At the end of June we took about 10 days to log 4k miles on our 2014 Model S P85D. The first such road trip on this particular Model S but not our first road trip in a Model S.
When we set out I had heard stories of ICEing situations around the country but thought that maybe they were exaggerated since we had never experienced it personally. I was willing to believe that it was indeed happening but questioned the frequency that some made it sound like. I now believe this is an actual widespread issue and more legislation needs to be passed in order to prevent potential altercations between people. I was quite surprised how agro people were with me when approached even though I approached with a calm, polite and educational way.
What may be even more disturbing than a small segment of the population that has something (if you can tell me what specifically, I'm all ears as I'm still perplexed by this fact) personal against Tesla owners is that the partners Tesla has chosen is actively telling ICE vehicles to park in the spots that are marked for Tesla Supercharging only. In several instances the people who parked in the spaces (often times smaller hotels in the middle of nowhere) told us that the hotel staff had SPECIFICALLY advised that they park in those spaces that were clearly designated for Tesla Supercharging only. This is something that Tesla needs to nip in the bud immediately. There was some sort of agreement in place to place the Superchargers on their property on the front end and somehow I seriously doubt that it included employees specifically advising ICE cars to park in those locations.
In all of our ICEing run-ins only one wasn't someone who was told by hotel staff to do so. That's disturbing. Sure the situations where some ass-hat with a giant diesel intentionally parks there of his/her own volition to make some sort of "point" exists and these are often the ones reported but for the most part, in our personal experience, the lion's share could be easily avoided if Tesla simply reminded it's partners of their initial contract agreement.
I didn't take a lot of photos to back up my claims as the people who parked at the spaces in the hotels claimed they were doing as they were told. I didn't feel the need to put them all on blast publicly as they had a pretty solid story and after hearing it several times at several locations across several states a pattern was emerging. In this photo, I managed to get the last open stall and the guy in the Jeep GC came out as we were leaving. When I asked him if they knew what they were for he got really angry and started yelling at me that he knew what they were for but there wasn't any parking so the hotel staff told him to park there. I asked him why he was so angry at me when I had done nothing wrong in this situation and he kind of checked his attitude at that point. I also pointed out that he drove around the hotel a little bit there was dozens of open spaces which ended up being closer to his room than the front entrance anyway. Maybe I successfully educated one person just through being genuinely polite and professional which was worth it ultimately.
I did however have another ICEing experience on the same trip that was blatant enough to warrant photos:
This was Jackson, TN. This guy managed to block all ten stalls nearly. The 1.5 stalls on the end were kind of accessible as seen in my photo.
I pulled into the lot on "fumes", saw this sight and thought to myself "Self, I sure am glad there's at least one available stall on the end that I can get to so I can plug in and avoid confrontation and be on my merry way" but as I plugged in bam! No juice. Of course, the first ever broken stall (completely broken, not just slower charging) I would ever find in all of my travels is the only one available. I had to have my wife direct me as I squeezed into the next space over so close to his 5th wheel that I couldn't even open my door to get out in order to reach stall #9... just barely but now we were charging. I was paranoid that the guy wold roll back down hill into my prized beauty that I couldn't simply leave it and see the local sites. I was seriously inches away from his bumper for the charging cable to reach. I went into the Casey Jones Museum (located closer to the front of this monstrosity) and the curator apologized profusely for the inconvenience. She stated that he wasn't in there & likely was at the restaurant down the hill (closer the back of this monstrosity) and she would call the manager to locate him. They paged him and about 20min later a guy walking a German Shepard out with a younger couple and walked towards the monstrosity.
When he finally emerged from the restaurant it took everything in my power to kindly and politely explain what those were rather than just be "that Tesla owner who was picking a fight" as I try my darnedest to be a good ambassador to the brand. The guy was a salty old SOB who was maybe a buck-fitty soaking wet in combat boots and something tells me that had a 6-foot 250lb world-class athlete (lol) not climbed out of the Tesla to confront him his attitude towards that person would have been much worse. He wasn't super friendly but did apologize (eventually) and explained he knew what they were for (which really pissed me off since it wasn't a simple case of ignorance which I was graciously willing to provide info on) but couldn't find other parking while he went in to eat lunch at a restaurant in the same parking lot. I pointed to the copious amounts of truck/trailer parking to which he replied "oh, I didn't see those" which was nearly impossible had he actually looked. The bottom line is the final goal was achieved: charging up, educating someone who may not know to hopefully save someone else the issue and an apology which showed some degree of remorse.
I just wanted to post our experience during our 4k mile road trip and point out that this is something that is somewhat common and the most frequent offenders could probably be avoided entirely if Tesla would invest even the slightest bit of effort into addressing their partners.
