Most people don’t realize that Sorrento Valley is the center of San Diego’s High Tech, Biotech and Scientific Research Industries. While only about 5,000 people actually live in Sorrento Valley, there are about 35,000 people who come to work there and are in close proximity (mile) of the Qualcomm Supercharger. The workforce is tech savvy and generally higher paying so there are many Tesla owners in the area that take advantage of the Supercharger’s proximity to their work. The problem is that many of them plug in and don’t return for several hours to retrieve their cars. For this reason, Tesla should implement idle fees to discourage this behavior.
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Supercharger - San Diego, CA (Qualcomm / Pacific Heights Blvd., 12 V2 stalls)
- Thread starter Cosmacelf
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- California Supercharging USA
Insult to injury: It certainly doesn’t help the 12-car waiting linea at this SuperCharger when all of the chargers have been VERY SLOW (like 15kw) for the past several weeks. Mind-blowing failure to attend to the details, especially at lilely the most popular SC in the World.
In-car supercharger map is now showing Sorrento Valley as "Reduced Service"
It's effectively been "Reduced Service" for at least a couple years.
A couple comes to mind:
1. Qualcomm can attract talent without forcing them to get a house by saying we have free supercharging next to work so if you have a tesla or other EV, you can charge here free and not need to worry about apartment charging.
2. Public image, Qualcomm helping driving the EV revolution.
3. Qualcomm got free equipment and maintenance from tesla for their supercharger.
I would not be at all surprised if this is a deliberate attempt to minimize SDG&E's demand charges. During what rate periods does this happen?
This is exactly why I think there is such a slow rollout of SC stations in SD county. The downtown one I feel was purposely placed there for people who truly need it, yet the paid parking there keeps the people from abusing the free charging.
Uncle Paul
Well-Known Member
I have spoken to several people charging at Qualcomm. I believe that there would be no lines if local people and the commercial livery drivers did not take advantage of the free charging there. Met a guy that lived less than a mile away who swooped into an open spot, by-passing the line and told me that he charges here for free, but need to pay if he uses his charging station in his garage. Said he usually just catches up on his email while he waits for his charge.
I sometimes see several livery black Tesla with commercial white lettering on their cars and uniformed drivers. They charge up there many times a day.
I sometimes see several livery black Tesla with commercial white lettering on their cars and uniformed drivers. They charge up there many times a day.
Graffi
Member
It is WAYYYY more than an hour. Traffic to/from this location is VERRRRRRY BADDDDDD. Freeway traffic, that is. Figure almost an hour getting there in the better times, more than an hour otherwise. Leaving can be as bad or worse. And not sure you counted all the line waiting time. It could take upwards of 3 or 4 hours of time to get that $5-7 of "free" electricity. In my case, I drove my wife to an appointment a couple of blocks away, so instead of finding parking to wait for her I waited in line at this Supercharger about 20 minutes (it was an easy day), stayed connected for about 20 minutes and only got an amount of electricity that would have cost me $3 at home. In this case my wife finished her appointment and called for a pick-up. Then it took us much more than an hour driving south on I-805 to get home.
You either got lucky and talked to a regular user or that user is lying to you. It use to be most people go there to get a free charge when the there were minimal Model 3s. Now it is mostly Qualcomm employee. I am pretty sure of this because of the following I have observed:
1) I see Model 3/S/X where the people have Qualcomm picture IDs once they leave after plugging in. And I see those IDs when they come back to move their Teslas.
2) I see Tesla moving to another parking spot nearby once they are done charging.
3) The sheer number of Model 3s meaning employees before who wanted Tesla but could not afford the Model S/X could now get a cheaper cost Model 3 and charge there.
4) Usually around 5PM during normal week days and 6PM on Fridays, I notice more stalls opening up. Normally there will alway be a line other than before 6AM and after 11PM. This coincide exactly with when Qualcomm employees leave for the day.
5) The wait time is probably gotten to a point where those regular people, who would like to get a free charge, are now changing their behavior and charging a lot earlier or a lot later.
Again I have nothing against Qualcomm employee charging there because Qualcomm is technically offering this as a perk for their employee, but I just feel Tesla should open more stalls for their regular owners.
Right now, Qualcomm has little to no incentive or even a disincentive to open new stalls. Tesla is trying be profitable this quarter and going forward so I seriously doubt they would open more stalls at Qualcomm campus to address this congestion/charging issues.
Teriyaki88
Member
I'm on SDG&E's EV TOU 5 plan which is good for heavy EV users. The rates are really good at $0.09 per kWh from Midnight to 5 AM.
A quick comment about your estimate of $5-7: I think this is way too low. Depending on each homeowner's electric plan, rates from SDG&E can range from $0.24 per kwh to $0.55 per kwh during the day.
Doing the rough math, if a 'commercial' driver needs, say 50 khw during the day, it would save them between $12-$27 per charge. And multiply that by 30 days, it can add up quickly to $360-810 range. And if the 'commercial' driver drives a lot, they may recharge more than once a day. Then that's can add up a pretty substantial figure. Just saying.
A quick comment about your estimate of $5-7: I think this is way too low. Depending on each homeowner's electric plan, rates from SDG&E can range from $0.24 per kwh to $0.55 per kwh during the day.
Doing the rough math, if a 'commercial' driver needs, say 50 khw during the day, it would save them between $12-$27 per charge. And multiply that by 30 days, it can add up quickly to $360-810 range. And if the 'commercial' driver drives a lot, they may recharge more than once a day. Then that's can add up a pretty substantial figure. Just saying.
Ulmo
Active Member
Maybe it is me, but it does seem to help a tad bit. Not noticeable to the common people unless you pay real close attention like I do. See below my data:
So far what I have seen is between 6-8PM weekdays there are more slots open. Typically 3-4 on average. Before, it would only hit those numbers if you got lucky and very briefly.
The good news is Carlsbad is actually being used. It is no super congested, but it does seem be used. The most I have seen is 75% used, i.e. around 15 vehicles.
I think the single charger design is better than the split-sharing charger design. Personally I like the 72KW max charging because it is consistent vs the 120KW charging shared because if the car next to you is charging fast, you don't get the 120KW. In fact most of the time you will get less than the 72KW. Also the 120KW charging design requires venting and as we all know it has issues with venting.
All in all I do see slight but almost imperceptible improvements on the charging availability at Qualcomm. They really need to expand Qualcomm Charging due to the Qualcomm employee charging there. Either that or just remove it off the map like Burena Park due to overcrowding issues due reasons out of Tesla's control.
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Teriyaki88
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