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Supercharger - Napa, CA (EXPANDED Jun 2018, 12 V2 stalls)

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If Napa is like all the other chargers around here, it takes a month to get the power turned on -- Good ol' PG&E. And that will probably wait until the whole rest of the ReFuel Center is open, including the "convenience" store. I am betting on Ludicrous.

Good point :wink:

By the way, I received your PM and just tried to reply, but couldn't send my message as your inbox is full and over the quota..
 
Stopped by this morning on my way to Mt St Helena. Nothing new to report, but wanted to check it out for myself for the fun of it. The stalls seem pretty spacious!

And interesting that the three spots on the left and a single spot all the way right is marked as Tesla charging only, and the 4 middle ones are 30 min general parking.

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The Tesla Supercharges look awesome and almost done. But I would have to say something that is going to be a fact toward the future. Example. I do not like the Tesla Supercharger position's, Because I have never ever parked directly aligned in a straight line, like the Tesla Supercharger above. I feel like they will be hit by someone. I prefer to have the Tesla car charging on the on a diagonally/angled position, not straight. Also I would feel more positive if their was a cement barrier in between each Tesla Supercharger.
http://images.hgmsites.net/med/tesla-supercharger-site-in-newburgh-new-york-june-2015_100514135_m.jpg

I have one question about technology advancement. Can the Tesla car automatically find a Tesla Supercharger spot and park itself?

Ron
 
Supercharger - Napa (Tesla says will open "in 2016")

Ron, the answer to your question is, "no". I expect that to be possible at some point in the future.
As to your concern about Supercharger stalls (I think what you call a "spot", the place where the car is located that allows you to plug in) being "straight" but you want them to be angled, there is no indication that Tesla is ever going to build angled stalls. Since the cars have parking sensors and backup cameras it is in general pretty easy to place the car in the stall without hitting anything. Obviously sometimes drivers do hit the a charging pedestal or the sign post at the rear of the stall, I see stalls with impact marks on them and sign posts pushed over. But in general it is not a problem.
Do you own a Tesla? My guess is you do not. They are big cars, but the parking sensors and camera make it possible in my opinion to park them without damaging anything. For those not used to such a big car it does take some practice.
 
Anyone been back out in the last couple of days to see if any more progress has been made? As slow as things are right now in the supercharger build-out, any sliver of news is welcomed.

Well, you can't drive up to the chargers now. Too much construction going on all over the lot: dirt, water lines, service station pumps (Chevron - woo hoo!), the store. They stop you and you can't hardly take a picture without someone telling you to put on a hard hat.

There is a lot of paving not done yet, maybe almost as much as has been done to this point. The area in front of the chargers needs another inch or two, and there's a lot of bare dirt. It's hard to see progress, but there are a lot of people working. Two were up on the truck island canopy putting up vertical metal sheets along the edge. Another few were installing the main water line valve with a small crane (large water line) out by the main road. So things are going.

I was wondering if this pedestal is the smaller wire size. I don't think it's one of the ones that are cooled, I don't see vents at the bottom. And by the way, the 40 - 60 mph winds are what took the plastic off. Six pedestals are still wrapped.

Unlike some chargers that are just about ready to open before we discover them, this one gets noticed several times a week.

Sorry for crooked pic. Shoulda rotated it a bit.

Napacharge.jpg
 
If the supercharging stalls were at an angle, you're then limited to one direction. All the superchargers I've been to (that I can remember) have traffic going both ways. Coming from the wrong direction will sure make it much tougher to park. As for cement barriers in between, do you mean around the pedestal? Or between each stall?
 
If the supercharging stalls were at an angle, you're then limited to one direction. All the superchargers I've been to (that I can remember) have traffic going both ways. Coming from the wrong direction will sure make it much tougher to park. As for cement barriers in between, do you mean around the pedestal? Or between each stall?

West Hartford, CT has angled spots to fit with the other parking spaces. See Supercharger - West Hartford, CT - Page 8 for a picture.

There have been a lot of complaints about backing in the "wrong" way because the angled Supercharger are angled the same way as head-in angle parking, but are back-in.
 
Many years ago, when I was a new employee for a public utility, we were required to have to take Smith's Defensive Driving courses before we were allowed to drive company vehicles. One of the facts they pointed out to us was that the majority of accidents caused each year were due to drivers backing out of a parking stall into moving traffic. As a company policy, it was required of all vehicles to either park in areas where you could pull through or to back into a parking stall so you were always pulling forward to exit. The reasons were that you had more chance to be in an accident if you were backing into an area where there was moving traffic versus one where the cars around you were stationary and thus easier to predict where they were are any point in time. With the technology on cars today and the cost to repair a dented Tesla if you are bumped by a moving vehicle in a parking lot, I would prefer to back in. Auto park has you doing this because it is easier for the computer to manage a stationary situation than it is one where other cars are in motion. For me, I would rather keep the safer condition in place. My insurance company would probably agree with me, too.
 
To try to get this thread back on topic...I'm looking at the pictures that MarcG took upthread. Those pull-in spaces look pretty wide (and that's a Good Thing (TM)). Also there seems to be lots of room to make the turn into each charging space. Looks generally easier to get in and out than at the Supercharger I use the most (Manteca). Back-in spaces might be easier, but I don't see any particular problems here at Napa.
 
Ron, the answer to your question is, "no". I expect that to be possible at some point in the future.
As to your concern about Supercharger stalls (I think what you call a "spot", the place where the car is located that allows you to plug in) being "straight" but you want them to be angled, there is no indication that Tesla is ever going to build angled stalls.

Cheyenne has angled, pull-in stalls and was part of the first trans-continental string of Superchargers.

Tesla Supercharger network - Page 357
 
I think pull in stations are a lot less likely to get iced, because it's more intimidating pulling between the two charging pylons.

This is a very good point. We already know that good signage helps prevent ICE'ing. Plenty of paint on the pavement helps too. Forcing drivers to actually navigate through the pull in station would be a huge psychological barrier. People cheat when they don't think they will get caught or when they think they can come up with a reasonable excuse, such as "I didn't see that these were reserved for EVs".
 
I wonder if pull in stalls will be the norm now, maybe in anticipation of auto-park (perpendicular) so there won't be any further pedestal casualities

Perpendicular autopark currently only backs the car in, so it would have to be updated to go forward into a stall.

But yeah, that would be nice if it could just automatically park into supercharger stalls - then all we'd need is the metal snake charger cable! :biggrin:
 
To try to get this thread back on topic...I'm looking at the pictures that MarcG took upthread. Those pull-in spaces look pretty wide (and that's a Good Thing (TM)). Also there seems to be lots of room to make the turn into each charging space. Looks generally easier to get in and out than at the Supercharger I use the most (Manteca). Back-in spaces might be easier, but I don't see any particular problems here at Napa.

One reason that I can think of for pull in stalls is the huge amount of grouching people do with other types of stalls because they won't be able to charge while pulling a trailer. Pull in stalls eliminate that problem. And if you wonder who drives a Model S with a trailer, this was me yesterday.

Tesla Pickup.jpg