Supercharger - Luling, TX

[corywright]

@Guacahummus @corywright

I'm not seeing them in the app yet.

 

[AudreyHTX1]

They are lit up now. Talked to Buc-ees manager that said these are temporary until the store next door opens. 16 right now.

Interesting- so they plan to relocate them? The original drawings had them in front of the pumps near the new entrances.

Lot of extra work though even though they are pre-fab.

 

[BerTX]

OPEN!!

 

[BerTX]

No signs yet. No parking curbs. Extremely trailer unfriendly.

 

[Grey_MS_Tx]

Great news .This one is very much needed

 

[get-atty]

I've got a post from nearly a year ago on here as well - the third one on this board - about how badly needed this is, and how Flatonia is over run. I don't blame Flatonia for being the problem here, as it's 6.5 years old (prior to even Model 3's being on the road), and was at the time a "large" help for those of us going Houston to San Antonio. When charging then we would be asked lot of questions from people at the gas pumps about what electric cars were like. I feel like we converted a lot of people at that station over the years.

The problem since has been Tesla's complete lack of care about this route, and from my previous statistics:

San Antonio to Austin: 80 miles, 52 charging stalls. 1 stall every 1.5 miles on average, and 10.6 chargers per million residents of the two areas.
Austin to Dallas: 195 miles, 50 charging stalls, 1 stall every 3.9 miles on average, and 5.05 chargers per million residents of the two areas.
The 48 in Temple bring these numbers way closer to San Antonio to Austin.
Houston to Dallas: 240 miles, 76 charging stalls, 1 stall every 3.2 miles on average, and 5.17 chargers per million residents of the two areas.
With 39 added to Fairfield and Ennis since this post.
Houston to San Antonio: 200 miles, 14 charging stalls, 1 stall every 14.2 miles on average, and 1.42 chargers per million residents of the two areas.
0 Added in a year - this is a problem.

You still have the issue of, charge in Flatonia when going west or make it all the way across San Antonio to the west side, with no back-up if things change along the way.
Tesla has shown for years they don't care about this stretch of I-10, as demonstrated by the numbers above and the fact the Converse, Seguin and/or Luling all have been 'coming soon' for years now.

Well put - San Antonio is definitely underserved for a large city with 3 interstates.

 

[AudreyHTX1]

Well put - San Antonio is definitely underserved for a large city with 3 interstates.

At least they are seriously working on it now. Several under construction or just completed.

 

[WNC-MY]

OPEN!!
View attachment 988448View attachment 988449View attachment 988451

Goodbye Flatonia! Still grayed out and showing "coming Q3" on tesla.com supercharger locations.

 

[SpiceWare]

I have stopped by there plenty of times to "deep charge" including when its been full. So what you describe is normal for any other V2 location. Yes, V3 along with more stalls would be better, but Flatonia as it currently operates is not that bad all things considered.

Same - our most recent stop was the weekend before July 4th. We arrived with a car waiting ahead of us. We were able to plug in about 5 minutes later. We then went in for lunch, and the car was ready to resume the trip just as we finished eating.

We did encounter a number of new Tesla owners that did not understand how V2 Superchargers work. Prime example was a new Model S owner who was extremely upset because he'd been there for a couple hours. Turned out he'd been switching chargers every time somebody finished charging because of the low kW. I tried to explain how the paired chargers shared the 150 kW, and that the first to plug in got priority; however he was too irate at that point to understand that he'd screwed himself over by continually switching chargers, thus putting his car at a lower priority.

 

[doeandjon]

...paired chargers shared the 150 kW, and that the first to plug in got priority;

I've never encountered any "priority" behavior. Whenever I've been on a V2 and someone else was plugged into the paired charger, I got ~75kW (unless my SoC was too high to accept that much) and it didn't matter if I was first or second to plug in. I didn't ask the other cars how much power they were getting, but since I was getting about half the nominal amount, I assumed they were getting about the same. Next time I'm unlucky enough to be sharing a V2, I'll pay more attention.

