Supercharger - Bellevue, WA

[PLUS EV]

Not that it matters too much, but there is a bit of an efficiency loss when charging on 110v. My older S seemed to need to keep it's loudish battery temperature control mechanism running the entire time it was charging on 110V.

I haven't had that experience on either of my (high mileage) Model Ses (see signature).

 

[mociaf9]

Someone on one of these forums did a test once to find out that charging on 110V was not as efficient as on 240 or above.

Well, that's just a basic fact of electric circuits. Assuming you're running at the same amperage (e.g. 12A on either 120V or 240V), the resistive losses will be the same for any given period of time. But the 240V circuit is actually delivering twice the power and so takes significantly less time to fill up the battery, and therefore the total losses to charge up any given amount of energy are lower and you end up with higher charging efficiency. This is true irrespective of any other effects due to car behavior.

 

[Araman0]

I haven't had that experience on either of my (high mileage) Model Ses (see signature).

Mine is one of the original 2012’s (85) with about 110k miles.

 

[eli_]

Garage with this supercharger started enforcing pay parking after years of just ignoring it, at least they gave us all warning slips on the windshield. They are doing pay-by-phone and checking license plates.

 

[TesMY]

Garage with this supercharger started enforcing pay parking after years of just ignoring it, at least they gave us all warning slips on the windshield. They are doing pay-by-phone and checking license plates.

How much is the parking fee?

 

[eli_]

How much is the parking fee?

When I check the garage in the app "PayByPhone", it shows $13.50 for 2 hours, seems to max out at $60/day. Huge robbery, there is free parking all over in downtown Bellevue.

 

[whitex]

When I check the garage in the app "PayByPhone", it shows $13.50 for 2 hours, seems to max out at $60/day. Huge robbery, there is free parking all over in downtown Bellevue.

Someone from the company who operates the lot figured out there is money to be made, and this being Washington state, nobody will feel bad for people driving Teslas, which are of course rich people by definition, and they should be paying for everything. $13.50 for 2hrs of supercharging is probably just matching what Tesla charges for a 2hr supercharge - parking just cannot charge for KWh, so they charge for time instead.

 

[TesMY]

When I check the garage in the app "PayByPhone", it shows $13.50 for 2 hours, seems to max out at $60/day. Huge robbery, there is free parking all over in downtown Bellevue.

Last time when I was there, the gate was open and I thought it was free parking

 

[gzak]

 

[drtimhill]

I have to say I dislike ANY Tesla SC in a non-free parking lot. In effect, we are paying $$$ more in SC fees, regardless of where the money goes. As other have noted, plenty of free parking in Bellevue, I wonder why Tesla chose this location? Are they getting a kick-back from the parking garage?

 

[acarney]

I have to say I dislike ANY Tesla SC in a non-free parking lot. In effect, we are paying $$$ more in SC fees, regardless of where the money goes. As other have noted, plenty of free parking in Bellevue, I wonder why Tesla chose this location? Are they getting a kick-back from the parking garage?

I suspect paid parking garages are much more likely to “give up” spaces for the chargers… I also wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla did some “research” (made a couple calls or something) and found paid garages to be less full and thus less likely to be blocked by non-charging vehicles. Finally, Tesla might even look at the paid garage as another factor to keep vehicles in and out quickly. Would be interesting to do a observational study but I wouldn’t be surprised if cars in paid garages tended to always leave at 70 to 80% and cars in free spaces charged to 90%+. An extra 20 to 30 minutes after 80% might cost an owner another $7 + supercharger fees and could really act as an incentive to move the vehicles in the shortest session possible.

Basically if you don’t want to park there in the first place, you probably won’t want to spend much time charging there AND non-Tesla vehicles won’t want to park there.

