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Question About Supercharger Stations being completely down

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Hey there,

We are new to Tesla and new to EVs. We had a trip planned from Atlanta to Destin, fl. We made this trip once before in the Tesla where we stopped in Montgomery, AL where we would only have to make one stop. We get close to running out of power but we can make it with just one stop.

Well this trip we found out that the whole place was temporary closed. 12 chargers not one of them was working. We had to get a hotel and charge on a slow charger.

My question for you people that take a lot of trips in your Tesla is, does this happen often or do we have bad luck?

Yes the car did tell us that it was closed but that was when we were 20 miles out and we wouldn't have made it to any other chargers. It might have been a delay in telling us based on how i was using the navigation but either way just wondering if this is something that happens often.

Thank you.
 
FWIW when I put Atlanta to Destin into abetterrouteplanner (which I suggest when planning trips rather than using the built in nav) it doesn't go through Montgomery at all...it shows a stop in auburn then another brief one in Crestview Florida...

To your original question in 3+ years (including a number of trips in the US southeast, though never beyond GA to the south) I've never seen an entire SC location out of service... I've seen 1 or 2 stalls out of 8-12 of them out a small % of the time but that's it.
 
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Hey there,

We are new to Tesla and new to EVs. We had a trip planned from Atlanta to Destin, fl. We made this trip once before in the Tesla where we stopped in Montgomery, AL where we would only have to make one stop. We get close to running out of power but we can make it with just one stop.

Well this trip we found out that the whole place was temporary closed. 12 chargers not one of them was working. We had to get a hotel and charge on a slow charger.

My question for you people that take a lot of trips in your Tesla is, does this happen often or do we have bad luck?

Yes the car did tell us that it was closed but that was when we were 20 miles out and we wouldn't have made it to any other chargers. It might have been a delay in telling us based on how i was using the navigation but either way just wondering if this is something that happens often.

Thank you.
I have run into closed SC a few times for various reasons: area wide power outage, parking lot being paved, service outage. I always try to have a plan B. we have charged at over 250 different SCs during several round trip cross country road trips. Doesn’t happen very often but it has happened.
 
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We have 65K miles on our 3, and have never gotten quite that stuck. Sorry that happened! The only time we ran into a whole Supercharger location being down was once on a trip south through Oregon. I entered the Springfield, OR Supercharger into the nav, and while it was willing to go there, it did give an indication that the site was down, so we chose Salem and Grants Pass instead. We were lucky in that they knew it was down before we committed. It'd be trickier if the location when down while you were already traveling, and beyond the point of making a good alternate choice.

Anyway, I understand how unnerving that experience could be, especially with you being new to the family. But I think your experience is rare.
 
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I've done 5 long distance road trips between FL and New England, and a complete supercharger outage only happened once, on my first trip (in 2016). This was in Newark DE, and fortunately there was a J1772 charger available in the same service plaza, which I had to use. Tesla didn't know the supercharger was offline until I reported it, so the navigation system didn't know to avoid it.

It's very unlikely that would happen again (i.e., all superchargers being offline and the car not knowing about it), and now there are many more supercharging locations along I-95, so even if one was completely offline, you would likely make it to another one.
 
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It sounds like you didn’t set the car navigation to the SC until you were close so I’d suggest putting it in when you leave your last charging point. With the new waypoint feature, you can still navigate someplace else before the stop. Or, you can put in the SC to check it then change navigation to your next stop. Another good reason to have it in navigation from the last charge is to make sure the car preconditions the battery for best charge speed.

It’s also a good idea to have the PlugShare app for situations like this. You can look for J1772 chargers (and make sure you have your adapter in the car), which is better than a 120v option. Many times, PlugShare will have information about the SC, like the specific SC that is down if one is broken.
 
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In 7+ years with a Tesla, I've encountered a complete supercharger location outage once, when the whole small town it was in lost power. Thankfully by then Tesla had a lot more supercharger locations on that route than in the early Model S / Supercharger years so we had no problem just hoping to another location.

