Supercharger - San Luis Obispo, CA (LIVE 5 May 2018, expanded May 2020, 14 V2 + 4 V3 stalls)

[88911cs]

Up until about 2018 about 1/4 of all the Teslas in the world were between Sacramento and the Mexico border. There are still quite a few, though I think the ratio has evened out a little though California probably has more than most countries.

I wouldn't bet that's changed a lot. I work all over the world, it amazes me all the time to see Teslas like.......taxis in NYC...... in San Jose or Santa Barbara, they are everywhere. I was sitting at a four way light in mine in Santa Barbara, counted 11 others in my sight line, record for me.

I was in Clemson SC a couple of weeks ago, didn't see any, was in Boston last week, saw one. I've not ever seen one in Europe, though I know they are there. There must be a lot of them on the 95 from NY to CT, I fly into La Guardia and drive to Yale a lot, and there are six SC stations on the 95 after you are gone from LGA. inside 75 miles. I've never seen a line, driven during rush hour a lot.

They are a little different, though, they have rest stops, that's where most of them are. And they don't have amazing restrooms, nor do they have the sandwich shop in Atascadero that a couple of people have mentioned, that place is fantastic. Supercharging reminds me a bit of Geocaching, you never know what you'll find when you stop to take a look.

 

[wdolson]

I avoided travel this Thanksgiving. But I’m thinking about Christmas travel from Gilroy to Santa Barbara given the Thanksgiving Supercharger problems at SLO, Atascadero, and Buellton.

Looks like SC charging really needs to be done before ~9am and after 7pm during holidays to avoid lines.

Maybe just rent a ICE car for Holiday travel....

In the main thread on supercharger congestion I just recommended this to someone who's wife ICE was just totaled and he wasn't sure if he was going to replace it with a Tesla or not.

If you don't mind a wait, there are a ton of destination chargers around Paso Robles. Some are at hotels, but there are many businesses with them too. If you just need enough to get to Santa Barbara and start out with a full charge you might only have to wait an hour or so charging. Paso Robles has many great restaurants. In October I met my sister there (I also stayed there overnight) and we just went downtown and started walking around. We came upon a very good bistro half a block from where I parked.

The next day I set out from my hotel with a 90% charge (Model S 90D), went to Morro Bay, then to Bakersfield that night without charging. I got there with about 70 miles range left. Unfortunately I didn't have the right plug for the only 220 outlet type she had, so I had to charge at 120V. I got to 90% by the time I left, but it took almost 2 days. I should have stopped and topped up in Buttonwillow, I was within a few miles of the supercharger on the way to Bakersfield.

If you have a CHADeMo adapter, or can borrow one, there are CHADeMO stations along the route too.

I wouldn't bet that's changed a lot. I work all over the world, it amazes me all the time to see Teslas like.......taxis in NYC...... in San Jose or Santa Barbara, they are everywhere. I was sitting at a four way light in mine in Santa Barbara, counted 11 others in my sight line, record for me.

I was in Clemson SC a couple of weeks ago, didn't see any, was in Boston last week, saw one. I've not ever seen one in Europe, though I know they are there. There must be a lot of them on the 95 from NY to CT, I fly into La Guardia and drive to Yale a lot, and there are six SC stations on the 95 after you are gone from LGA. inside 75 miles. I've never seen a line, driven during rush hour a lot.

They are a little different, though, they have rest stops, that's where most of them are. And they don't have amazing restrooms, nor do they have the sandwich shop in Atascadero that a couple of people have mentioned, that place is fantastic. Supercharging reminds me a bit of Geocaching, you never know what you'll find when you stop to take a look.

I had a couple of friends who were into geocaching. They took me along once and it was entertaining, but I never got into it.

