Nightmare! (Supercharger queues)

[Cilonen]

Warwick south services, lunchtime today (27th) -
All chargers in use, 7 Tesla's waiting, and all gridserve taken.
At least the Tesla owners were polite and setup (and maintained) an orderly queue.

Waited 20 min for a charger, but was done & out in 16min for the next driver.
Warwick northbound showing waits as well.

 

[LoudMusic]

People's definitions of "nightmare" is ruining the value of the word.

 

[Sean.]

Busy.

It's the holidays. Move on (if you have charge...sorry)

 

[Adopado]

I intentionally drowned a young goat just before waking this morning. It was horrendous and I felt terrible. Now that was a nightmare.

 

[Js1977]

There was plenty of these stories knocking about when there was a petrol/diesel shortage (mostly media fed) not that long ago. A nightmare would be more in the way keep finding chargers that were not working... Sounds more like a little inconvenience unless you were running late for something somewhat critical... nothing here to see

 

[Utumno]

Warwick south services, lunchtime today (27th) -
All chargers in use, 7 Tesla's waiting, and all gridserve taken.
At least the Tesla owners were polite and setup (and maintained) an orderly queue.

Waited 20 min for a charger, but was done & out in 16min for the next driver.
Warwick northbound showing waits as well.

“Move on to Banbury instead” would have been my advice.

You then have the choice of Supercharger, InstaVolt and Osprey all within easy reach of the M40 junction.

 

[VT_EE]

Sounds like charging at some locations in California.

 

[Dilly]

My wife’s PHEV blocked access to my charger last week.
Now that could have turned into a nightmare

 

[Whyone]

Trust me on this one - the situation you describe is very far from a 'nightmare'.

 

[init6]

The car would have told you that there was a queue and how long you'd have to wait - so not sure why it came as a surprise?

 

[thewishy]

The infrastructure on the M6/M40 corridor is starting to creak a little bit, especially the v2 superchargers which weren't really sized for the number of Tesla's on the road these days.

My experience thus far has been a 20 minute wait going down from Scotland and 10 minutes going up at Gretna Green. Even if the queue looks big, people are generally very reasonable, a queue is formed and people are quick to get on the charger and let the next person in ASAP.

On that stretch, Banbury and Birmingham both have a larger number of faster v3 chargers, it's a little bit of shame you didn't have enough charge left to push a little further.

 

[Masklin]

There was queuing at Rugby services on the way north last week. The queue of Teslas waiting was blocking access to the Gridserve chargers such that folk heading for them had to go against the car park’s one way arrows system.

Queuing will likely only get worse and should probably be accommodated in the design of charging locations now, but I expect it will be in the same way as the Supercharger bay design has been in order to accommodate opening up the network.

 

[Cilonen]

The car would have told you that there was a queue and how long you'd have to wait - so not sure why it came as a surprise?

When I selected it there were 3 bays free, and I was just 10 mins away.... Kids needed the loo and were getting hangry, so Banbury wasn't an option (and system showed it as full while I was waiting at Warwick anyway).

I put in enough to get me to Newport, & charged again there for the final step of our journey to west Wales.


As for nightmare - 1 of my twins has marked travel sickness and our route was altered from the norm due to roadworks closing a stretch of the M42, so having to run the A46 from Coventry to Strensham was not a pleasant diversion! Overall, the journey was extended by nearly 2 hours, but I narrowly avoided having to clean the car interior

 

[GRiLLA]

My brain is hurting trying to imagine how Warwick or Banbury would be part of a route to Newport including the M42 at some point. The roads were certainly busy today, we drove Oxford - Ashbourne and back but fortunately didn't need to charge

 

[Js1977]

My brain is hurting trying to imagine how Warwick or Banbury would be part of a route to Newport including the M42 at some point. The roads were certainly busy today, we drove Oxford - Ashbourne and back but fortunately didn't need to charge

This might make sense after all....maybe he dreamed it

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Coventry

And that's cleared up the confusion of the thread title.

