President's Day Weekend - Superchargers on 101 Maxxed Out

[goldengate]

The trip back was absolutely perfect and made me love my Model 3 even more.

We left Santa Barbara with almost a full charge (thank you, Four Seasons) and I ignored the navigation's "suggestion" to stop early in the trip at Buellton to charge. I'm not sure why it would have us charge there so soon after departing (only 45 miles!) but my theory is they are trying to reduce the overload on Atascadero and SLO by somehow "preferring" Buellton? Anyway, ignored that and stopped at SLO for maybe 15 mins, which got us all the way to Salinas with about 60 miles range left, then charged there for maybe 15-20 minutes (started at 117 kw, 499 miles per hour), just long enough to go to the bathroom and have a little snack in the car.

Turns out this was the perfect supercharger combo for this trip and was the shortest charge time I've ever had. I used TACC most of the way and EAP at times, but rarely. I still find the EAP too "buggy" and if there's traffic around it's easy to piss off other drivers with phantom braking and some of its other strange behaviors (pulling to the right, beginning lane changes then abandoning them, etc.) Frankly steering on a drive like that isn't much work -- it's tracking the cars in front of you and adjusting speed that requires attention, and TACC did a great job on that.

I arrived back in Marin County with about 73 miles of range and a spouse who begrudgingly had to admit that this car is a damn spaceship and great for a road trip.

 

[goldengate]

By the way - the SLO supercharger cabinet that was out of service on Monday was still out of service on Friday, joined by another one. Not good that such a highly-utilized site isn't being repaired more quickly.

 

[jboy210]

Holiday weekends we are always going to have Supercharger lines like this around California. The cannot size the network (and on-going costs) for something that occurs 5 or 6 times a year.

And is yet another reason I would rather take a Friday or Monday off to stretch a "regular" weekend and stay home on the holidays.

 

[maximizese]

Holiday weekends we are always going to have Supercharger lines like this around California. The cannot size the network (and on-going costs) for something that occurs 5 or 6 times a year.

And is yet another reason I would rather take a Friday or Monday off to stretch a "regular" weekend and stay home on the holidays.

Similarly I just saw a segment on CNBC about "Bleisure travel" where you extend a few days extra for leisure on top of your business trip. It's really popular among millennials, they feel better using their vacation days (apparently Gen X does not use their vacation time), and the company doesn't mind because the airfare tends to be cheaper. I'm thinking folks will be driving at off-peak hours to avoid Supercharger crowds during these holidays...or just avoid it all together as you've laid out.

 

[jboy210]

Similarly I just saw a segment on CNBC about "Bleisure travel" where you extend a few days extra for leisure on top of your business trip. It's really popular among millennials, they feel better using their vacation days (apparently Gen X does not use their vacation time), and the company doesn't mind because the airfare tends to be cheaper. I'm thinking folks will be driving at off-peak hours to avoid Supercharger crowds during these holidays...or just avoid it all together as you've laid out.

Bleisure travel (they had to give it a name) is something we have been done for decades. My wife speaks internationally and we always go days before the talk so she is time adjusted. This year it is Copenhagen this spring, Malaysia in summer.

Also when the kids were home it was a great way to have them get used to people in different cultures. And now both of them have no problem going to any country and fitting right in.

 

[KJD]

Traveling during off peak times is something that I think is often overlooked. I have only been to a few locations that had a problem, but these problems seemed to be much greater on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. On holiday weekends the peak times might spill over to Friday and Monday afternoons.

Show up really early in the morning or late evenings and it was much easier to find empty stalls.

 

[goldengate]

The SLO / Atascadero SC are often full even on non holiday weekends.... they need to continue to build capacity along this route and maintain what they have in proper working order.

 

[stevemc]

Tesla really needs to make a CCS adaptor available. With others companies offering "high" speed CCS it would be great being able to spread out the use. I know there's the CHAdeMO but it seems like they're becoming deprecated as the newer cars are CCS.

 

[israndy]

And ChaDemo doesn't work on the Model 3

 

[Bet TSLA]

I guess for a line count, you'll need to install a camera equipped with AI to report the wait line.

No. Tesla knows where the cars are. Easy to do if they want.

 

[Tam]

No. Tesla knows where the cars are. Easy to do if they want.

Thanks! I forgot that each Tesla car can transmit its GPS location at all time.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Perfect storm of Holiday travel, Closed alternative route, and tens of thousands of new Model 3s with introductory free supercharging.

Tesla builds for normal charging needs, but can be overloaded when multiple issues cause higher than normal use.

Just like drivers that choose their driving time to avoid congested commuter times, EV owners should give some consideration to traveling when Supercharger usage may be at peak.

99% of my Supercharger usage has been with no congestion, but still have had to wait in line a couple times.

San Diego used to be a Supercharger Desert, but now they have stalls all over the place.

 

[jboy210]

Perfect storm of Holiday travel, Closed alternative route, and tens of thousands of new Model 3s with introductory free supercharging.

Tesla builds for normal charging needs, but can be overloaded when multiple issues cause higher than normal use.

Just like drivers that choose their driving time to avoid congested commuter times, EV owners should give some consideration to traveling when Supercharger usage may be at peak.

99% of my Supercharger usage has been with no congestion, but still have had to wait in line a couple times.

San Diego used to be a Supercharger Desert, but now they have stalls all over the place.

Density of Superchargers is really sizing here in the SF East Bay. Soon there will be 5 within 10 miles of Dublin Service Center (including Dublin SC).