as the major highways, but it leaves an open seam in the fabric of Superchargers. It wouldn't be a problem except that driving on the Rt 95/495/270 corridor makes one want to gouge their eyes out.

Frederick will come eventually. @ReddyLeaf already gave you the only concrete information that's likely to do much for helping you reach out to Tesla. My only other suggestion for an option would be to go to the other superchargers in the area, find out who owns the property and try to get ahold of them. Ask them how they got hooked up with Tesla and if they have contact info for whomever their interface was and attempt a direct message. But I would still class that as pretty low likelihood of success.

I'm not so sure. I think you have a good idea. I was involved in geocaching once. It involves hiding small containers in public places. Many such locations would require you to seek permission of the property owner. I did that a couple of times and was pleasantly surprised by the level of cooperation I received.

 

[TexasEV]

[

 

[TexasEV]

Hmmm... EVERY grocery store we frequent (2 Safeway's and one Nob Hill on our island, TJ's perhaps not) offer their own gas pumps and discounts based on shopping. Seems to me that putting in electricity for electric cars is exactly the same. With the gas cars, they offer a discount on the total price per gallon, with the electric cars they offer a discount on a full charge, as you cannot fully charge a car in 2 hours.

-Randy

It's not exactly the same, because installing Tesla destination charging as the OP is proposing means the store would be paying for the electricity, not selling it. There's no convenient way to charge for electricity provided by a Wall Connector. That's not the use they're intended for. If the store installed a commercial J1772 unit such as ChargePoint then it's set up to bill for use.

Teslas don't typically need to charge at stores when their owner goes shopping. You're supposed to be starting the day with a near-full charge. Destination charging is for destinations where you drive a long time to get there and you stay a long time.

 

[gnuarm]

An outsider has a question...
Ive looked at locations and travel times for routes I would drive in a future Tesla pickup... obviously not happy and would want more locations.

I don't understand the idea that grocers or other entities should provide fuel for your vehicles. I don't expect trader joes to put gas in my truck for free while I shop. This seems a bit arrogant, am I wrong?

I've never said they should be free. When Superchargers are installed the payment is determined by Tesla. When destination chargers are installed I don't know if or how payment would be managed. I do recall one set of Superchargers I came across in Alabama was in a pay parking lot.

I don't know why people are getting so bent about the cost of the electricity. It costs around $2 an hour to operate a destination charger (regardless of how many cars are plugged in since they share a single circuit). Heck, I see stores that give away coffee which will cost them many times $2 an hour. What store can't afford $2 an hour to attract clientele?

 

[gnuarm]

You're not wrong, but it's up to the business.

Similarly, a hotel could expect its guests to have data plans and not provide free WiFi, but that might put them at a competitive disadvantage.

I'm actually very impressed with how friendly hotels are about the whole "camping out while my car charges" thing. I forget the location, (Columbia perhaps) but a place I've been to several times between SC and TN is always very friendly to people using the Superchargers. I would have used their restaurant/lounge but the kitchen was closed so I just accepted the free wifi and left the place as clean as I found it.

 

[gnuarm]

Hotels sure, you are paying for a service where the charge fee is baked into the cost of the room and you are paying for a parking space.
I don't understand the mentality that a costco, walmart, grocery store or wherever owes anyone free electricity for shopping there. Sure they
could do it, but it just doesn't make sense to me. not too long ago at a whole foods a guy was plugging in his car the same time I arrived. 20 mins later I'm
walking out and the car is gone. Do people really charge up their cars at night, drive 5 miles to the grocer, plug in for 20 mins, then drive 5 miles home only
to plug in again? I have to assume 99% of the traffic to whole foods is this type of scenario. I doubt the guy drove 200 miles before 10:30am. It's just odd.
Whole foods was getting that customer anyway, and what did he get out of it? If he is penny pinching then he is in the wrong store and bought the wrong car.
Anyway..

You are assuming the guy could charge at night. I've discussed the utility of BEVs with a number of people in a number of different groups and there are times when people literally have no place to charge. Apartment dwellers have not accessible outlets. Town home owners can't string a cord across the walk way even if their parking spots were actually in front of their homes. So right there is a fairly large percentage of potential BEV owners who just plain can't charge at home.