 

[AudreyHTX1]

I've never encountered any "priority" behavior. Whenever I've been on a V2 and someone else was plugged into the paired charger, I got ~75kW (unless my SoC was too high to accept that much) and it didn't matter if I was first or second to plug in. I didn't ask the other cars how much power they were getting, but since I was getting about half the nominal amount, I assumed they were getting about the same. Next time I'm unlucky enough to be sharing a V2, I'll pay more attention.

Same here. If the other car drops below the 72kWh draw then you get more.

 

[brkaus]

I believe the charge sharing has changed over time.

 

[Purdue Mark]

The problem with V2 chargers at Flatonia was that when you pull up and 4 people are charging you never know which of the remaining 4 to choose. Choose correctly and you are pulling down over 100 kWh as the person next to you is almost done, choose incorrectly and you get the remaining 35 kWh not being used by the car next to you.

I would also caution anyone using the Luling station to be careful as Tesla doesn’t list it as open, so you’ll be back tracking 35 miles after driving a further 35 miles to get there in the first place if you arrive and this is being worked on again.

 

[WNC-MY]

The problem with V2 chargers at Flatonia was that when you pull up and 4 people are charging you never know which of the remaining 4 to choose. Choose correctly and you are pulling down over 100 kWh as the person next to you is almost done, choose incorrectly and you get the remaining 35 kWh not being used by the car next to you.

I would also caution anyone using the Luling station to be careful as Tesla doesn’t list it as open, so you’ll be back tracking 35 miles after driving a further 35 miles to get there in the first place if you arrive and this is being worked on again

V2 shenanigans is exactly why Flatonia will never see my MYLR again when I drive through. As for the map thing, Tesla is building a 12-station SC site in my town (Hendersonville, NC) to be finished by the end of November and it isn't showing up on any Tesla map so the map is behind reality.

 

[SpiceWare]

I've never encountered any "priority" behavior. Whenever I've been on a V2 and someone else was plugged into the paired charger, I got ~75kW (unless my SoC was too high to accept that much) and it didn't matter if I was first or second to plug in.

That's been my understanding of V2 power sharing since getting my 3 back in 2018.

The V2's have been revised over time, such as they maxed out at 120 kW in 2018 and were bumped to 150 kW in 2019. From the Introducing V3 Supercharging announcement in March 2019:

Additionally, we are also unlocking 145kW charge rates for our 12,000+ V2 Superchargers over the coming weeks.

Tesla managed to squeeze out an extra 5kW after that announcement.


As such it's possible the sharing logic has changed, though the recently updated Supercharger Superguide still explains V2 power sharing that way:

When vehicles occupy both stalls for a single V2 Supercharger cabinet, the power is divided between the two vehicles. The first vehicle gets the most power, but the second vehicle will get at least 30 kW. As the first vehicle charges beyond 50% SOC or so, the power is tapered down to protect the battery. The excess capacity is then diverted to the 2nd vehicle. When the first vehicle completes charging or leaves, the second vehicle gets the entire capacity of the Supercharger.

 

[Purdue Mark]

V2 shenanigans is exactly why Flatonia will never see my MYLR again when I drive through. As for the map thing, Tesla is building a 12-station SC site in my town (Hendersonville, NC) to be finished by the end of November and it isn't showing up on any Tesla map so the map is behind reality.

I completely agree with regard to the map on the Tesla website, I was referring to the maps in the car or on the app, where this station is not listed yet. Just a long way to go if you find out this message board and supercharge.info didn't get the latest update one morning and the Thanksgiving travelers now can't get to the west side of San Antonio and their only option is to back track to Flatonia.

Also V2 charging is certainly a crap shoot, but if you are going from Houston to San Antonio you don't have the luxury of deciding to skip V2 chargers unless you are making it all the way across with no stop.

 

[byeLT4]

Sure is taking a while to pop up on the map and app.

 

[Guacahummus]

Is it 15 or 16? Find us says 16

 

[AudreyHTX1]

Is it 15 or 16? Find us says 16

Should be 16. Buc-ee’s has so far only used the pre-fab charger sets which come in groups of 4.

 

[Blake Stayton]

Stopped in yesterday twice (going and coming back from Houston) and never got more than 65w. Battery was pre-conditioned, 22% SOC.. Others around me were having the same issue. The parking lot was crazy stupid because of construction and it being the day before Thanksgiving, but ICE cars were parked in several of the charging spots.