Supercharger - College Station, TX - Texas Avenue South

[Pale_Rider]

Just a place holder. Looking forward to this one, but I’ve not seen any permits or activity. I don’t believe the “Coming in 2018”is going to hold true, but I hope I’m wrong!

 

[cornbread]

I'm also looking forward to this one! Would help a lot when driving down for Aggie Games.

 

[Rockster]

This will be great. Last time I spent the day at A&M I needed to charge at the Bush library in order to make it back home.

 

[ℬête Noire]

This will be great. Last time I spent the day at A&M I needed to charge at the

in order to make it back home.

FYI there's a number of Tesla destination chargers in Bryan/CS. Most are at hotels but theres one off FM2818 south of Hwy 21. It's kinda oddball, it's on the side of an out-building at the backside of a cabinet making factory. Though I admittedly have never used it it is listed at 16kW so it's a "good one", better than the 7kW J-1772 ones at the George Bush Library and the "free with parking" ones on the A&M campus.

 

[Pale_Rider]

Yup, these are all good options but none overly convienent to campus to charge during a football game without some effort unless you are spending the night or not in a hurry. I’m mainly looking forward to being able to stop for 20 min, let the 8 year old make a pit stop and then make it all the way to Waco when it is in the 30’s and driving into a strong North wind.. I’ve done it without charging but it is a little stressful lol.

 

[AndrewTX]

There are a couple of good L2 chargers at Cain Garage if you're able to park there while at the game. They're only 20A but if you're parking there for five or six hours it would add a good amount of range.
The best destination charger in College Station is at the Embassy Suites at University Dr and S. Texas. I've gotten up to 40A while charging there and the hotel management is perfectly OK with non-guests using their charger.

 

[ℬête Noire]

There are a couple of good L2 chargers at Cain Garage if you're able to park there while at the game. They're only 20A but if you're parking there for five or six hours it would add a good amount of range.
The best destination charger in College Station is at the Embassy Suites at University Dr and S. Texas. I've gotten up to 40A while charging there and the hotel management is perfectly OK with non-guests using their charger.

My kid's a math/physics major so I use Northside when I visit, it's 30A. Not sure that's open during game day, though?

Center, Southside, and West Campus have them as well but haven't used them.

 

[AndrewTX]

My kid's a math/physics major so I use Northside when I visit, it's 30A. Not sure that's open during game day, though?

Center, Southside, and West Campus have them as well but haven't used them.

I don't know about game days, honestly. I've never attended a game at Kyle Field. My oldest just started at A&M this semester. I hope the Super Charger is actually operational before he's finished.

 

[brkaus]

I don't know about game days, honestly. I've never attended a game at Kyle Field. My oldest just started at A&M this semester. I hope the Super Charger is actually operational before he's finished.

Hopefully going for a PhD. . It will help the chances.

 

[buttershrimp]

Hey everyone, the new Aggie Supercharger just went live!

Hook em' Horns

 

[AndrewTX]

I spoke with a Tesla employee at the new Richmond SC last Saturday. He was there doing the final checkout of the location. I mentioned that College Station was the next key site in Texas for me and he replied that, next to San Antonio, it was the most requested location in Texas. He expects to get something done there as early in 2019 as possible.
He also hinted at the potential to add one somewhere near the interaction of 290+Hwy 6 sometime next year.

 

[Electroman]

I would have thought Whichita would be high on the list.

 

[ℬête Noire]

I spoke with a Tesla employee at the new Richmond SC last Saturday. He was there doing the final checkout of the location. I mentioned that College Station was the next key site in Texas for me and he replied that, next to San Antonio, it was the most requested location in Texas. He expects to get something done there as early in 2019 as possible.
He also hinted at the potential to add one somewhere near the interaction of 290+Hwy 6 sometime next year.

290 and 6? That's only a few miles from the SC already at Rudy's on 290. If so it'd have to be one of the Urban SC to make any sense to me to schedule ahead of plenty of other potential locations.

P.S. It wouldn't surprise me about College Station being a high request. I've seen a number of Teslas driving there (along with other BEVs), it's a game day destination and outside of perhaps coming from DFW direction via Waco/Bellmead SC it is kinda to get there and back with older Teslas.

 

[mociaf9]

290 and 6? That's only a few miles from the SC already at Rudy's on 290. If so it'd have to be one of the Urban SC to make any sense to me to schedule ahead of plenty of other potential locations.

I would guess that he was talking about the western area where 290 & 6 meet. On Tesla's map that's pretty close to the pin they've got in Brenham.