BEVs simply can't become mainstream until there is adequate charging for all owners. Some of that will be charging where you travel locally. That doesn't require Superchargers, but destination chargers or even the lowly J-1772 helps put back on the juice it took to get there. Not only does this seem doable to me, it seems to be necessary ultimately. The corner gas station approach won't be viable with electric cars requiring even just 20 minutes to charge something useful. It will need to be a more diffuse distribution existing in the many places we go every day. Home is great, but work, shop and play are also needed.

With the continuing ramp up of the model 3, I am worried about the current charging facilities becoming overloaded making longer distance travel difficult.

 

[gnuarm]

It's not exactly the same, because installing Tesla destination charging as the OP is proposing means the store would be paying for the electricity, not selling it. There's no convenient way to charge for electricity provided by a Wall Connector. That's not the use they're intended for. If the store installed a commercial J1772 unit such as ChargePoint then it's set up to bill for use.

Teslas don't typically need to charge at stores when their owner goes shopping. You're supposed to be starting the day with a near-full charge. Destination charging is for destinations where you drive a long time to get there and you stay a long time.

I don't know why you have your opinion of what chargers are for and why they are where they are. Randy was making an analogy between the discounts (sometimes very deep) offered by stores on gas vs. the limited charging destination chargers would offer for the hour you are plugged in.

The fact is that it is not up to you or I to decide what the store wants to do or what chargers are for. "Starting the day with a full charge" is not even possible for many. I certainly hope Tesla isn't writing off everyone who lives in a town home or condo or apartment. That's a lot of cars they will never sell.

 

[TexasEV]

I don't know why you have your opinion of what chargers are for and why they are where they are. Randy was making an analogy between the discounts (sometimes very deep) offered by stores on gas vs. the limited charging destination chargers would offer for the hour you are plugged in.

The fact is that it is not up to you or I to decide what the store wants to do or what chargers are for. "Starting the day with a full charge" is not even possible for many. I certainly hope Tesla isn't writing off everyone who lives in a town home or condo or apartment. That's a lot of cars they will never sell.

I'm giving you the experience of Tesla's destination charging program with thousands of Wall Connectors provided to participants over the past 5 years. You can look at Tesla's destination charging program web page yourself to see who participates (and who doesn't). With rare exceptions, stores install J1772 charging stations if they want to provide EV charging capability for their local customers so they can provide convenience for short range EVs who may really need to charge to get back across town, and they have the capability to charge the customer for the electricity. They don't install Tesla Wall Connectors which only serves Teslas who don't need to charge to get to the store, and have no capability for payment. Hotels, on the other hand, are willing to pay the expense of electricity to attract long distance travelers who will spend one or more room nights. This is just fact, whether you think this is the way it should be or not.

 

[gnuarm]

I'm giving you the experience of Tesla's destination charging program with thousands of Wall Connectors provided to participants over the past 5 years. You can look at Tesla's destination charging program web page yourself to see who participates (and who doesn't). With rare exceptions, stores install J1772 charging stations if they want to provide EV charging capability for their local customers so they can provide convenience for short range EVs who may really need to charge to get back across town, and they have the capability to charge the customer for the electricity. They don't install Tesla Wall Connectors which only serves Teslas who don't need to charge to get to the store, and have no capability for payment. Hotels, on the other hand, are willing to pay the expense of electricity to attract long distance travelers who will spend one or more room nights. This is just fact, whether you think this is the way it should be or not.

I don't follow your reasoning at all. Why would hotels be any more inclined to provide Tesla only connections while other merchants would be more inclined to provide J-1772 connections? I can charge overnight with a J-1772 pretty much as easily as the HPWC. In fact the other night when I was one of three Teslas on the HPWC charging at some 15 mph, I considered boosting my charge rate by switching to the unused J-1772 connection.

As to your claim that non-hotel merchants are rare, let's look at Alabama, first on the list...

Benson's Appliance Center
Haint Blue Brewing Company
Jay Landings Marina
LuLu's Gulf Shores
The Gulf
University of North Alabama - Parking Lot A
University of North Alabama - Parking Lot E

24 hotels and 7 not hotels, or about 3 to 1. Seems far from "rare" to me.

