Supercharger - Quartzsite, AZ

[wraithnot]

The Quartzsite supercharger is becoming a bottleneck for interstate travel between LA and Phoenix. We making that drive yesterday and I was watching the supercharger occupancy on the nav system and getting more and more worried about both Indio and Quartzsite. We lucked out at Indio and got a spot right after two cars left to clear spots for the car that was waiting and us. But the situation at Quartzsite was much worse- I saw a PlugShare post saying there were 15 cars waiting so I had my wife do some fast paced research and found a CHAdeMO chargers in Blythe. Luckily I have a CHAdeMO adapter and I was able to get the charger to work even though I didn’t have the proper charge network card. It was only charging at 37 kW, but 30 minutes later we were on our way to Buckeye and skipped a two hour wait. I’d suggest anyone driving through Quartzsite in the near future to keep tabs on how busy the station is and to make some backup plans in case of another epic backup.

Here are some PlugShare reviews and one google review from yesterday and today:

Dec 22, 2018

Colleen Del Giorno

Tesla Model S

I'm car #15 in line for a charger. Most are Model 3's that are in line. Might be time for more chargers since there are so many more 3's that are out there now.


Dec 22, 2018

mrroboto

Tesla Model 3

Very long wait this afternoon, arrived about 3:05pm and waited in line behind 14 other drivers until 5pm. The locals say this is abnormally long. This location needs to be expanded to support increased holiday load.


Dec 23, 2018

Howard L Johnson

Tesla Model S

Busy, busy, busy. Lots of M 3s..


Dawn Wittman

a day ago

I have never been in a such a long line of Teslas waiting to charge!! Completely ridiculous! Tesla, please put another charging location somewhere between here and Buckeye, AZ or add more chargers to this location.

 

[Uncle Paul]

This situation might not be normal. Last couple days have been the most heavily traveled days in the year. So many people traveling to see family and do Christmas stuff.

Kind of like the bottlenecks getting to Vegas over Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of congestion at the Superchargers.

Tesla is addressing this by adding additional Supercharger locations on heavily traveled routes, expanding the number of stalls at existing locations, instituting idle charges to get people to move their cars when full, reducing free Supercharging, eliminating free Supercharging for commercial vehicles, providing Urban Superchargers, making smaller vehicles (Model 3) with longer range and more efficiency, rolling out larger battery models before standard battery packs with shorter ranges and longer Supercharging time.

Tesla is also developing much higher speed charging systems that should increase throughput of the fleet. They have instituted software that can show travelers which Superchargers are busy, so they can choose another location that might get them in and out faster. They ping chargers to let them know their car is almost full and that they should return to move it to avoid idle fees.

Still is a bit frustrating when you are trying to get somewhere fast and your favorite charger is full.

 

[pilotSteve]

Quartzsite is “special”. You know what I mean if you’ve ever used the Carl’s Junior restrooms.....

 

[P85_DA]

The Quartzsite supercharger is becoming a bottleneck for interstate travel between LA and Phoenix. We making that drive yesterday and I was watching the supercharger occupancy on the nav system and getting more and more worried about both Indio and Quartzsite. We lucked out at Indio and got a spot right after two cars left to clear spots for the car that was waiting and us. But the situation at Quartzsite was much worse- I saw a PlugShare post saying there were 15 cars waiting so I had my wife do some fast paced research and found a CHAdeMO chargers in Blythe. Luckily I have a CHAdeMO adapter and I was able to get the charger to work even though I didn’t have the proper charge network card. It was only charging at 37 kW, but 30 minutes later we were on our way to Buckeye and skipped a two hour wait. I’d suggest anyone driving through Quartzsite in the near future to keep tabs on how busy the station is and to make some backup plans in case of another epic backup.

Here are some PlugShare reviews and one google review from yesterday and today:

Dec 22, 2018

Colleen Del Giorno

Tesla Model S

I'm car #15 in line for a charger. Most are Model 3's that are in line. Might be time for more chargers since there are so many more 3's that are out there now.


Dec 22, 2018

mrroboto

Tesla Model 3

Very long wait this afternoon, arrived about 3:05pm and waited in line behind 14 other drivers until 5pm. The locals say this is abnormally long. This location needs to be expanded to support increased holiday load.


Dec 23, 2018

Howard L Johnson

Tesla Model S

Busy, busy, busy. Lots of M 3s..


Dawn Wittman

a day ago

I have never been in a such a long line of Teslas waiting to charge!! Completely ridiculous! Tesla, please put another charging location somewhere between here and Buckeye, AZ or add more chargers to this location.

Surprised Tesla didn’t bring the portable urban chargers ..they have some at Indio and today was first time I saw Indio full in over 3 years of charging there

 

[Tdriver]

This site is only busy thanksgiving and Xmas. Do a full charge in Indio and you don’t need to stop here.

 

[wraithnot]

This situation might not be normal. Last couple days have been the most heavily traveled days in the year.

I agree that this sort of thing is mainly limited to peak holiday travel days. And I agree that Tesla has done a pretty good job of adding capacity every time one of these epic lines occurs (Gilroy, Tejon Ranch, and Barstow all come to mind). And I still remember Tesla’s response when a power glitch shut down Harris Ranch in 2014: Harris Ranch is not working 11/18/14

The point of my post is not to be critical of Tesla. I want to warn any fellow Tesla owners that might be driving through here on another heavy travel day in the near future. Depending on your car, you might be able to skip Quartzsite if you fully charge at the preceding station. Or you can find an alternative way to charge like I did.

