Supercharger - King of Prussia, PA

[rich0]

The idea of supercharging I think was two fold, One, to enable you to drive your electric (Tesla ) on a long trip. Two, to make that trip, the charging part reasonable.

I think for long trips we're largely covered already. From the KoP area you can travel in almost any direction and hit a supercharger well before running out of power.

The problem is with day trips or heavy daily driving. If you live somewhere like Doylestown and want to do a trip to Lancaster and back, that is going to stretch your battery pretty far and you won't pass any superchargers along that route. With the LR battery packs you can generally do the trip, but you're getting home at 20-30% tops which means that you're committed to spending at least an hour or two charging before going anywhere else. If you had to make that round trip for work and had evening plans before getting home, you'd have to find some sort of destination charging option at one of your stops. If you have a short-range battery I'm not sure if you could even do the trip - if you did you'd be cutting it pretty close unless you detour out to York/Harrisburg if the math works.

If destination chargers were completely ubiquitous this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but I think it is more realistic to see Tesla installing a lot more superchargers in less-busy places than expecting every business/park/etc in the country to have a bunch of destination chargers.

I was looking at a possible trip to central PA and it would have definitely stretched the battery. The problem wasn't getting there - it was that the location was fairly distant from any superchargers, so it would require supercharging to near-100% so that you could make the round trip to the final destination back to the supercharger. If the destination had charging that would be another matter, but it was a park that would be unlikely to have any kind of power - or at best 120V.

Tesla really needs to step it up more with the superchargers, or add support for CCS and bring down the cost of the CHAdeMO adapter so that there are more options. The fact that a location like KoP is struggling to get charging support is not a good sign of well-supported charging will be in even less busy areas.

 

[vdiv]

Cost of the CHAdeMO adapter is well-worth it to broaden charging compatibility/availability. Cost of using third-party DCFC networks both monetary and neuronic... well...

 

[realvvk]

If you live somewhere like Doylestown and want to do a trip to Lancaster and back, that is going to stretch your battery pretty far and you won't pass any superchargers along that route.

Completely agree with what you posted. We need many more superchargers around Philly and in other areas like Wellsboro.

For that drive from Doylestown to Lancaster I have found that Rt202/Rt 30 is only a few minutes slower than taking the turnpike but it really conserves your battery because the speed is way lower and the distance is way shorter. So your navigation app will probably want you to take the turnpike but if you use an EV aware trip planner or just look at the map, you will see what I mean.

 

[WATTS-UP]

I have 99,600 miles on my S60, I'm beginning to think about a battery upgrade. Not interested in going to an 85 or 90.
My hope is the Tesla or any one will give us the 300+ mile range that the new Model S has now. What would even be better is if
we had a 450 mile range option. Once the electric cars have a 400+ mile range supercharging will not be as important as it is today.

At a 400+ mile range, we will need to charge once a day not every few hours, that will make long distance
electric travel like driving your ice.

 

[Xebec]

I heard back from the township - this is confusing but it sounds like the permit status might be incorrect?

(From Upper Merion Township) --

Apologies for the delay. I was waiting to hear from our Code Enforcement department on this. I'm copying their email reply below, but in a nutshell, there is no holdup on the part of the township. They recommend contacting the mall directly about location for electric cars or Tesla.

>>I found 3 permits for car chargers; two are for Tesla and one was for the mall parking lot.
Tesla's first permit was in 2013 and the second permit stated that it was to have the current car chargers relocated.
The malls permits were for 6 parking lot chargers and it is from 2018. It was submitted in 9/18, issued in 10/18 and the 3rd party inspection was from 1/19.
I am not sure which permit the resident is referring to. All of the permits are electric permits and require a third party inspection. We process, review and issue the permits. It is up to the applicant to initiate the work on the permit and in the case of the electric permit we state to the applicant that a third party inspection is required and they are responsible for obtaining that inspection.
I would suggest the resident phone the mall to see if their stations are in working order or Tesla to gain approval for use of their stations. If he is thinking 2017 I believe he is thinking of the Tesla permit for relocation and may not be aware of the mall charging stations.

 

[GlmnAlyAirCar]

I heard back from the township - this is confusing but it sounds like the permit status might be incorrect?

(From Upper Merion Township) --

Apologies for the delay. I was waiting to hear from our Code Enforcement department on this. I'm copying their email reply below, but in a nutshell, there is no holdup on the part of the township. They recommend contacting the mall directly about location for electric cars or Tesla.

>>I found 3 permits for car chargers; two are for Tesla and one was for the mall parking lot.
Tesla's first permit was in 2013 and the second permit stated that it was to have the current car chargers relocated.
The malls permits were for 6 parking lot chargers and it is from 2018. It was submitted in 9/18, issued in 10/18 and the 3rd party inspection was from 1/19.
I am not sure which permit the resident is referring to. All of the permits are electric permits and require a third party inspection. We process, review and issue the permits. It is up to the applicant to initiate the work on the permit and in the case of the electric permit we state to the applicant that a third party inspection is required and they are responsible for obtaining that inspection.
I would suggest the resident phone the mall to see if their stations are in working order or Tesla to gain approval for use of their stations. If he is thinking 2017 I believe he is thinking of the Tesla permit for relocation and may not be aware of the mall charging stations.