When we set out I had heard stories of ICEing situations around the country but thought that maybe they were exaggerated since we had never experienced it personally. I was willing to believe that it was indeed happening but questioned the frequency that some made it sound like. I now believe this is an actual widespread issue and more legislation needs to be passed in order to prevent potential altercations between people. I was quite surprised how agro people were with me when approached even though I approached with a calm, polite and educational way.
What may be even more disturbing than a small segment of the population that has something (if you can tell me what specifically, I'm all ears as I'm still perplexed by this fact) personal against Tesla owners is that the partners Tesla has chosen is actively telling ICE vehicles to park in the spots that are marked for Tesla Supercharging only. In several instances the people who parked in the spaces (often times smaller hotels in the middle of nowhere) told us that the hotel staff had SPECIFICALLY advised that they park in those spaces that were clearly designated for Tesla Supercharging only. This is something that Tesla needs to nip in the bud immediately. There was some sort of agreement in place to place the Superchargers on their property on the front end and somehow I seriously doubt that it included employees specifically advising ICE cars to park in those locations.
In all of our ICEing run-ins only one wasn't someone who was told by hotel staff to do so. That's disturbing. Sure the situations where some ass-hat with a giant diesel intentionally parks there of his/her own volition to make some sort of "point" exists and these are often the ones reported but for the most part, in our personal experience, the lion's share could be easily avoided if Tesla simply reminded it's partners of their initial contract agreement.
I didn't take a lot of photos to back up my claims as the people who parked at the spaces in the hotels claimed they were doing as they were told. I didn't feel the need to put them all on blast publicly as they had a pretty solid story and after hearing it several times at several locations across several states a pattern was emerging. In this photo, I managed to get the last open stall and the guy in the Jeep GC came out as we were leaving. When I asked him if they knew what they were for he got really angry and started yelling at me that he knew what they were for but there wasn't any parking so the hotel staff told him to park there. I asked him why he was so angry at me when I had done nothing wrong in this situation and he kind of checked his attitude at that point. I also pointed out that he drove around the hotel a little bit there was dozens of open spaces which ended up being closer to his room than the front entrance anyway. Maybe I successfully educated one person just through being genuinely polite and professional which was worth it ultimately.
I did however have another ICEing experience on the same trip that was blatant enough to warrant photos:
This was Jackson, TN. This guy managed to block all ten stalls nearly. The 1.5 stalls on the end were kind of accessible as seen in my photo.
I pulled into the lot on "fumes", saw this sight and thought to myself "Self, I sure am glad there's at least one available stall on the end that I can get to so I can plug in and avoid confrontation and be on my merry way" but as I plugged in bam! No juice. Of course, the first ever broken stall (completely broken, not just slower charging) I would ever find in all of my travels is the only one available. I had to have my wife direct me as I squeezed into the next space over so close to his 5th wheel that I couldn't even open my door to get out in order to reach stall #9... just barely but now we were charging. I was paranoid that the guy wold roll back down hill into my prized beauty that I couldn't simply leave it and see the local sites. I was seriously inches away from his bumper for the charging cable to reach. I went into the Casey Jones Museum (located closer to the front of this monstrosity) and the curator apologized profusely for the inconvenience. She stated that he wasn't in there & likely was at the restaurant down the hill (closer the back of this monstrosity) and she would call the manager to locate him. They paged him and about 20min later a guy walking a German Shepard out with a younger couple and walked towards the monstrosity.
When he finally emerged from the restaurant it took everything in my power to kindly and politely explain what those were rather than just be "that Tesla owner who was picking a fight" as I try my darnedest to be a good ambassador to the brand. The guy was a salty old SOB who was maybe a buck-fitty soaking wet in combat boots and something tells me that had a 6-foot 250lb world-class athlete (lol) not climbed out of the Tesla to confront him his attitude towards that person would have been much worse. He wasn't super friendly but did apologize (eventually) and explained he knew what they were for (which really pissed me off since it wasn't a simple case of ignorance which I was graciously willing to provide info on) but couldn't find other parking while he went in to eat lunch at a restaurant in the same parking lot. I pointed to the copious amounts of truck/trailer parking to which he replied "oh, I didn't see those" which was nearly impossible had he actually looked. The bottom line is the final goal was achieved: charging up, educating someone who may not know to hopefully save someone else the issue and an apology which showed some degree of remorse.
I just wanted to post our experience during our 4k mile road trip and point out that this is something that is somewhat common and the most frequent offenders could probably be avoided entirely if Tesla would invest even the slightest bit of effort into addressing their partners.
