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Supercharger - Mountain View, CA (12 V2 stalls)

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The Mountain View Supercharger is the most heavily used location in the world, according to the screen display at the Hawthorne Supercharger that I saw this morning. Security guy told me I couldn't take a photo fo the screen, which I thought was absurd.

Only been to mountain view SC a couple times (about a year ago) before my hpwc installation finished, was lucky each time with only one time waiting in a 2 car line. Glad I never will have to use most of the Bay Area SCs.

Really wish that hawthorn chart info was available online. Pretty silly you cannot take a picture.
 
There is an 8-stall ChargePoint DCFC installation in progress at the Moffett / NASA Ames entrance, just one exit down 101. So, much like San Mateo, if you really need a charge and the SuperChargers are slammed, you could get a charge with a CHAdeMO adapter with no waiting.
 
The Mountain View Supercharger is the most heavily used location in the world, according to the screen display at the Hawthorne Supercharger that I saw this morning. Security guy told me I couldn't take a photo fo the screen, which I thought was absurd.

No-one told me not to :)

This was from 3 months ago.
 

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I'm local to this Supercharger, but my charging circuit at home failed last week and I've been unable to charge effectively. I'd also been wanting to visit the Computer History Museum's new Make Software exhibit, so I thought I could take care of both issues simultaneously this weekend.

There were 12. TWELVE! Cars in line waiting to charge. This site has 12 stalls, so the wait time must have been absolutely immense. I've seen a few cars in line before, but nothing like this. The entire parking subsection in which the Superchargers live was filled by the charging line all the way back to the street.

So I didn't charge and hope my 120V hopefully holds out until the circuit is repaired (I'm down to 60 mi remaining and charging with 120V :eek: ). The CHM's Software exhibit is pretty good, though. Definitely worth checking out.

See my post from February, also saw 12 cars then. This is pretty normal here, takes about an hour to get a slot.

No-one told me not to :)

This was from 3 months ago.

Sigh... Bay Area's Supercharger network badly needs some augmentation. Maybe Fremont 2 will help, if it wasn't being constructed for over a year.
 
Oh that's just nuts. I can't imagine waiting an hour for a slot.
If the cars could queue and connect themselves up ( ;);) ), passing the time at the museum wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Interesting stuff. They have a cafe. They also have plenty of room to expand charging as the CHM's parking lot is quite large. The entire subsection of the lot where the Superchargers reside is effectively unusable when there's a 12 car line anyway.

When you just want to be on the road it's kind of a pain, though. Especially since the next Supercharger north (San Mateo) is also notoriously packed. I wonder if Tesla regrets those 2 locations (and any other "local" Superchargers situated in the middle of population centers), or hopes to expand to more of them.
 
When you just want to be on the road it's kind of a pain, though. Especially since the next Supercharger north (San Mateo) is also notoriously packed. I wonder if Tesla regrets those 2 locations (and any other "local" Superchargers situated in the middle of population centers), or hopes to expand to more of them.

Yeah I called this almost 2 years ago in this thread and over a year ago in the San Mateo thread:

I personally think Tesla screwed up on the location of this SpC. They should have built it off I-280 by 85 or 84, away from densely-populated areas. Then it would truly be a "long-distance travel" SpC, which is what Tesla says their purpose is, and wouldn't be as hogged by locals as Shoreline. Half the cars were full of people waiting in their cars anyway, so it's not like they're coming to visit the computer history museum or something. Color me unimpressed...

That's what Tesla gets for building an SC off 101, and not 280. If they truly meant to design them for "free long-distance charging", they totally screwed this one up and end up with many locals (except ecarfan!) & TCP drivers.
 
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The Mountain View Supercharger is the most heavily used location in the world, according to the screen display at the Hawthorne Supercharger that I saw this morning. Security guy told me I couldn't take a photo fo the screen, which I thought was absurd.

Go back with a pair of Google Glass. Or an old fashioned spy camera pen.
Yeah, absurd. Did he work at United previously?

Don't tell Tesla. The 5 worst backlogged locations are all in California ... just wait for the Model 3 Tsunami :cool:

Tesla charger status .JPG
 
Yeah I called this almost 2 years ago in this thread and over a year ago in the San Mateo thread:
Looks accurate.

The way I see it, it could go two ways: 1) They view the local Superchargers as a mistake and let them stagnate or remove them when lot leases expire, or 2) They expand to more locations. Maybe I'm being optimistic that people won't abuse them, but I suspect if they had similar Superchargers in all the towns up the peninsula (Campbell, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Santa Clara, maybe Daly City or South SF), load on Mountain View and San Mateo wouldn't be so heavy.

Considering all 3 nearby (I'm claiming Fremont here as well) Superchargers are in the Top 10, it feels like they need to do something. Fremont #2 might help if they ever get it finished.
 
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When you just want to be on the road it's kind of a pain, though. Especially since the next Supercharger north (San Mateo) is also notoriously packed. I wonder if Tesla regrets those 2 locations (and any other "local" Superchargers situated in the middle of population centers), or hopes to expand to more of them.
I guess we got the answer to this from today's blog post ( Charging Is Our Priority ).

"In addition, many sites will be built further off the highway to allow local Tesla drivers to charge quickly when needed, with the goal of making charging ubiquitous in urban centers."

Edit: Actually, the CHM Mountain View location is missing from the updated map. Maybe it's being taken out and replaced with a new location (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose, Daly City, 3 in SF, and 2 additional locations in San Mateo are all shown to have new Superchargers coming in 2017)
Find Us | Tesla
 
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Edit: Actually, the CHM Mountain View location is missing from the updated map. Maybe it's being taken out and replaced with a new location (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose, Daly City, 3 in SF, and 2 additional locations in San Mateo are all shown to have new Superchargers coming in 2017)
Find Us | Tesla

It's back (not sure as of when...it's been a few days since your observation/post). There was a lot of map editing the day after the new "Find Us" map went live.

Bruce.
 
It's back (not sure as of when...it's been a few days since your observation/post). There was a lot of map editing the day after the new "Find Us" map went live.

Bruce.
What makes that interesting is that the CHM location was replaced with a generic grey "Mountain View" pin. Now the CHM location is back and the generic grey pin remains. I wonder if there's now a second MV location planned?
 
Or it's meant to indicate a significant expansion at the current location. This also happened in Gilroy and other places, where the current supercharger pin used to be grey, and it was put back to a red pin with a grey pin pointing at the city name.

Agree. Nothing wrong with a hopes-and-dreams statement, and nobody knows for sure (nobody that can speak up, anyway), but there's no evidence to suggest there's a new location in MV planned AND there is pretty clear evidence to the contrary.
 
Yeah, I was going to top up to save a different stop, but this is what the Mountain View Supercharger looked like this afternoon. The scary thing is that this is not uncommon. It's going to get interesting with the 3 coming on line soon (ish). You can't see it but a good portion of these are still "zero emissions" plated. So, do they have prepaid power or are they on the paid list? Not sure. San Mateo looks this bad on a regular basis too.

BTW, the good news is that at NEEDED SCs on cross country trips (even here in CA), I've never had a real problem. Very short wait in Dublin, Vacaville. Otherwise always available.

MTV%20Supercharger%20May%202%202017-X3.jpg
 
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Read that Mountain View frequently has a long line. Have to say that's a nice photo of all those Teslas though! Gilroy has 10 stalls and stopped there twice with no problem getting in and no one waiting at all when we were there. Drive past that location frequently and usually see at least a few spaces.