Someone compared vendors providing BEV charging to discounted gasoline. I've seen more than one supermarket chain buy or build gas stations just to work with their stores. In comparison HPWCs are small change to a store or shopping center operator. I only see this increasing exponentially. As one shopping center adopts it others will want to jump on the band wagon to remain competitive. I would say the same about Superchargers but I expect Tesla will retain a tighter grip on locating these since they are paying their costs and operation.

BTW, merchant's aren't going to care about the $2 per hour to operate the HPWC. Practically NO ONE. So please just stop talking about how they will want to charge for the electricity. It isn't a factor in any business's plan.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I don't follow your reasoning at all. Why would hotels be any more inclined to provide Tesla only connections while other merchants would be more inclined to provide J-1772 connections? I can charge overnight with a J-1772 pretty much as easily as the HPWC. In fact the other night when I was one of three Teslas on the HPWC charging at some 15 mph, I considered boosting my charge rate by switching to the unused J-1772 connection.

In many parts of the country, a Tesla is the only electric car that will be able to make it between cities. Hotels don't put in J1772 because few cars from out of town would be able to drive to them. Teslas can take advantage of the Supercharger network to bridge the gap between cities and then charge with Tesla Destination WCs at night or when in town and not in a hurry to continue on the road trip.

 

[gnuarm]

In many parts of the country, a Tesla is the only electric car that will be able to make it between cities. Hotels don't put in J1772 because few cars from out of town would be able to drive to them. Teslas can take advantage of the Supercharger network to bridge the gap between cities and then charge with Tesla Destination WCs at night or when in town and not in a hurry to continue on the road trip.

I hear what you are saying, but it isn't strictly true. GM has been selling the Bolt with a 200 mile range for two years now. I don't know so much about other BEVs but I know the Nissan is selling a few. One kept me off the Chademo charger a couple of weeks ago. Until the model 3 started ramping up this past summer I don't know that Tesla was really much more prevalent than the other BEVs.

Then there is the fact that the J-1772 units will charge Teslas in addition to all the others. So while providing destination chargers are better supported in the Tesla trip planning software, the J-1772 units are actually a better solution for BEVs in general. In fact, it is to the detriment of Tesla owners they don't provide more info on non-Tesla charging units. I stayed in a hotel one night and the next morning had to spend an hour charging at a Supercharger a few miles away because I didn't know there was a J-1772 charging unit right at the motel I stayed in. In Frederick the one motel I know with charging provides a J-1772 unit.

What is really bad regarding charging is knowing where the chargers are! I've yet to find a single source for info on charging locations. It seems there are a lot of separate networks and very little sharing of info.

 

[mociaf9]

www.plugshare.com

 

[gnuarm]

www.plugshare.com

Thanks. That one does seem to have most of the chargers.

 

[mociaf9]

Thanks. That one does seem to have most of the chargers.

Be sure to check what the settings are in the filters tab. I'm not sure what the default settings are but it may hide some sites based on what the filters are set up for.

 

[TexasEV]

Thanks. That one does seem to have most of the chargers.

Never heard of Plugshare? That explains a lot.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I hear what you are saying, but it isn't strictly true. GM has been selling the Bolt with a 200 mile range for two years now. I don't know so much about other BEVs but I know the Nissan is selling a few. One kept me off the Chademo charger a couple of weeks ago. Until the model 3 started ramping up this past summer I don't know that Tesla was really much more prevalent than the other BEVs.

Then there is the fact that the J-1772 units will charge Teslas in addition to all the others. So while providing destination chargers are better supported in the Tesla trip planning software, the J-1772 units are actually a better solution for BEVs in general. In fact, it is to the detriment of Tesla owners they don't provide more info on non-Tesla charging units. I stayed in a hotel one night and the next morning had to spend an hour charging at a Supercharger a few miles away because I didn't know there was a J-1772 charging unit right at the motel I stayed in. In Frederick the one motel I know with charging provides a J-1772 unit.

What is really bad regarding charging is knowing where the chargers are! I've yet to find a single source for info on charging locations. It seems there are a lot of separate networks and very little sharing of info.

It simply is true. Notice how I said "in many parts of the country". Try driving a car with CHAdeMO in the Rocky Mountain and Plains states. If you remove the "Coming Soon" chargers from the map shown below, you really can't drive a non-Tesla electric car on a road trip across North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, etc.