I'm also in the camp that adding sites in Wichita Falls and Lubbock should have a higher sense of urgency than putting one in College Station even if lots of owners would like it. For A&M gamedays, significantly increasing the local L2 chargers would be better. If you want to see the problem with relying on a nearby supercharger for high traffic events, look at what happened at the Buellton, CA supercharger after a recent SpaceX launch out of nearby Vandenberg AFB. 60+ cars waiting in line to charge with wait times of over 3 hours by some accounts. The geographical location of College Station makes it less likely to result in quite such a mess, but it will still be a growing problem as more people drive Teslas (and EVs in general). A much better solution would be a parking lot with a ton of L2 chargers.

 

[ℬête Noire]

I would guess that he was talking about the western area where 290 & 6 meet. On Tesla's map that's pretty close to the pin they've got in Brenham.

I'm also in the camp that adding sites in Wichita Falls and Lubbock should have a higher sense of urgency than putting one in College Station even if lots of owners would like it. For A&M gamedays, significantly increasing the local L2 chargers would be better. If you want to see the problem with relying on a nearby supercharger for high traffic events, look at what happened at the Buellton, CA supercharger after a recent SpaceX launch out of nearby Vandenberg AFB. 60+ cars waiting in line to charge with wait times of over 3 hours by some accounts. The geographical location of College Station makes it less likely to result in quite such a mess, but it will still be a growing problem as more people drive Teslas (and EVs in general). A much better solution would be a parking lot with a ton of L2 chargers.

Agreed about those gap SC, particularly Lubbock where even the 100's and LR's can be pushed. However CS is something of a through point, too, coming from Houston. Without you are locked into I45 and then head awkwardly West. LRs don't have an issue, so it's a bit like Wichita Falls, still it'll get used.

Game days it will help that people arrive staggered anyway. The modestly clever will leisurely top off as they arrive, the rest will learn planning through trial and error. Of the 6kW L2 on campus there's only about ten right now, but nothing centralized (it's 2-3 in each parkade), but no way to know until you're inside the parkade if the spot's open. Enough for the lucky folks that catch them. Same thing with the Destination Chargers around Bryan & CS, 6 or something, but no way they have the total throughput of a SC because you can't look ahead at them to see whether they are available.

P.S. Of course Waco helps a lot, and Brenham should make Houston and Victoria and such direction a slam dunk even for the shorter range vehicles coming up 6 (the divided-4-lane-through-the-country version rather than the city street version running parallel to BW8, yeah, I forgot about bizarre enormous offset in highway 6# ).

 

[mociaf9]

Agreed about those gap SC, particularly Lubbock where even the 100's and LR's can be pushed. However CS is something of a through point, too, coming from Houston. Without you are locked into I45 and then head awkwardly West. LRs don't have an issue, so it's a bit like Wichita Falls, still it'll get used.

Well, that aught to teach me to comment before I actually check the distances involved. I had been thinking that the NW Houston SC to Waco SC, going through College Station, was more like 110 miles instead of being around 170mi. So, yeah. With winter temps and potentially contrary weather/road conditions there's definitely a credible need for a CS supercharger just for through travel and not solely for day-tripping convenience as I had previously been thinking.

 

[KidDoc]

I'm looking forward to this as well mostly to go and grab some "free" juice after making the trip to Houston & back haha.

There is also a good charger by the Saltgrass in south College Station on Hwy 6. Two spots in the hotel next to Saltgrass Tesla only chargers. Not sure if 40 or 80 as I don't have dual chargers.

 

[AndrewTX]

290 and 6? That's only a few miles from the SC already at Rudy's on 290. If so it'd have to be one of the Urban SC to make any sense to me to schedule ahead of plenty of other potential locations.

P.S. It wouldn't surprise me about College Station being a high request. I've seen a number of Teslas driving there (along with other BEVs), it's a game day destination and outside of perhaps coming from DFW direction via Waco/Bellmead SC it is kinda to get there and back with older Teslas.

He was talking about the intersection of 290 and 159/6 near Hempstead. I suggested locating it at Buccee's there and he just laughed.

 

[AndrewTX]

I would have thought Whichita would be high on the list.

It could very well be. He may have just been polite since I asked about College Station. He did say that they expect to significantly ramp up installations in Texas as a whole in 2019. They deliberately cut back on new superchargers to achieve profitability in 3Q and also 'due to Elon getting in trouble with the SEC'.

That last comment confused me somewhat but I didn't push him for details.

 

[Twiglett]

He was talking about the intersection of 290 and 159/6 near Hempstead. I suggested locating it at Buccee's there and he just laughed.

yeah - Buccess don't want people hanging around that long. Never wondered why there are no chairs or tables in a there?