The first two permits I would have to think are for the HPWC's inside the garage.

The third could be the Electify America chargers

Seems to be no Supercharger permit

 

[Xebec]

The first two permits I would have to think are for the HPWC's inside the garage.

The third could be the Electify America chargers

Seems to be no Supercharger permit

How do we get this site updated to remove the King of Prussia status?

 

[Craig_in_PA]

1000 days on permit status.

That is all.

 

[MX1028]

It seems like Tesla is having a hard time around locations serviced by PECO. All the other super chargers outside Philly are outside of PECO area.
Just my 2cents.

 

[Xebec]

1000 days on permit status.

That is all.

Unfortunately there is *no* permit for installing a supercharger in King of Prussia. I contacted Upper Merion township earlier and there is nothing active. The supercharger.info website is incorrect but i'm not sure how to ask to have the KOP supercharger removed. I don't believe there is a request from Tesla to put a supercharger here.

Check out Post 286 from this thread (2 above your reply ).

Supercharger - King of Prussia, PA

 

[K1Woods]

There's always been a King of Prussia (coming soon) on the Tesla website though...for many, many years...

My 2 cents is that someone has dropped the ball for the region. If peco or the state are slowing the process, the public should know about it.

 

[Xebec]

There's always been a King of Prussia (coming soon) on the Tesla website though...for many, many years...

My 2 cents is that someone has dropped the ball for the region. If peco or the state are slowing the process, the public should know about it.

So far there's no evidence of permits of any kind being submitted - usually the first step of the process, before PECO or even the township reviews or gets involved. I've spoken to Upper Merion township about this. I think either Tesla never started the process or it's just incorrect data on their website.

Unfortunately I don't see any valid avenue to contact Tesla to ping them on this..

 

[K1Woods]

So far there's no evidence of permits of any kind being submitted - usually the first step of the process, before PECO or even the township reviews or gets involved. I've spoken to Upper Merion township about this. I think either Tesla never started the process or it's just incorrect data on their website.

Unfortunately I don't see any valid avenue to contact Tesla to ping them on this..

Regardless of permits, King of Prussia has always been targeted by Tesla as a "coming soon" Supercharger location.

King of Prussia, PA | Tesla

Back in 2016 with my Model S, I never imagined it would be Sept-2020 with nothing in the vicinity...that "coming soon" has a odd definition.

 

[Joe F]

Send E-Mail to [email protected]

I don't know if that's still valid or not, as that was from many years ago.

 

[GlmnAlyAirCar]

Send E-Mail to [email protected]

I don't know if that's still valid or not, as that was from many years ago.

Just like AP1 will always be in beta, King of Prussia SC will always be “coming soon.”

 

[yerEVan]

Springfield is in the same electric boat.

 

[Xebec]

Send E-Mail to [email protected]

I don't know if that's still valid or not, as that was from many years ago.

Thanks! Sent this email in, will see what happens:

Dear Tesla,

For a few years the Tesla website (and other tracking sites) have listed the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania supercharger as 'coming soon'. However, I've checked with the local township and they do not appear to have any permits or plans from Tesla for this supercharger.

Is this supercharger location still in the planning stages? Is there something I can do as a local resident to help with the township if you do plan to build one here?

King of Prussia, PA | Tesla

 

[K1Woods]

Thanks! Sent this email in, will see what happens:

Dear Tesla,

For a few years the Tesla website (and other tracking sites) have listed the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania supercharger as 'coming soon'. However, I've checked with the local township and they do not appear to have any permits or plans from Tesla for this supercharger.

Is this supercharger location still in the planning stages? Is there something I can do as a local resident to help with the township if you do plan to build one here?

King of Prussia, PA | Tesla

Please add "California has enough already!....signed - "very jealous" Pennsylvanians...

 

[vdiv]

Wawa needs to make Elon a favor he can't refuse. Or maybe vice-versa, Teslas in the area should show up at Wawas, buy a hoagie or two, have a photo-op. Now that the new destination wall connectors can be configured to collect payment those would be more appropriate at the mall.

 

[rich0]

Now that the new destination wall connectors can be configured to collect payment those would be more appropriate at the mall.

Yeah, it is annoying to be at 30% battery and destination chargers are all in-use - likely by cars that are at 85%+ but free is free.

I get that people want to show support for EVs and that is great, but the nature of free stuff is that people just plug in anytime they can and unless you're going to have 100 chargers it just means that you can't rely on being able to get one. Sometimes (pre-Covid) I need to drive 100 miles for work to a location that has chargers, and it would be REALLY nice to be able to count on being able to plug in for a few hours.

Regarding the rest of your post, I suspect Wawa isn't the problem. As long as they're not paying for it I'm sure they're happy for the extra traffic. They might even be willing to chip in. However, if permitting takes forever or Tesla is just backlogged they're probably not going to want to fight a big court battle with PECO if some local town in CA is practically begging them to install one.