Supercharger - Dickson TN

[Sylvia]

I was the only car at the station. I tried stalls 1B, 2B, 3A and 4B. I called Tesla after I received the same 1-6KW max on 3A. When she stated it was power coming into the Supercharger that was the issue and that there was nothing Tesla could do about it. She also stated she didn't have any recommendation of any stall being better than the others. But did recommend that I sit for 10-15 mins to see how it goes. That was when I got the first 29 miles of charge, until the charger stopped completely for 10 mins.

As a side note, I have had my car 13 months, I have put over 70,000 miles on it in that time, while most of my charges are at home, I do a number of road trips. I have been to Superchargers in Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

There were only 3 times I paired with another driver when I arrived. One by accident shortly after I got my car partially because the stalls in Hagerstown MD are not numbered 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B instead they are numbered 1A, 2A, 3A, 1B, 2B, 3B. The second time was Grove City, OH on a Saturday morning, I think many people that live nearby were charging at the Supercharger as there was no logical reason for there to be 5 other cars charging. The third was 26 Dec in Lexington VA. That charger covers I-64 and I-81. I arrived there was only one open bay, within 15 mins the other 5 cars had departed. There have been a couple more when other cars have paired with me (usually at Knoxville, TN) after I was already charging.

 

[PLUS EV]

As a side note, I have had my car 13 months, I have put over 70,000 miles on it in that time, while most of my charges are at home, I do a number of road trips. I have been to Superchargers in Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Sounds like we have similar driving habits!

Please feel free to add your list in this thread:

Superchargers Visited

 

[Sylvia]

I'll have to do that. Thank you. Gotta hunt up that original list of places we stopped at.

update* After making my listed it looks like I have been to 46 chargers, though I need to go confirm with the car that I have them all listed. Kinda disappointed, was hoping to have over 50 at least, guess that means I need a road trip in a different direction for this three day weekend.

 

[Hey_Hey]

I was at the Dickson supercharger in December and I had th exact same issue. Fortunately, I live just outside Nashville and only needed 15 miles or so to get me home. I’ve got a friend that uses the Dickson charger regularly. He reports that this issue has been ongoing for a while. Tesla needs to alert drivers about this IMO. If someone is relying on the ability to get 250+mph of charging in order to make an appt or catch a flight then it is important to know that you can’t rely on this charger.

 

[Sylvia]

I have seen other chargers marked with degraded service (or something like that) in the past. I mentioned to the Tesla rep when I reported it that it would have been nice if it had been marked. I would have sat at Cookeville longer as I can potentially make it from Cookeville home as it is a little downhill (ish) from Cookeville west.

 

[FlyF4]

It goes without saying that you should try another (unpaired) stall when you are experiencing a slow charge.

Great point, however in this particular case, there is an actual supply issue to the SCs. Someone back there call Dickson Electric to investigate.

 

[Hey_Hey]

This supercharger is now showing up as “reduced service” in my car’s map.

 

[Sylvia]

That is an improvement in a way. At least people are aware that there could be an issue, so they can charge more at Jackson or Cookeville. Though I don't think most people can make it between Jackson and Cookeville without stopping here or in Brentwood.

 

[Genedr]

Visiting in Nashville on way from NY to CA, with 50% charge left after Cookville. Next stop Memphis, and had planned a stop at Dickson. So will detour to Brentwood for a short charge , then to Jackson and onward.
So far, Dickson “Reduced Service “ is the only SC hiccup.

 

[FlyF4]

I was the only car at the station. I tried stalls 1B, 2B, 3A and 4B. I called Tesla after I received the same 1-6KW max on 3A.

Oh gee, this wouldn't surprise me that the hillbilly electricians back in my home town probably ran a lamp cord a mile across the freeway to power these SCs. Embarrassing to probably have the only substandard SC in the South !

 

[CBPfromTN]

Does ANYONE know what’s going on with this Super Charger location? From what I see, it’s been closed for quite some time. Before that, I noticed check ins where people were having issues with this location, mostly if not all, experiencing slow, SLOW charging.
Why isn’t anyone working on this and why aren’t people posting about this?
This is disappointing. The Super Charger in Dickson, TN is necessary for a lot of people traveling Interstate 40 and I find it very odd that nothing appears to be done about it. I KNOW I would like to use it while traveling from Memphis to Gallatin. I can charge at Jackson but Dickson would be much better for me. I just don’t understand why it’s sitting there idle. What a waste.