 

[drtimhill]

I suspect paid parking garages are much more likely to “give up” spaces for the chargers… I also wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla did some “research” (made a couple calls or something) and found paid garages to be less full and thus less likely to be blocked by non-charging vehicles. Finally, Tesla might even look at the paid garage as another factor to keep vehicles in and out quickly. Would be interesting to do a observational study but I wouldn’t be surprised if cars in paid garages tended to always leave at 70 to 80% and cars in free spaces charged to 90%+. An extra 20 to 30 minutes after 80% might cost an owner another $7 + supercharger fees and could really act as an incentive to move the vehicles in the shortest session possible.

Basically if you don’t want to park there in the first place, you probably won’t want to spend much time charging there AND non-Tesla vehicles won’t want to park there.

Good points, but at the rates they charge I would (want to) drive onto the next SC .. and Tesla aren't going to benefit from an unused SC.

 

[whitex]

I suspect paid parking garages are much more likely to “give up” spaces for the chargers… I also wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla did some “research” (made a couple calls or something) and found paid garages to be less full and thus less likely to be blocked by non-charging vehicles. Finally, Tesla might even look at the paid garage as another factor to keep vehicles in and out quickly. Would be interesting to do a observational study but I wouldn’t be surprised if cars in paid garages tended to always leave at 70 to 80% and cars in free spaces charged to 90%+. An extra 20 to 30 minutes after 80% might cost an owner another $7 + supercharger fees and could really act as an incentive to move the vehicles in the shortest session possible.

Basically if you don’t want to park there in the first place, you probably won’t want to spend much time charging there AND non-Tesla vehicles won’t want to park there.

Good points, but the only benefit I see is parking enforcement (no ICE-ing), however the garage being closed 11pm-7am it's like having all stalls ICE'ed 8 hours every day. For all your other goals, Tesla could address this fleet wide by simply charging higher supercharging fees at superchargers where they want quicker turnaround. They could even implement tiered pricing - 0-50% one price, 50-60% another, and so on with 90%-100% being the most expensive. Heck, they could just add hourly rate in addition to energy, equal to what the garage charges. They don't need some garage processing payments instead. Of course, that would create a PR problem for Tesla (EV's more expensive to fill-up than gas), it's easier to play down when it's not Tesla collecting the money. While I doubt Tesla is collecting kickbacks (though who knows, Elon is smart, and lately laser-focused on profit), they might have received indirect kickbacks, like the garage paying all installation and maintenance costs.

 

[acarney]

Didn’t realize the garage had limited hours, that one really confuses me since it ultimately limits max capacity and possibility for off peak promotions to shift demand. Is this possibly still covid related?

 

[gzak]

Didn’t realize the garage had limited hours, that one really confuses me since it ultimately limits max capacity and possibility for off peak promotions to shift demand. Is this possibly still covid related?

I doubt it, the other nearby SC in the Union St paid garage in Seattle also had limited hours since long before covid. FWIW, I was done charging my Model S from ~15% soc to 90% within the 2-hour window, so it cost me $7 for essentially a full charge (going to 100% is rarely worth it). It’s a busy sc spot so I was going to get hit with idle fees long before my 2 hours were up.

 

[PLUS EV]

Good points, but at the rates they charge I would (want to) drive onto the next SC .. and Tesla aren't going to benefit from an unused SC.

Just because you don't like a particular supercharger doesn't mean everybody doesn't like it. Recent post talks about getting hit with idle fees so obviously some people are using it.

 

[drtimhill]

Just because you don't like a particular supercharger doesn't mean everybody doesn't like it. Recent post talks about getting hit with idle fees so obviously some people are using it.

Indeed, which is why I said "I would...". And of course some people are using it, if I was stuck downtown and needed to charge so would I, but I don't like the idea of adding an access-surcharge (which is what this is) on top of the SC charging fees.

 

[chrstna4]

They offer 30 minutes free parking for cars with their “license plate registered”. Looking at the garage’s website, there aren’t details about how to do it but they do use license registration for monthly parking (rather than a sticker). Thirty minutes of charging would be a significant top-up.

 

[RobertSeattle]

This is in the wall to the right as you drive it. It works

 

[chrstna4]

@RobertSeattle Do you know if you get the free 30 minutes the next time without texting again? I’m wondering if they register your plate once then you can go in as a known plate.