Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Supercharger - Kennewick, WA

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I know that there are at least a couple of folks that have been following this thread and the Albuquerque SC thread. Having grown up in Kennewick, and having lived in Albuquerque for several years (and actually been there during construction of the SC), I'm pretty thrilled that they both went active on exactly the same day - September 4, 2015. Of course, the Albuquerque SC was essentially finished on June 3rd, so this is no small feat (I'm grateful the Kennewick SC did not require a fence :smile:). Eventually, I'll be back on the mainland and driving back and forth between Albuquerque and Kennewick, so this is going to be awesome for me when that time comes.

On a completely unrelated note, this is my 100th post (only took me 20 months), so I finally get to shed the "Junior" moniker. Yea!
 
Looks like this location went on-line two days after I left for Montana. Oh well, at least Ellensburg wasn't ICE'd. I did however use it going back. It was nice to just go into Fred Meyer and kick back on their display couches while we waited. :)

However, the oddest thing happened. The navigation refused to route us back via Kennewick. It insisted we go via Ellensburg. The only reason I can think of this is it uses less energy from Ellensburg to The Dalles versus Kennewick to The Dalles. So I had to cancel the trip and route directly between SCs for the last leg. And after charging there, going home to Portland, it refused to recognize The Dalles as a valid stop on the way (forcing me to route directly there first instead of home). The trip routing is still technically in BETA after all!

One other odd side note about traveling along I-90. In both directions between Coeur d'Alene and Superior, it told me I had enough charge in my MS60 to get there with only 5% remaining (along with warnings about driving slow to make it after pulling out). All other legs it preferred a larger buffer. Next time I do this trip, I'll keep charging for another 10 minutes as I like to have a little more buffer due to headwinds and rain.
 
That is a well known problem of the latest version of Tesla Nav. I, too, used Kennewick last weekend and was heading to Seattle (with Seattle as the destination in Nav). It wanted us to go to Ritzville. My wife was driving and didn't remember the problem with nav. I caught it at the last minute when she was about to go the wrong way - cancelled the destination (Seattle) and selected the next SC (Ellensburg).

In general, the trip stuff in Tesla Nav is incredibly dysfunctional. Not even close to Beta quality yet. Elon should be ashamed of this one. Like you did, it's better to select the next charge location than final destination.

The Kennewick SC is nicely done but suffers one problem - it's off of US 395 which is way slow (lots of traffic, stop lights). Definitely not like other SCs where its a quick stop off the freeway.
 
When it works, it's great. I like having a list of charging times and final ETA of the trip. Granted I don't put 100% of my faith into it. I still pre-plan the trip, so I know when it goes wrong and not to trust it. In this case, it was only an issue when I came home. The drive there and other trips I've taken (which granted were shorter) it worked fine and took the best route possible. I look forward to future updates as I'm sure Tesla will improve the logic behind it. Until then, I'll keep treating it as a BETA and enjoy features it offers when I know it can be trusted.
 
I have charged here 4-5 times now as I drive through Tri Cities regularly for work. Never seen another Tesla there.

One comment for the installers: the wheel blocks set to stop your tires when you back in are too far from the chargers. The cord barely reaches or doesn't reach for some of the stations.
 
I have charged here 4-5 times now as I drive through Tri Cities regularly for work. Never seen another Tesla there.

One comment for the installers: the wheel blocks set to stop your tires when you back in are too far from the chargers. The cord barely reaches or doesn't reach for some of the stations.


I haven’t seen that particular location, but I noticed it like that at Boise. You have to be right up against those stops, and then it’s a fairly tight stretch of the cord. It sure would be nice to have them about another 6 inches or a foot back.
 
I have charged here 4-5 times now as I drive through Tri Cities regularly for work. Never seen another Tesla there.

One comment for the installers: the wheel blocks set to stop your tires when you back in are too far from the chargers. The cord barely reaches or doesn't reach for some of the stations.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll make sure to back up all the way to the bumper when I'm up there next month.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I'll make sure to back up all the way to the bumper when I'm up there next month.

Oh, and one other aspect of getting it to reach. It’s not just the front/back distance in some cases, since there’s a little bit of an angle to where the cord comes out of the Supercharger pedestal to where the port on the car is. You sometimes have to lane shark over onto the parking space line on the driver’s side to cut down the angle and get it a little closer.
 
I have been to the Kennewick supercharger 4 times in the past 2 months, and each time I feel my charging speed has been pretty slow. Two of the times my battery was at a fairly low state of charge where I would expect to get max speed, but I was still only getting about 200 mi/hr. My charging speeds have been excellent in Pendleton and the Dalles in what seemed to be very similar conditions, at over 350 mi/hr.

Have others felt that Kennewick is slow, or have I just had bad luck?
 
I haven't charged there in quite a while, but don't remember speed problems. As other threads have indicated, you should try another stall if the charging rate doesn't seem to be at "full". Part of the problem with this station is the lack of anything to do nearby (only Fred Meyer's and one Mexican restaurant). Slow charging only exacerbates the problem.
 
I was there yesterday at about 50% SOC and charged just fine (almost 300 amps initially, then decreasing slowly). I charged to about 90% in 20-30 min or so while I was shopping.
 
I was there yesterday at about 50% SOC and charged just fine (almost 300 amps initially, then decreasing slowly). I charged to about 90% in 20-30 min or so while I was shopping.
I charged again twice this past weekend. The first time was a bit slow, less than 60 KW at around 50% SOC, perhaps due to a colder battery. The second time, I arrived at 10% after driving 250 mi and started charging at 115 KW. So, I can definitively say Kennewick is charging at full.
 
Friday morning I flew out to Seattle to pick up my new S and Kennewick was my second stop on the way home. When I arrived only one stall was occupied which left shortly after I left. Charge rates seemed to very slow after coming back from inside and the cord handle was very hot (the handle was in the direct sun). Coming from Ellensburg, the Tesla Nav had me take a different route than Google/ABRP/Evtripplanner wanted me to take which I did not notice until it was too late.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20170825_172957.jpg
    IMG_20170825_172957.jpg
    548.2 KB · Views: 114