 

[FlyF4]

CBP, thanks for the private message. As you now know, I am in a state of shock
I'll look into it. That station needs to work. It helps a lot of people on the I40 route.

I have some guesses about what is going on by my opinions and suggestions during construction phase, but I need to dig to confirm. As you know, I can't state all of the technical "details" here about what I find, but we can talk privately. I'll post an update when I find out something, but knowing how things work back there, it might take a couple days.

 

[Sylvia]

I stopped at this charger on March 3. On the in car nav it shows as reduced service. If I tried to navigate to it, the system would alert me and say temporarily closed/reduced service. I only needed to stop to provide a bit of a cushion. It took it a few minutes to start charging, then was very very slow, worse than I experienced a few weeks before. I was there about 30 minutes and only added 10 miles of charge. I decided I would drive slower and made it home with 18 miles remaining. On March 6, the weather was nicer and I charged to near 100% so I was able to skip Dickson and go straight to Cookeville.

From what Tesla had stated before it was due to issues with the power coming into the supercharger. The Hotel staff has called the power company at various times. I'm hoping once the weather breaks for a few weeks they can get back out and get everything resolved. The site work doesn't seem to have ever been fully completed as the trench under the road was never repaved and much of the gravel has washed away with all the rain the area has had.

 

[CBPfromTN]

CBP, thanks for the private message. As you now know, I am in a state of shock
I'll look into it. That station needs to work. It helps a lot of people on the I40 route.

I have some guesses about what is going on by my opinions and suggestions during construction phase, but I need to dig to confirm. As you know, I can't state all of the technical "details" here about what I find, but we can talk privately. I'll post an update when I find out something, but knowing how things work back there, it might take a couple days.

Thank you so much for your help. I guess it was just serendipity that I saw your post about being from Dickson etc. and talking about the SC there. I am thankful I saw your post and had the nerve to approach you with the questions. I didn't know what your real connection with the SC there but it was definitely a shot in the dark that hit the target! There will be a LOT of people indebted to you for getting this repair done and hopefully the slow charge issue addressed as well. Thank you so much!

 

[CBPfromTN]

I stopped at this charger on March 3. On the in car nav it shows as reduced service. If I tried to navigate to it, the system would alert me and say temporarily closed/reduced service. I only needed to stop to provide a bit of a cushion. It took it a few minutes to start charging, then was very very slow, worse than I experienced a few weeks before. I was there about 30 minutes and only added 10 miles of charge. I decided I would drive slower and made it home with 18 miles remaining. On March 6, the weather was nicer and I charged to near 100% so I was able to skip Dickson and go straight to Cookeville.

From what Tesla had stated before it was due to issues with the power coming into the supercharger. The Hotel staff has called the power company at various times. I'm hoping once the weather breaks for a few weeks they can get back out and get everything resolved. The site work doesn't seem to have ever been fully completed as the trench under the road was never repaved and much of the gravel has washed away with all the rain the area has had.

Sylvia, that's pretty awful....The Dickson charger is the one I would love to stop and charge on my way home from Memphis to Hendersonville. I guess I will charge in Jackson and just be careful getting back to Hendersonville. I hate it because the Dickson, TN charger is definitely a necessary one for a lot of people. The one in Brentwood (Nashville area) is NOT on my way to Hendersonville, as I take I40 to I65 towards Louisville instead of the opposite direction on I65 towards Alabama which is how you get to the Tesla dealership where the Super Chargers are. So, I hope they can get that Dickson charger up and running like it should and soon! Thanks for weighing in as I don't think anyone has done anything about this Super Charger problem.

 

[FlyF4]

Uh Oh, I guess folks are in for a long ride around this SC. I heard back from the engineer in the area yesterday and the problem is as I expected; poor quality power coming from the utility into the SC. So Tesla isn't passing the buck in case anyone wonders about that. The DES engineer put a monitor on the input to the stacks several weeks ago when complaints started occurring.

The SC may have to be throttled (my opinion) to keep the input stable. Of course I was joking when I said they probably ran a lamp cord to the SC. For what it is worth, some other businesses in the area have reported sub-standard power quality. To cut Dickson Electric some slack, that whole area along Hwy 46 from I40 into town has had tremendous growth (commercial wise) every year for the past 15 years and it is not slowing. I don't know how Dickson Electric is able to keep up with it. Who knows, they may need to put another substation out in that area.

