Supercharger - Gillette, WY

[GHammer]

I've had this happen several times and each time when I got there the charger was operational. Sometimes the stations will lose communication with the mothership so it shows as closed but it'll still work. Did you stop and see if it was really closed? It's showing operational right now.

In over 300k of travels, crossing the country multiple times, I've only once had a station go down on my way and really be down and that was because the entire town lost power.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Findus still lists it.

But, findus also has a gray pin for a new Gillette, WY Supercharger this year.
Hopefully if closed, it's closed for expansion, not closed ahead of a new Supercharger.

 

[scottfe]

I've had this happen several times and each time when I got there the charger was operational. Sometimes the stations will lose communication with the mothership so it shows as closed but it'll still work. Did you stop and see if it was really closed? It's showing operational right now.

In over 300k of travels, crossing the country multiple times, I've only once had a station go down on my way and really be down and that was because the entire town lost power.

Thanks for the useful info!! After the warning message Gillette showed as a black icon on the car map. Later it disappeared entirely and did not appear on the phone app either. Same as we passed by, so we did not stop. Dropping from 80 mph to 70 did wonders to reduce the consumption, of course, giving us good confidence to arrive at the Spearfish SC. The app does show Gillette online now. So perhaps just a comm glitch as you suggest. We've done many trips like this, but first time this has happened to us. Thanks again!

 

[Earl]

In sparse areas or extreme weather, this

Always have a backup or two in mind.

is always a good idea.
I've only had this same issue:

I've only once had a station go down on my way and really be down and that was because the entire town lost power.

However, as far as I know, Tesla has always provided a tow if one of their Superchargers that they told you to go to was down and you got stuck. I think this is one reason they're hesitant to route you to 3rd party charging stations.

 

[SVMike]

And if it was a simple planned outage there should be some mechanism in the system to account for a station just dropping offline.

~2 years ago I was in CA going to Sequoia NP. On the (downhill) return I was headed to a SC that I'd been to a couple of days before. After a hike on a hot day I set out with ~110 miles remaining to Traver (about 50 miles). In the bright sun, with sun glasses on I missed the fact that a small text box popped up that said the Traver SC was closed for maintenance. Later covered by audio screens. I drove there and there was a Tesla truck with a tech waiting for the power to come back on. He told the downtime should have shown up on my screen...I went and checked and it was there.

In the end it didn't matter, because the trip was downhill (about 6000 ft drop) I still had 90 miles remaining and I went elsewhere.
Also, the tech had finished his maintenance an hour before and was just waiting for the utility to turn the power back on.

This is also a good time to point out to ALWAYS enter your destination into the navigation system so you get SC closed warnings if a closure would ruin your day.

Mike

 

[Mockingbird]

Why didn't you go to the Electrify America charging station in Gillette, WY?

As far as I am aware, it is open.

 

[rhumbliner]

I've had this happen several times and each time when I got there the charger was operational.

Ditto. The first time there was no indication of any problems and I charged normally. The second time a tech was working on one stall but the others were operational. The most recent time the message changed while I was enroute from not operational to reduced service. Fortunately I’ve never been stranded.