 

[wraithnot]

This site is only busy thanksgiving and Xmas. Do a full charge in Indio and you don’t need to stop here.

Depends on your car. Evtripplaner puts the drive from Indio to Buckeye at 247 rated miles for my car. I have a 2013 S85 with 120,000 miles that gets about 238 miles on a full charge now. But perhaps I can convince enough people with newer cars to skip Quartzsite so I don’t get stuck in an epic line on my way back

 

[cpa]

This situation might be exacerbated by the in-car navigation that has become the default for most if not all of the newer owners. The LR Model 3 should be able to make it to Buckeye from Indio. But if the algorithm decides that a 30-minute stop in Indio followed by a 15-minute stop in Quartzsite is required, the newer owners will likely follow this instruction. Instead, they could charge for 50 minutes at Indio and skip Quartzsite. I am assuming that the navigation system is blind to Supercharger congestion--but I could be wrong.

But I agree, Tesla needs to infill this segment at Blythe or Chiriaco Summit--not sure if Quartzsite is available for expansion.

 

[PLUS EV]

This site is only busy thanksgiving and Xmas. Do a full charge in Indio and you don’t need to stop here.

Only if you have a long range battery and drive slowly.

Also, charging to full at Indio would cause bottlenecks there.

They need to put another supercharger in Blythe. I'm guessing the only places between Indio and Buckeye that meet the proper electrical requirements are Blythe, Quartzsite and maybe Chiriaco Summit, so their options are limited.

 

[David99]

Quartzsite has never been an issue for all those years. I have taken this route countless times since 2014. Only recently since the Model 3 is out in large numbers has it become a bottle neck. The main problem is that it's difficult to skip if full. The same issue was in Barstow a few years ago when the line was 24 cars deep. Tesla added more stalls, built Baker and Yermo. That's what needs to happen between LA and Phoenix. They need to add more sites in Blythe or Chiriaco Summit. Or find a new spot in Quartzsite.

The bigger issue is how long will Tesla be able to keep up building enough chargers. It's a difficult task. 356 days of the year it's no problem, but those 10 or so other days we need twice as many chargers. Hard to justify double capacity for a very small amount of time. I don't know what the best solution is.

 

[wraithnot]

This situation might be exacerbated by the in-car navigation that has become the default for most if not all of the newer owners. The LR Model 3 should be able to make it to Buckeye from Indio. But if the algorithm decides that a 30-minute stop in Indio followed by a 15-minute stop in Quartzsite is required, the newer owners will likely follow this instruction. Instead, they could charge for 50 minutes at Indio and skip Quartzsite.

This is a great point- a software change in the nav system could really help in these sorts of situations. Improving the real time status to show approximate wait times if all stations are full would be a good next step.

Of course at some point you either have to build more stations or build the appropriate adapters if a proper public CCS station ever gets fully built out.

 

[tmoz]

Let the model 3 onslaught begin!

 

[David99]

Charging to a high level at the adjacent superchargers can make it worse. Charging to 90% or higher (to skip) will take twice as much time as only charging to reach the next one. This will for sure cause a line at this supercharger now as all cars take up the stalls twice as long.
Of course now the supercharger after the skipped one will get hammered as well.

When a site is overloaded, really the only thing that helps is adding capacity. Everything else is just shifting load which can do little in this case. Indio is often at capacity already.

 

[jkingsle]

Here now at 730am. Only one other car. Things seem to be running normally. Good news!

 

[BridgeMojo]

We were in that queue Saturday, Dec. 22. It was a bit predictable for the day, but it was my first long-range trip in a new MS. The wait was an hour forty, then an hour for enough kWh. It was exacerbated by one out of service charger; seven of eight available.

 

[tmoz]

We were in that queue Saturday, Dec. 22. It was a bit predictable for the day, but it was my first long-range trip in a new MS. The wait was an hour forty, then an hour for enough kWh. It was exacerbated by one out of service charger; seven of eight available.

Good to know. I'll bet the Rock Shop across the street had a good sales day. Or I should say, I hope they did. I like to browse, but I don't want to come home with a pretty rock.

 

[PLUS EV]

Good to know. I'll bet the Rock Shop across the street had a good sales day. Or I should say, I hope they did. I like to browse, but I don't want to come home with a pretty rock.

Was also a big day for the local MGTOW who picks recyclables out of the Quartzsite garbage cans for a living.

 

[gjunky]

I think Tesla should build an alternative to the quartzsite one, perhaps in Blythe. The current location next to that Carl's Junior is far from ideal. Not great at night either. Having an alternative in Blythe could separate west bound from east bound traffic and provide a backup for either.

 

[AudubonB]

For those heading east, a heads-up:

If your situation at Quartzite is such that you just can't make it to Buckeye without charging, consider heading on Rte 60 to the Wickenburg SpC instead. It's all of 7 miles shorter to there than to Buckeye. And much, much prettier, cleaner and safer, too!

Sincerely, your local Wickenburg booster.....

 

[tmoz]

For those heading east, a heads-up:

If your situation at Quartzite is such that you just can't make it to Buckeye without charging, consider heading on Rte 60 to the Wickenburg SpC instead. It's all of 7 miles shorter to there than to Buckeye. And much, much prettier, cleaner and safer, too!

Sincerely, your local Wickenburg booster.....

Agreed. Good tip. The one in Kingman, in my opinion, is a bit more similar to Quartzsite, only slightly nicer.