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Supercharger - Idaho Springs, CO
- Thread starter gnavi
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- colorado supercharger
Clear Creek County is on lockdown. They are not permitting non-residents on their roads. Perhaps they requested tesla remove the location until the order expires.
https://www.clearcreekcounty.us/Doc...2/2020-02-Board-of-Health-Public-Health-Order
For those who charge in Silverthorne and heading east, I doubt navigation would ever suggest charging in Idaho Springs since it is mostly downhill from there back to the metro area. We can easily charge in Glenwood Springs and skip both Silverthorne and Idaho Springs and make it home with plenty of charge. Idaho Springs is more helpful for those heading west/uphill and who might've skipped Lakewood. You shouldn't expect the car to suggest a charge there if it isn't needed. Now that Lakewood is online, suggestions to charge in Idaho Springs will be even less common.
I just went out to the car and had it navigate to Cowdrey (north of Walden) from my place and it suggested I charge in Idaho Springs...so it will definitely still suggest that Supercharger if it is needed for the trip.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
Yes, eastbound from Silverthorne is very easy, as you saw. One caveat for those headed westbound to Silverthorne: you need enough to make it to the tunnel, as opposed to just focusing on the energy projected for arrival at Silverthorne. In our mountains, first you have to make it over the pass before regening your way back down to the Supercharger Station. Eastbound over Monarch Pass to Poncha Springs is much the same.
So, don't try to cut it too close! Here's a plot from Denver Supercharger Station to Silverthorne, back when the Denver airport station was pretty much the only Supercharging option along I-70:
^ Needless to say, I charged a bit longer to have more of a buffer.
^ Elevation Profile from Denver to Silverthorne
^ Energy plot from the Ridgway area (Ouray County) to Poncha Springs Supercharger Station, over Monarch Pass. I made it without difficulty because of the reduced drag at high altitude, which acts as something of an energy bonus when driving in the mountains. [My car is a short-range S-60 — currently about 179 rated miles of range at 100% — so these trips can be difficult even though they would be easy in almost any other Tesla model.]
^ Elevation plot from Grand Junction Supercharger Station, over Monarch Pass, to Poncha Springs Supercharger Station.
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Outside of Colorado, this is going to be pretty rare, but I have run into this phenomenon on a couple of occasions and I can confirm that the Nav does not account for going over a summit prior to a steep drop to a supercharger.
Believe it or not, Baker, CA just barely has this issue. I never would have guessed the drop was that steep, but I guess it's long and gradual enough that it sneaks up on you. Coming from Vegas you drop about 3300 ft in 19 miles from Halloran Summit to the Baker supercharger. So if the Nav is projecting that you will arrive in Baker with 1%, you might have 0% or less remaining when you crest Halloran Summit. Thus you are risking running out of juice as you describe.
Another issue is that I've had my 2018 Model S shut down regen at low battery levels (probably would not happen on your older car as I never experienced it on my 2016 Model S). I'm not sure if it's a global issue with newer Teslas, just my car, or perhaps something that has since been fixed via software updates, but the one time I ran out of juice and ended up on a flat-bed was coming into The Dalles, OR from the south. I had 8 rated miles remaining at the summit of that hill right before a ~1,000 ft drop, but my regen shut down right before I passed over the summit. It wasn't the only issue as I only had about 3 miles of steep downhill followed by 3 miles of flat drive to get to the supercharger, so I should have made it anyway, but after coasting down the hill with no regen, I only made it about a half mile on the flat part before the car shut down (with still 2 rated miles showing, which was weird). Another possible culprit there was battery pre-conditioning as this was last summer right after that feature was introduced. Obviously if your battery is critically low, they should automatically shut off the pre-conditioning. Maybe that's something they fixed in a subsequent software update. It should also be noted, that the battery should not have ticked down from 8 to 2 rated miles as I was literally coasting, so all I can think is that the battery pre-conditioning was doing that. Anyways, moral of the story is to be careful when counting on regen. These days, I'm sure not to count on it if I have under 10-15 rated miles remaining.
