One of these dinosaurs is not like the others

[tonybelding]

My first serious shakedown cruise with the Model S LR+. First time Supercharging, which I did at Henrietta Texas. Total 368 miles driven for the day. Probably the longest day trip I’ve ever taken, and the car was great. In particular, the turn-by-turn navigation worked much better than systems I have used before.

Yes, the dinosaurs are animatronic and sort of waggle their claws and jaws and turn their heads.

I was unable to summon too much outrage towards the pickup owner. The Supercharger was mostly empty, and he didn’t stay too long. Also, I have to assume he had a brain the size of a walnut.

 

[Ostrichsak]

My first serious shakedown cruise with the Model S LR+. First time Supercharging, which I did at Henrietta Texas. Total 368 miles driven for the day. Probably the longest day trip I’ve ever taken, and the car was great. In particular, the turn-by-turn navigation worked much better than systems I have used before.

Yes, the dinosaurs are animatronic and sort of waggle their claws and jaws and turn their heads.

I was unable to summon too much outrage towards the pickup owner. The Supercharger was mostly empty, and he didn’t stay too long. Also, I have to assume he had a brain the size of a walnut.

I could be wrong (it's difficult to tell from the photo for sure) but those look like the "general parking" signs which authorize him to park there even though he's not charging. It's important that we as Tesla owners do our part to not flip out on people (not trying to insinuate that you did) who are parking there within their rights as posted.

Now, IMHO, Tesla shouldn't make this agreement with the land owner to allow them use of that area for Superchargers in the first place. They should go elsewhere but that's an entirely separate conversation. Often times you'll see these in busier areas where parking is at a premium and (for whatever reason) Tesla decided that they HAD to put the Supercharger at that location. A compromise is reached with the person who owns the land to also allow non-Teslas to park there for a limited period of time, usually defined as 30/60 minutes spelled out right on the sign. You can see it in the round white dots right in the center of those signs. These signs differ from the ones that say "Tesla parking only" which don't have that and those spaces are technically reserved for Teslas who are charging only. The laws vary from state to state on how this can be enforced but you get the general idea.

Even then, a driver could still choose to park elsewhere if they weren't selfish or trying to make some sort of political statement. I've had a few of these interactions where (based on my size and face I guess) the people automatically seem to sense they've made a grave mistake. lol I still always approach the conversation (if it can't be avoided which is priority #1 for me) from a standpoint of educating them on something that they often don't understand or at least claim they didn't know. When I explain politely that they could be keeping someone from accessing their only means of "fuel" to get back to their families they usually seem apologetic and the hope is that it was an honest mistake and maybe I helped to educate someone and showed them that not all Tesla owners are pretentious a-holes. We should all endeavor to be positive ambassadors of the Tesla community. Also another topic entirely.

Personally, I love the irony of that second picture with the dinosaurs in the background regardless of if the truck is actively doing anything wrong on not. Very fitting.

 

[tonybelding]

I could be wrong (it's difficult to tell from the photo for sure) but those look like the "general parking" signs which authorize him to park there even though he's not charging.

I didn't even notice those signs at the time when I was there. However, I can verify from other photos that there were no signs at the other end of the row where I was parked. There are twelve stalls, and it appears that only a few at the end next to the dinosaurs have them.