When I got my Model S in 2016 I would only see another Tesla about once a week. Now it's very rare I don't see at least one, usually many. They aren't as dense here as in many parts of California, but with cheap electricity and a high gas tax it's a very cheap option to go electric here. My Model S costs 1/4 what my SO's Subaru Impreza costs to run (per mile) on fuel alone. It's even cheaper when you factor in maintenance.

 

[88911cs]

My wife has a cousin who is a farmer in South Dakota, I'll have to ask him how many he sees.

I just realized.......I have to drive to Paso Robles and back, from Santa Barbara, Sat Dec 21. I'll bet it will be bad that night, too. We are taking another couple to a show there, and I always drive, since "it doesn't cost anything". It's 70 miles from SLO to Buellton, another 40 to Santa Barbara, so I'll be stopping at......SLO on the way home. Oh, boy. Unless I drive 55. My 100% is 262 miles.

 

[goldengate]

My wife has a cousin who is a farmer in South Dakota, I'll have to ask him how many he sees.

I just realized.......I have to drive to Paso Robles and back, from Santa Barbara, Sat Dec 21. I'll bet it will be bad that night, too. We are taking another couple to a show there, and I always drive, since "it doesn't cost anything". It's 70 miles from SLO to Buellton, another 40 to Santa Barbara, so I'll be stopping at......SLO on the way home. Oh, boy. Unless I drive 55. My 100% is 262 miles.

Let's hope they have the additional stations opened... since SLO has become the poster child for Tesla lines, I would hope that Tesla would make it a priority to improve the situation there and stay out of the headlines. My advice would be to get there before noon... the worst lines seem to be noon - 4 pm.

 

[ecarfan]

The trailer with 8 portable Urban chargers just arrived here. I spoke with the guys setting it up. Currently there are two of these units in California. The other one is at Fresno right now.
Sorry don’t know why these photos are upside down but I can assure you I did not take them that way.

 

[MarcoRP]

If you're on Apple, you can edi

The trailer with 8 portable Urban chargers just arrived here. I spoke with the guys setting it up. Currently there are two of these units in California. The other one is at Fresno right now.
Sorry don’t know why these photos are upside down but I can assure you I did not take them that way.

View attachment 491493 View attachment 491494

Fixed it. I'm on my Moto so I don't know if everyone can see it

 

[Uncle Paul]

Was wondering how Tesla was able to mount their portable unit on the ceiling

Nice to see Tesla doing what they can to reduce lines during expected heavy usage periods.

Love stopping at the Madonna Inn to charge on trips. Gives you just enough time to visit their gift shops and use the amazing "cave rock" men's room. Get a kick when the Women work their way inside to get a look.

There is also a little garden you can walk through on your way to their restaurant.

 

[EVCarGUy]

but I can assure you I did not take them that way.

You sorta did. This is Apple's fault (oooh, that's going to trigger a lot of folks). In landscape mode, the home button needs to be on your right when you take a photo. You held the phone upside down, so the photo is upside down. Yes, I know Apple inserts a tag "Hey, the user took this photo while holding the phone upside down, so any app that displays it should flip it" The issue is there are lots of tags, like the location and time the photo was taken, and many websites strip off all tags from uploaded photos for privacy reasons. The result is the website is showing the photo the way you took it - upside down.

This is Apple's fault for not recognizing the phone is upside down and simply flipping it before storing it. But, if you hold the phone correctly (antenna-gate all over again), you can avoid being hosed over by the religious zealots in the Apple's software team who insist a little tag on the photo is better than doing a little extra work to prevent hosing over users.

 

[ecarfan]

I spoke with the Tesla employees who were there setting up the portable units, which by the way they officially call a “Mobile Supercharger” (though they said they had various internal names for it). I confirmed the battery storage capacity is 3mWh.

What I did not ask them, because I thought I would be rude, was why they position the trailer so that not all the chargers can be used. The paved area at that Supercharger is quite broad. It’s not a parking lot. Seems to me they could position the trailer

 

[wdolson]

I spoke with the Tesla employees who were there setting up the portable units, which by the way they officially call a “Mobile Supercharger” (though they said they had various internal names for it). I confirmed the battery storage capacity is 3mWh.