Mostly I was just surprised that when I told it to specifically navigate to the Idaho Springs Supercharger, it wouldn't do it. I wanted to try one of the 250kW chargers to see how it would work.
I checked after I got home and the Idaho Springs Supercharger does show up on the map, and if I tap the marker, it will navigate to it. It just won't do it with the voice "Navigate to" command. And yes, I did try the void command from home as well.
Ah. I don't think we realized you were only having the problem when trying to do it with voice. I tried by voice and confirmed it isn't working for me either. It does work when I select it on the map or select a destination which would require me to charge there.
Living in the Denver area, I spent a while using voice nav to command routes to the various SCs around town. Results:
- "Navigate to Idaho Springs SuperCharger" - zooms out to include Idaho Springs on the map, brings up an A,B,C list of all the SuperChargers and Destination Chargers in the Denver area, all in gray. Except Idaho Springs, which is not in the list and is its normal red color.
- "Navigate to Idaho Springs Miner Street SuperCharger" - works correctly.
- "Navigate to Lone Tree SuperCharger" - puts up blue line to SC. Same for Thornton and Boulder.
- "Navigate to Lakewood SuperCharger" - shows a list of SuperChargers between Philadelphia and New York City. (my personal favorite)
- "Navigate to Lakewood Colorado SuperCharger" - puts up a Denver area SC and Destination Charger list. Lakewood SC is the "A" entry on the list.
- "Navigate to Denver SuperCharger" - puts up a Denver area SC and DC list, with the addition of the Cherry Creek showroom which does not have chargers as far as I know. Doesn't include the Denver Service Center, which does have a whole metric boatload (destination) chargers. Denver Airport Way SC is "a" in the list. Lone Tree SC is not listed.
- "Navigate to Denver Airport Way SuperCharger" - blue line to SC. Also works for "Airport Road SC" or just "Airport SC" if you're in a hurry.
Back to Barry's post, I suspect that was causing to be offline earlier. However, I drove past yesterday and it's showing as temporarily offline, but the county is open now:
Clear Creek County, CO
Anyone know what's up?
A little late here, but I've always used the phrase "Tesla Supercharger at xxxx, xxxx". Has worked every time.
ColoradoEV
Member
Not sure how many others are SR+ owners, but Idaho Springs is incredibly helpful as a west slope resident. If I leave my house at 100%, I can make it to Denver with enough charge to putz around. I can skip Silverthorne entirely and get a good charge in Idaho Springs to stay in Denver without range issue, and charge at Idaho Springs enough to make it home and skip Silverthorne. In the winter time, I’ll need to charge at more stations, but I’d still be able to skip Silverthorne and I HATE Silverthorne in the winter. Negative temps and I’m waiting in line for skiers to go home to the front range.
For anyone reading this thread, you may be interested to know that the Mt. Evans road will be closed to cars this year. Still open to hikers and bicycles, but no services (eg., restrooms) will be open.
Popular scenic Mount Evans Highway will stay closed to motorists for all of 2020
Popular scenic Mount Evans Highway will stay closed to motorists for all of 2020
This is a bummer. I had been looking forward to making that drive this summer as it has probably been 25 years since I've been up there.
Look at the bright side. They will be free to do repairs and repaving this summer, so the road should be in good shape next summer.
I've been on it 2 or 3 times over the years and the upper part is usually in horrible shape.
My daughter is trying to convince me to bike it since it's car-free. I think she's trying to kill me!
sdoorex
Member
I stopped by the SC today. Although there was power including the stall lights, the chargers would not start. I did hear the cooling units in the stalls operating.
DeepBlueMN
2019 AWD Model 3
Yeah, I kind of agree. I am very happy to see the expansion in CO, but for example, the Phoenix metro area is pretty much a Supercharger ghost town. The core PHX area has only 1 full power supercharger! And no V3 ones, and none to the East, and a very problematic one to the South.
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