Site-wide supercharger outages can happen, but I believe they are pretty rare.
 
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I was traveling from Birmingham to Tampa yesterday, and I was a little surprised the NAV didn't take me through Montgomery. I had thought I would hit Montgomery, and then go on to Marianna FL. Instead NAV took me down 280 to Auburn. I wonder if the NAV routed me that way because Montgomery was down.
 
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one of the main SC's on California's I5 was shut down a year or so ago, but that was due to a gas leak in the nearby community. The SC itself was fine, but Highway Patrol closed the hiway exit for safety. "Stuff" happens, but its rare. Definitely worth looking at the SC status before leaving home.
Interesting . I wonder what the nav would say in this case coz technically the superchargers are online and working
 
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I was on a trip over the summer and one of my planned chargers suddenly had “temporary closure” on the pop up when I clicked on the SC in navigation. That’s probably what you’d see if the charger was working and active but something like a repaving project or a wild fire nearby caused it to not be available.
 
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i think ive had 1/30 supercharger stops had 1 or 2 chargers that were out of order.
1/30 charging stops ive actually had to wait to get a slot (not the same ones as above).

so...surprise or inability to charge is a non issue
Its a non issue until it happens to you...then it becomes an issue. The OP obviously was unlucky but it just goes to show it CAN happen...and it can be very problematic!
 
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It sounds like you didn’t set the car navigation to the SC until you were close so I’d suggest putting it in when you leave your last charging point. With the new waypoint feature, you can still navigate someplace else before the stop. Or, you can put in the SC to check it then change navigation to your next stop. Another good reason to have it in navigation from the last charge is to make sure the car preconditions the battery for best charge speed.

It’s also a good idea to have the PlugShare app for situations like this. You can look for J1772 chargers (and make sure you have your adapter in the car), which is better than a 120v option. Many times, PlugShare will have information about the SC, like the specific SC that is down if one is broken.
I can second this. On my normal long distance routes, I have very few options, and I always plug in the next supercharger in my nav to see if I can reach it before I finish charging. That's how I found out that one location was down. Don't worry, as you gain experience these issues won't be issues any more, and of course many new superchargers will be online in the years ahead. Think of the early days of ICE cars. Also, when I was new to EV's I researched the hell out of any route, using various websites like A Better Route Planner, just to make sure that my trip would work. Even now there are places I want to go where I will have to go out of my way to charge. At least you found the option of staying at a hotel. I'm sure you weren't happy about it, but it would have been worse if you had completely run out of charge and had to be towed.
 
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Its a non issue until it happens to you...then it becomes an issue. The OP obviously was unlucky but it just goes to show it CAN happen...and it can be very problematic!

of course anything can happen. just reporting on the expected frequency.

also, the 3rd party stations that used to be slagged for problematic seem to be better. on one leg where i tried to stretch the drive but realized i didnt want to risk arriving at 0%, i detoured to an ionity 350kw station instead. quite fast setup using the phone, and then i was off pumping 150kw+, just as i would have on SC.
 
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of course anything can happen. just reporting on the expected frequency.

also, the 3rd party stations that used to be slagged for problematic seem to be better. on one leg where i tried to stretch the drive but realized i didnt want to risk arriving at 0%, i detoured to an ionity 350kw station instead. quite fast setup using the phone, and then i was off pumping 150kw+, just as i would have on SC.

Not currently an option in the USA. For new US owners, there is a CCS adapter coming (on sale in South Korea), which will add a little cost (newer US Teslas already have the necessary board, so it'll be the adapter only needed, not the onboard hardware)..

My suggestion to the OP is that although seemingly infrequent it happens.
Use the built-in navigation, which should tell you about problems Tesla is aware of.
A Better Route Planner should also redirect you away from charging with problems.
 
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