Supercharger - Newark, DE

[JST]

Having spent my youth in New Jersey, and buying gas thousands of times in NJ since, your experience is the rare outlier. I've never had a problem like that at any NJ filling station. That was most likely a defective gas pump handle, which could happen at any filling station in any state.

True. That's my favorite story, not a representative one. A representative story is: Pull up to pump. Wait for attendant. Continue waiting for attendant. Attendant eventually comes over. Hand attendant card. Attendant then runs card through pump mounted credit card reader, exactly as I would have done, and sticks pump in car. Attendant then wanders off. Gas finishes. Wait for attendant. Continue waiting for attendant. Attendant ambles back, holsters pump, gives you card back.

Total time elapsed: 2X to 4X what would have happened if I'd just pumped the gas myself. There's a reason the gas lines are so long on the NJTP.

 

[HankLloydRight]

True. That's my favorite story, not a representative one. A representative story is: Pull up to pump. Wait for attendant. Continue waiting for attendant. Attendant eventually comes over. Hand attendant card. Attendant then runs card through pump mounted credit card reader, exactly as I would have done, and sticks pump in car. Attendant then wanders off. Gas finishes. Wait for attendant. Continue waiting for attendant. Attendant ambles back, holsters pump, gives you card back.

Total time elapsed: 2X to 4X what would have happened if I'd just pumped the gas myself.

Sure, no argument there... but the price differential (well, when I used to buy gas for an 18 gallon beast), was substantial. Also, for the last several years, they swipe your card and hand it back immediately.

But I have to take issue with this:

There's a reason the gas lines are so long on the NJTP.

There are many factors that influence gas lines on the NJTP -- the primary one being the number of cars arriving is greater than the number of stalls available. So even if the attendants were as prompt as self-serve, there still would be lines at the pumps, although the lines may be slightly shorter. When I've refueled at those NJTP pumps, those guys hustle.

 

[mikeash]

Having spent my youth in New Jersey, and buying gas thousands of times in NJ since, your experience is the rare outlier. I've never had a problem like that at any NJ filling station. That was most likely a defective gas pump handle, which could happen at any filling station in any state.

Except if you do it yourself, you can stand there and monitor it to catch the problem immediately, and you don't get idiots blaming you for the problem.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Except if you do it yourself, you can stand there and monitor it to catch the problem immediately, and you don't get idiots blaming you for the problem.

Well, I can't do anything about the idiots, but I have had defective pump handles splash gas all over the car (and me) a few times before (obviously not in NJ, BTW).

 

[jaguar36]

10 car wait at the pumps, each "row" has 2 pumps that are operational typically, let's assume it takes 5minutes to wait for the attendant to get to you, fill your car, and give you your receipt so you can drive off. So that's 25minutes and you're off.

If there is no wait, I can SpC in 25minutes to get to my next SpC. But a 2 car wait in front of me, would add probably another 25-30minutes...

Sept it was 10 cars for each pump, not per row. So like an hour wait. No idea why people were waiting that long instead of just hopping off at any random exit and hopping back on 10 mins later.

Regardless I was mostly joking, as its quite rare to see that long a line, and with a lick of sense you wouldn't be waiting in that.

As for not having to pump gas in NJ, if you know where the good gas stations are you'll never wait long for the attendee. The gas station I go to is probably quicker most of the time as the guy is usually right there when you pull up. Its always the out-of-towners that complain about it because they go to terrible gas stations. And its wonderful when its 100 degrees out or 5 degrees out.

 

[shelbri]

Feeling lonely in DE. Arrive Saturday about 9:45am.

To be fair, I was the fourth to arrive but with minutes the other three left. Hope it wasn't me. [emoji12]

 

[loganss]

I've finally experienced the wait at DE people were talking about. All 4 stalls were occupied and 3 of us are waiting Sun around 3pm. The expansion is definitely needed.

 

[rickrickrick]

I'll chime in about the paint for the parking spots. The Newark, DE location was the first (and still only) place I've had the opportunity to use a supercharger and the lines were really confusing. I did my homework by reading through this thread but I didn't fully understand the issue until I was there trying to figure out how I needed to line up to park. Center the car on the sign with the supercharger lined up on the side is all I needed to know.