I was really concerned about this possible issue when this SC was chartered. All of that commercial development out there and now we are adding a 720kVA input into the 4 SC stacks (8 chargers) !!! Wow, that is a lot of extra juice needed. I don't know what to tell you except that it can take some time to fully evaluate this issue and create a solution. It's up to the electric dept from my opinion. Until then, you might just get low charging rates, and I will speculate that it gets a lot better at night.

On a side note, when HIA makes any complaints to Tesla, it essentially goes to the same channel as when you call the number from your car to report an issue. HIA doesn't have any interest in the SC except to the extent that they provide the parking spaces and space for the stacks building. No money exchanges hands in these collaborations. Thus HIA doesn't have any ability to help correct this issue.

If I hear more, I'll post, but it could take a while. Hopefully folks will keep posting their experience as well.

 

[CBPfromTN]

Uh Oh, I guess folks are in for a long ride around this SC. I heard back from the engineer in the area yesterday and the problem is as I expected; poor quality power coming from the utility into the SC. So Tesla isn't passing the buck in case anyone wonders about that. The DES engineer put a monitor on the input to the stacks several weeks ago when complaints started occurring.

The SC may have to be throttled (my opinion) to keep the input stable. Of course I was joking when I said they probably ran a lamp cord to the SC. For what it is worth, some other businesses in the area have reported sub-standard power quality. To cut Dickson Electric some slack, that whole area along Hwy 46 from I40 into town has had tremendous growth (commercial wise) every year for the past 15 years and it is not slowing. I don't know how Dickson Electric is able to keep up with it. Who knows, they may need to put another substation out in that area.

I was really concerned about this possible issue when this SC was chartered. All of that commercial development out there and now we are adding a 720kVA input into the 4 SC stacks (8 chargers) !!! Wow, that is a lot of extra juice needed. I don't know what to tell you except that it can take some time to fully evaluate this issue and create a solution. It's up to the electric dept from my opinion. Until then, you might just get low charging rates, and I will speculate that it gets a lot better at night.

On a side note, when HIA makes any complaints to Tesla, it essentially goes to the same channel as when you call the number from your car to report an issue. HIA doesn't have any interest in the SC except to the extent that they provide the parking spaces and space for the stacks building. No money exchanges hands in these collaborations. Thus HIA doesn't have any ability to help correct this issue.

If I hear more, I'll post, but it could take a while. Hopefully folks will keep posting their experience as well.

Thank you for at least getting us some answers and explanation as to why this SC has been such a sub-par location. It just seems to me that when growth like they are experiencing in Dickson occurs, you do what you have to do. (meaning the infrastructure etc.) It just seems like they ought to be investing some of the tax dollars in upgrading their electric grid to support the growth if they want it to continue. Of course, I know absolutely NOTHING about it but I would hope that Dickson knows that people stopping to Super Charge will probably also spend money in Dickson, so it's not like there is NO advantage to Dickson to have the SC. If it doesn't work properly (or only intermittently) they might as well not have it.
Thanks for all you have looked into, I know everyone appreciates it and maybe if they cannot get Dickson to get their electric grid up to par with the growth, maybe another town close by might work? I do know that Dickson does have a lot of traffic flowing thru and to me, is probably the best place for the SC but not if they cannot handle it and have it work properly.
That said, please keep us posted if you hear anything!
Thanks again!

 

[FlyF4]

CBP, I tend to agree. It's not quite all in Dickson's hands. Some federal dollars area involved and you know how slow the government is to fork over cash, but they sure are fast to collect it ;-) Yes, cities know that SC stops can cause some extra business, yet tends to be low on the priority list. FYI, Clarksville off I24 and Lebanon on I40 are future SCs, but its 2018 so obviously not helping anyone now.

 

[CSFTN]

What federal dollars? You referring to TVA?

 

[CBPfromTN]

CBP, I tend to agree. It's not quite all in Dickson's hands. Some federal dollars area involved and you know how slow the government is to fork over cash, but they sure are fast to collect it ;-) Yes, cities know that SC stops can cause some extra business, yet tends to be low on the priority list. FYI, Clarksville off I24 and Lebanon on I40 are future SCs, but its 2018 so obviously not helping anyone now.

CBP, I tend to agree. It's not quite all in Dickson's hands. Some federal dollars area involved and you know how slow the government is to fork over cash, but they sure are fast to collect it ;-) Yes, cities know that SC stops can cause some extra business, yet tends to be low on the priority list. FYI, Clarksville off I24 and Lebanon on I40 are future SCs, but its 2018 so obviously not helping anyone now.