What I did not ask them, because I thought I would be rude, was why they position the trailer so that not all the chargers can be used. The paved area at that Supercharger is quite broad. It’s not a parking lot. Seems to me they could position the trailer

I assume you mean 3MWH. In common engineering notation a small m means "milli" and a capital M means "Mega". I think they had the trailer positioned at Thanksgiving to allow access to all the pedestals, but it might have caused enough of a traffic jam management at the Madonna might have asked it to be repositioned?

This week shouldn't be as bad as Thanksgiving. I don't think the weather is diverting as many people to the coastal route and this being a longer holiday people will be traveling at more staggered times.

Interesting the other one is in Fresno, but that makes some sense, it's sort of the critical superchager along the highway 99 route.

 

[ucmndd]

What I did not ask them, because I thought I would be rude, was why they position the trailer so that not all the chargers can be used. The paved area at that Supercharger is quite broad. It’s not a parking lot. Seems to me they could position the trailer

Per a conversation at Fresno - much like the portable skids of 3x urban chargers where only two can actually be used at a time, not all of the chargers on this portable rig can actually by used simultaneously. They have more pedestals than they can use at once to accommodate various different orientations based on the space available on premises.

 

[ucmndd]

Interesting the other one is in Fresno, but that makes some sense, it's sort of the critical superchager along the highway 99 route.

From what I saw over thanksgiving, Fresno and SLO had the largest cars waiting to number of stalls ratio in the whole state. Line in Fresno hit 17+ cars for 10 available stalls.

 

[Ulmo]

You sorta did. This is Apple's fault (oooh, that's going to trigger a lot of folks). In landscape mode, the home button needs to be on your right when you take a photo. You held the phone upside down, so the photo is upside down. Yes, I know Apple inserts a tag "Hey, the user took this photo while holding the phone upside down, so any app that displays it should flip it" The issue is there are lots of tags, like the location and time the photo was taken, and many websites strip off all tags from uploaded photos for privacy reasons. The result is the website is showing the photo the way you took it - upside down.

This is Apple's fault for not recognizing the phone is upside down and simply flipping it before storing it. But, if you hold the phone correctly (antenna-gate all over again), you can avoid being hosed over by the religious zealots in the Apple's software team who insist a little tag on the photo is better than doing a little extra work to prevent hosing over users.

Thank you for explaining that, and I agree with everything you said. Feature request to forum: don't strip flip flag. Exuberant feature option: if flip flag present, flip it and forget it.

 

[Kevy Baby]

I have started a new thread about this portable MegaPack Supercharger in the Supercharging and Charging Infrastructure forum at Tesla MegaPack with 8 Urban Superchargers first deployed at San Luis Obispo CA Supercharger location

What happened to this thread?

 

[Chuq]

I assume you mean 3MWH

I assume you mean 3 MWh. a MWH is a Megawatt Henry

 

[88911cs]

I stopped at Madonna about 3PM Saturday, no line, but they were limiting you to 80% because it was a high use charger. Came through again at about 8PM, again no line, no limit on the charge.

 

[wdolson]

I assume you mean 3 MWh. a MWH is a Megawatt Henry

True

 

[SecretAgentMan]

I noticed the mobile supercharger trailer when I drove past the Madonna supercharger around 10pm tonight and stopped by to take a look. There was still a team of people onsite getting it set up, as well as a security guard in a car parked in front of it.

 

[bmah]

What happened to this thread?

Try here:

Mobile Supercharger - 3MWh Tesla Megapack on Trailer

Bruce.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Try here:

Mobile Supercharger - 3MWh Tesla Megapack on Trailer

Bruce.

Thank you. I searched for threads with "megapack" in the title but perhaps I didn't deselect the "This Forum" check box.

Much appreciated!