 

[wk057]

Back in early 2014 the lines were actually correct... then sometime soon after they got repainted to be weird like they are. Not sure who thought that was a good idea...

 

[pdq]

Was there this weekend with battery at 39% and a long drive back to northern PA ahead of me, and I needed a bit of juice. Of the 4 charging stations, I was the only car there. As such, after a few minutes I took a photo and looking at it, the charging rate was 212mi/hr, 381 V 172A. When the battery hit the 60% charge mark the rate slowed appreciably from there.

Much different as compared to the "as much as 170 miles in 30 minutes" as claimed, i.e. should be "as much as 60 miles in 30 minutes".

I'm glad to know that this charging site is pathetically old, and not representative of most.

 

[wk057]

Was there this weekend with battery at 39% and a long drive back to northern PA ahead of me, and I needed a bit of juice. Of the 4 charging stations, I was the only car there. As such, after a few minutes I took a photo and looking at it, the charging rate was 212mi/hr, 381 V 172A. When the battery hit the 60% charge mark the rate slowed appreciably from there.

Much different as compared to the "as much as 170 miles in 30 minutes" as claimed, i.e. should be "as much as 60 miles in 30 minutes".

I'm glad to know that this charging site is pathetically old, and not representative of most.

It's actually not all that old. One of the first superchargers, but keep in mind that they didn't even exist at all a few years ago.

381V * 172A = 65.5kW. If you hadn't driven long before going to the station your battery was likely still pretty cold and unable to accept full power. At 39% SoC that would be about 100kW. In any case, 212mi/hr is still 106 miles in 30 minutes.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Much different as compared to the "as much as 170 miles in 30 minutes" as claimed,

You're missing those three little "disclaimer" words -- you can get 170 miles in 30 minutes under certain conditions -- warm battery, almost entirely depleted battery, full SC power available.

 

[AlMc]

Was there this weekend with battery at 39% and a long drive back to northern PA ahead of me, and I needed a bit of juice. Of the 4 charging stations, I was the only car there. As such, after a few minutes I took a photo and looking at it, the charging rate was 212mi/hr, 381 V 172A. When the battery hit the 60% charge mark the rate slowed appreciably from there.

Much different as compared to the "as much as 170 miles in 30 minutes" as claimed, i.e. should be "as much as 60 miles in 30 minutes".

I'm glad to know that this charging site is pathetically old, and not representative of most.

It's actually not all that old. One of the first superchargers, but keep in mind that they didn't even exist at all a few years ago.

381V * 172A = 65.5kW. If you hadn't driven long before going to the station your battery was likely still pretty cold and unable to accept full power. At 39% SoC that would be about 100kW. In any case, 212mi/hr is still 106 miles in 30 minutes.

Last time I charged there about two weeks ago I went in with 20% SOC, I don't recall all the 'numbers' but I started out at 324 miles/hour and by 80% it had dropped to about 250. Battery was warm to start charge and ambient temp about 50 degrees IIRC.

 

[andrewket]

The mph figure is the average of the entire session, thus unless there are temperature issues, will always go down with time.

 

[wk057]

I'll point out also that I have met or exceeded the 170 miles in 30 minutes estimate on more than one occasion. Once was in fact at the Newark, DE station. (The others were in South Hill, VA) This is one advertised spec that's actually achievable.

 

[CHRGIT]

Any rumors as to when the supercharger expansion will occur? I know "soon", according to "Tesla time".

 

[AlMc]

Any rumors as to when the supercharger expansion will occur? I know "soon", according to "Tesla time".

I have stopped by 2-3 times in the last 10 days and just drove around the plaza: no sign of construction. I have yet to run into the Plaza site manager to ask if he knows anything about a time line.

 

[bhuwan]

Holy cow! It's happening. There is a massive truck unloading super charger equipment right now!
In front of the new Starbucks.

 

[PatD]

Kind of like this?

 

[scaesare]

Excellent!

Wonder if they'll update the existing chargers to the new design as well.

No chance you see any asphalt paint and stencils? :tongue: