Sudbury here we come

[racer26]

Tesla suggested we go to Deerhurst except with 5 cars and two units operating at who knows what amperage, we would still be there.
Since this sort of thing hasn't happened anywhere else, could it be the local power authority hasn't put a strong enough circuit in there?

Based on what the hotel attendant at Parry Sound told us about their elevator having issues when the supercharger was in use in its original configuration, I wouldn't be surprised if we were the first real stress test the Huntsville charger had.

For those who weren't there: the lady minding the checkin counter at the hotel in Parry Sound told us that their elevator stopped working when even one car was charging in its original configuration and that Tesla ended up needing to spend a serious amount of money to upgrade the transformer to fix the problem.

 

[wayner]

Since this sort of thing hasn't happened anywhere else, could it be the local power authority hasn't put a strong enough circuit in there?

That site has been up and running for what - 18 months. So it has never had 8 cars charging at once? Or did it even take all 8 to cause it to blow?

 

[rypalmer]

Huntsville still down, according to a Facebook user.

 

[wayner]

Did you folks attract a crowd at Sudbury? I doubt that they have ever seen that many Teslas at once in Sudbury.

Good thing you didn't have any press at Huntsville when the SCs blew - it wouldn't be a good media story to ease range anxiety

 

[racer26]

Small crowd. Sudbury is in a busy shopping center parking lot so we attracted a few passersby. All 3 northern Ontario superchargers have non-exclusive use of the stalls for some subset of the stalls, but only encountered one ICEing vehicle at the Parry Sound one, and we later learned that belonged to a member of Hotel staff that had car trouble - at Parry sound the superchargers are some of the first accessible parking spaces on the property.

 

[rypalmer]

Dead chargers

Did anything else in the area go dark when this happened? Or just the Superchargers?

 

[mrElbe]

Just the Superchargers went dead with a fairly prominent click.

 

[mknox]

Since this sort of thing hasn't happened anywhere else, could it be the local power authority hasn't put a strong enough circuit in there?

If it were on the utility side of the demarcation point, they would have responded to an outage in minutes, just as they do for any outage. Some outages take longer than others to identify and fix, but simple blown primary fuses are a 5 minute job.

For those who weren't there: the lady minding the checkin counter at the hotel in Parry Sound told us that their elevator stopped working when even one car was charging in its original configuration and that Tesla ended up needing to spend a serious amount of money to upgrade the transformer to fix the problem.

That's wild. The Supercharger station has it's own dedicated utility transformer and service, connected to the utility's primary distribution system. It is not in any way part of the hotel's electrical service. If there was such an elevator problem, it would suggest the Supercharger station is causing a voltage sag on the primary system and would be affecting every service for miles around on that feeder! That should not have been on Tesla's dime to fix. The utility should have designed the system properly in the first place, and Tesla would have already paid the necessary capital contribution before it was first energized.After connection, it is up to the utility to maintain their distribution system.

 

[racer26]

If it were on the utility side of the demarcation point, they would have responded to an outage in minutes, just as they do for any outage. Some outages take longer than others to identify and fix, but simple blown primary fuses are a 5 minute job.



That's wild. The Supercharger station has it's own dedicated utility transformer and service, connected to the utility's primary distribution system. It is not in any way part of the hotel's electrical service. If there was such an elevator problem, it would suggest the Supercharger station is causing a voltage sag on the primary system and would be affecting every service for miles around on that feeder! That should not have been on Tesla's dime to fix. The utility should have designed the system properly in the first place, and Tesla would have already paid the necessary capital contribution before it was first energized.After connection, it is up to the utility to maintain their distribution system.

Its certainly possible the lady was misinformed about who paid for the fix, but nonetheless it was interesting to hear, and somewhat confirmed my suspicions that some corners may have been cut when installing Huntsville that ultimately lead to us breaking it.

 

[Drone Flyer]

That site has been up and running for what - 18 months. So it has never had 8 cars charging at once? Or did it even take all 8 to cause it to blow?

It took all our cars plugging in at the same time, for this to happen.

 

[Drone Flyer]

Just the Superchargers went dead with a fairly prominent click.

The nearby Roadhouse Grill heard the click and lowered the Rib Eye steak meal to $14.99! LOL!

 

[Drone Flyer]

Based on what the hotel attendant at Parry Sound told us about their elevator having issues when the supercharger was in use in its original configuration, I wouldn't be surprised if we were the first real stress test the Huntsville charger had.

For those who weren't there: the lady minding the checkin counter at the hotel in Parry Sound told us that their elevator stopped working when even one car was charging in its original configuration and that Tesla ended up needing to spend a serious amount of money to upgrade the transformer to fix the problem.

The lady probably thinks the EV car industry is such an " Up and Down" business!

 

[MarcoRP]

The nearby Roadhouse Grill heard the click and lowered the Rib Eye steak meal to $14.99! LOL!

Bait

 

[wayner]

It took all our cars plugging in at the same time, for this to happen.

I think someone else said five cars - is that what you remember? I wonder if it was all being plugged in at the same time, or the overall load? If it is the latter then what does this imply about usage of the Huntsville SC - it has never had five simultaneous cars charging?

 

[mrElbe]

That was our conclusion. Huntsville never had 5 cars with about 107 to 145 km range left in the battery plugging in within a minute at the same time.

 

[racer26]

It likely blew when all four supercharger cabinets (remember they're paired) tried to start pulling ~100kW+ each within a few seconds of one another.

 

[ig_epower]

I think overall, it was a great experience - especially looking back at it now of course. Nobody got hurt, no one got stranded or had to ride the "tow of shame". The simultaneous 5 car jolt was probably a very rare event. The high inrush current as the charging ramps up is probably higher than the 116 KW/500 odd amps that the displays are showing. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't chance that again and ask people in your convoy to sequence the plug ins with some short spacings rather than juice them all within a minute. It may not happen again but if it does, it can seriously mess up your plans and those plans of the people coming to that SC after you. We all depend on this wonderful charging network to get us to places with such ease - it is interesting to feel how vulnerable we could be when a link in the SC chain is broken. The power that these SC facilities provide is nothing short of amazing, yet it feels pretty much like plugging in our smartphones at night. Cool technology and I am happy to experience something that one day will be ubiquitous and common and even improved upon.

Tonight is a cool, dank and rainy miserable mess. I had to gas up our fossil SUV for my wife and I had all sorts of credit card issues with the reader at the pump so even gas technology is not perfect. Standing out in the rain and cold and having to grab a gas attendant to help retrieve my locked-in credit card from the pump is something I could live without. To simply plug my L2 cable at home and go inside is "heaven" for my EV.

Perhaps our younger kids and quite possibly our grand-kids will never understand what the fueling (and charging) issues were like for us today. Wireless on-road charging or instant charging will supersede what pioneers experience today.

 

[Drone Flyer]

Here's a few photos from the event. I'm editing a video shortly and will post it when ready.

 

[racer26]

 

[wayner]

Anyone know if Huntsville has been fixed yet?