Supercharger - Palo Alto - Stanford Shopping Center (LIVE 5 Nov 2019, 20 Urban Stalls)

[jaed]

Today I was passing by a small Construciton fence at the 3 story Stanford mall parking lot.
I pulled in and talked to the electrical contractor and he said they are installing 20 urban changers on the second floor of the garage. He said they should be done in roughly 2 months.

 

[ecarfan]

Nice find, thanks for your report! For those not familiar with that parking structure, there are no parking charges.

That location is just a few minutes walk from the Tesla Showroom in that mall.

 

[Cheburashka]

Nice! I always thought this would be a good spot for superchargers. Lots of good shops, plenty of dining options. The best mall in the Bay Area IMO.

I'm sure they won't be busy at all since there's barely any Teslas in this area..

 

[miimura]

Very nice. The CHAdeMO charger located on the ground floor of that garage has had an atrocious operating history typical of the Blink Network it is billed on. They don't call it "on the Blink" for nothing.
I'm happy that the pin on the map in the first post is along that side of the garage further from the stores. It will reduce the ICEing.

 

[mociaf9]

Here's the Palo Alto building permit for anyone interested: 19000-00241

 

[domorobigato]

There's at least 25 level 2 charging stations on the ground level of this parking structure: PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You

Many EV drivers tend to either park there and not charge or plug in and not charge (it's $0.50/15 min for first 2 hours). Makes you wonder if these will be reduced due to the upcoming Supercharger.

 

[21five]

Hard to believe this is just two miles away from the Menlo Park Supercharger, which is basically on the same road. Hopefully that'll help handle the demand! Supercharger - Menlo Park (Under construction, 10 urban)

 

[tivoboy]

While I love build out of SCs these top level of a garage chargers really are a pain to get to. The one in daily city takes easily 10+ min from the highway to get to and up to. And same coming back down.

 

[miimura]

While I love build out of SCs these top level of a garage chargers really are a pain to get to. The one in daily city takes easily 10+ min from the highway to get to and up to. And same coming back down.

This is an urban site. If you want something close to the freeway, you would choose the East Palo Alto (101) or the Menlo Park (280) sites. From 280, you literally have to drive right past the Menlo Park Supercharger to get to the Stanford Shopping Center.

 

[tivoboy]

This is an urban site. If you want something close to the freeway, you would choose the East Palo Alto (101) or the Menlo Park (280) sites. From 280, you literally have to drive right past the Menlo Park Supercharger to get to the Stanford Shopping Center.

Even that menlo park location isn't a dream. down the road, back behind the shopping center. But fortunately, nothing like daily city or say santa clarita. I'd really love for Tesla to make a deal with a gas station operator and just get banks of 8-10 in more places closer to highways.

 

[ecarfan]

While I love build out of SCs these top level of a garage chargers really are a pain to get to. The one in daily city takes easily 10+ min from the highway to get to and up to. And same coming back down.

Tesla always has limited choices of not only where they build an SC but, in the case of parking structures, where in the structure they can place the stalls. That is up to the landlord, not to Tesla. Tesla does not deliberately place stalls in difficult to get to places; they take what they can get at a specific location when there are no better options nearby.

Building Superchargers in urban areas is challenging. As proof of that, note where other EV manufacturers have built chargers in cities. Oh wait...none of them have except for Nissan which puts them at dealerships where they are often not accessible 24/7. Note where privately run charging networks have built charging locations. Oh wait...none of them have built nearly as many chargers as Tesla, a small company operating on a limited budget.

Tesla is doing an extraordinary job building the SC network. Complaining that Superchargers are located on the top level of a parking garage strikes me as trivial.

 

[mociaf9]

Tesla always has limited choices of not only where they build an SC but, in the case of parking structures, where in the structure they can place the stalls. That is up to the landlord, not to Tesla. Tesla does not deliberately place stalls in difficult to get to places; they take what they can get at a specific location when there are no better options nearby.

Building Superchargers in urban areas is challenging. As proof of that, note where other EV manufacturers have built chargers in cities. Oh wait...none of them have except for Nissan which puts them at dealerships where they are often not accessible 24/7. Note where privately run charging networks have built charging locations. Oh wait...none of them have built nearly as many chargers as Tesla, a small company operating on a limited budget.

Tesla is doing an extraordinary job building the SC network. Complaining that Superchargers are located on the top level of a parking garage strikes me as trivial.

Tesla does intentionally propose putting chargers in underutilized parking sections or otherwise less desirable parking areas when they approach properties. This serves two functions. First is to try to minimize the ICEing risk once the charging stations are operational. And second is to make the "loss" of the parking stalls more palatable for the host property--i.e. "You weren't really making much use of them anyway." Unfortunately, that does generally result in the stalls being either farther away from stores/amenities/etc. or in less accessible areas--like on very top of multi-story parking garages. Tesla is trying to build a lot of superchargers very quickly. Going after the low hanging fruit of parking areas is the obvious choice.

 

[bxr140]

While I love build out of SCs these top level of a garage chargers really are a pain to get to.

The good news is that particular location is actually quite easy to access. We always park on the north side of the second floor when we go to the Stanford mall because it is inevitably very open [and in the shade], and to get there we literally drive past where these stalls will be, which are also spaces that are inevitably very open.

 

[rachelhikes]

Just stands installed right now. Some stacks of supplies were present. There was a workman on site.

 

[jaed]

Looks like transformers and switchgear will be installed on the ground floor taking over some parking spaces. See the saw cut marks in white.

 

[Stuberman]

Hard to believe this is just two miles away from the Menlo Park Supercharger, which is basically on the same road. Hopefully that'll help handle the demand! Supercharger - Menlo Park (Under construction, 10 urban)

If it is any indication, my block in Palo Alto has 6 houses and 6 Teslas. That includes one vacant house, the occupants of which had 2 more Teslas.

 

[rachelhikes]

Lots of progress recently. Also, in the downstairs area, there was active construction going on, but I couldn’t get a good picture through the screen.

 

[Dag]

Update from today. 1st floor .....

 

[Dag]

.... and 2nd floor pics.

 

[Dag]

Pics from today. Cabling and electrical cabinet work continues.