 

[Utumno]

When I selected it there were 3 bays free, and I was just 10 mins away.... Kids needed the loo and were getting hangry, so Banbury wasn't an option (and system showed it as full while I was waiting at Warwick anyway).

I put in enough to get me to Newport, & charged again there for the final step of our journey to west Wales.


As for nightmare - 1 of my twins has marked travel sickness and our route was altered from the norm due to roadworks closing a stretch of the M42, so having to run the A46 from Coventry to Strensham was not a pleasant diversion! Overall, the journey was extended by nearly 2 hours, but I narrowly avoided having to clean the car interior

Apologies I assumed you were southbound rather than westbound! Right so the nav sent you down the A46 then down the M40 to Warwick southbound services and following that looped you back to rejoin the A46. Ugh.

Given the new information I’d have stopped on the McDonalds at Longbridge just off the A46 at the M40 junction, which has 4x 125kW InstaVolts. I guess Tesla’s nav didn’t show that at the time though. ABRP is your friend…

Sorry to hear about the travel sickness - one of my sons suffers and travelling could be a real bind when it took him.

 

[DrJFoster]

I've heard some "horror, nightmare, apocalyptic" stories from around the country yesterday. 20 cars waiting for over 2 hours at the services on the M6 in Cumbria, Telford queues of 4 cars (last stop before mid Wales) etc. I guess its seasonal traffic. I wonder if this is going to be like our ability to deal with snow? As its only once or twice a year, the infrastructure to deal with it will never be built and we just suffer for those few days because the other 361 days a year it's fine. (I've never had to wait more than a few minutes for a charger in a number of years but have heard of these queues a few times in that time).

 

[Jason71]

I've heard some "horror, nightmare, apocalyptic" stories from around the country yesterday. 20 cars waiting for over 2 hours at the services on the M6 in Cumbria, Telford queues of 4 cars (last stop before mid Wales) etc. I guess its seasonal traffic. I wonder if this is going to be like our ability to deal with snow? As its only once or twice a year, the infrastructure to deal with it will never be built and we just suffer for those few days because the other 361 days a year it's fine. (I've never had to wait more than a few minutes for a charger in a number of years but have heard of these queues a few times in that time).

That is exactly what will happen. There is no profit in building infrastructure that is only needed a couple of times a year. Welcome to the new normal.

 

[candida]

I had to do the home to Heathrow run and back before and after Christmas, coming back yesterday. It’s part of a run I’m doing regularly for work.
Happily I charged in Cardiff in five minutes and had enough to do the whole run without a further charge because the chargers were showing clocks on the way up and on the way home you couldn’t even get into Membury and the queue to do so was slowing the motorway for about three miles.
Happily I’d used the simple trick of taking my wife’s car and charging it with diesel.

That route usually is my definition of a nightmare. If I’ve been away from home all week I want to get home, not fanny about in an ill formed queue (last time I was charging at Membury a Tesla driver was waiting in the supercharger area, between the rows, so no one could leave until he let them and some Sh*tröen was blocking the was out against the one way system while a courteous but hapless M3 driver stood politely by, queue jumped by both). If I’m driving the family over a holiday weekend I’d regard it as a nightmare not to be able to reach a charger or to have an enforced stop when I didn’t want one (my kids are older but surprise surprise they’re not models of understanding). I regard it as a nightmare to have to juggle Zap-Map and Chargeplace and Electric Juice to try and get a sense of where alternatives are on the fly (because oddly enough I wouldn’t spend hours plotting alternatives the night before as I’ve got better things to do than beard stroking over a spreadsheet and I’d end up like a Downfall meme in quivering rage).

If you do 5000 miles a year, and it’s charge at home off your own solar, Teslas are great. I guess if you do 50000 miles a year for work, and the breaks can accommodate your work by letting you do emails, Teams, etc, I can see you’re gaining productivity and that’s great. But our nightmares are our own and I can see the OP regards his experience as a nightmare and I think the general population’s getting wise which is why electric car values are slumping so much faster than ICE/hybrid - and if anyone doubts this listen to Robert Forster of Vertu on R4 Today at 0617 27/12.
It’s a limited use case for most of us and the compromises are getting worse.