Supercharger - The Dalles, OR (LIVE Aug 2014, 5 V2 stalls)

[wdolson]

Definitely try to get an earlier start. If you can arrive before 11am you will have a better chance. Sunday will definitely be busy because everyone seems to travel on Sundays. Google maps shows about 3.5 hr, add some time at the Kennewick SC for coffee. Leave before 6am and you should get there by 10am. We used to pack the night before, throw the kids in around 4am and let them sleep until the first stop. Also, take 730 at Umatilla through Irrigon saves a good 5% over the interstate, so you can leave Kennewick with less charge.

Finally, since I hate big city traffic, I’ve taken the scenic forest route to Sandy (take NE Corbett Hill Rd about 5mi before Troutdale, then go through Aims) and it’s very pleasant, though slower and lots of curves. You come right into Sandy from the country, not realizing how much Portland suburbia has grown out to the Mountains. Then, take 211 through Estacada and Mollala, then 213 through Silverton to Salem. Did I tell you how much I hate Portland traffic?

Edit: Going through Portland to charge in Hillsboro is just crazy.

If you have to charge in Portland on this trip, Tigard makes more sense.

Your route sounds nice. Though I would probably go through Clackamas. I-205 is not going to be that bad on a weekend. I avoid I-5 unless I have to go somewhere on that side of town. I-5 has enough choke points that one accident and it's backed up for miles for hours, even on a weekend. There aren't a lot of sports this time of year, but when there is any kind of sporting event I-5 gets messy too.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Kennewick to Sandy is 209 miles (204 if you go through Irrigon which seems like a good idea). I would top off enough in Kennewick and drive slowly enough that you can make it to Sandy if the Dalles proves to be a mess. The Dalles supercharger is not a significant diversion so definitely stop in and try to charge there regardless what the Nav says. The new wait time feature is incredibly unreliable and even the occupancy feature is still not accurate at times, so you might as well take a look for yourself when the supercharger is right off the highway like it is in the Dalles.

Also, by driving conservatively, if you end up getting a slow charge rate at the Dalles, it won't take you too long to get enough juice to continue the drive to Woodburn, skipping the Sandy detour.

Lastly, I agree with ReddyLeaf that Hillsboro doesn't make any sense at all.

I have made it home from Sandy (about 15 mi from Kennewick SC) in my 230 mi 2015 S70D. Charged to about 95% and there was a 10-15 mph tailwind, but The Dalles was closed at the time, so no choice. Although there is forecast to be a mild westerly headwind tomorrow, I would still expect that a M3 LR should have no problem reaching Sandy from Kennewick. Again, I would leave before 6am because the winds will be lighter and the SCs less busy.

 

[Long Ranger]

If you have to charge in Portland on this trip, Tigard makes more sense.

Except that’s an Urban SC at Washington Square.

 

[wdolson]

Except that’s an Urban SC at Washington Square.

You have to weigh the slower charge rate vs going out of your way up the hill to Hillsburo for faster charging. If you absolutely have to stop before Woodburn you can gain a few miles at Tigard then go down the road to Woodburn for a full charge.

 

[khorton]

We ended up stopping at The Dalles at about 11:30 on Saturday. There was only one other Tesla there when we arrived, and a max of three total the whole time we were there. The peak charge rate was about 138 kW, which made sense for the SOC. We'll likely be rolling back through there again on the other end of this road trip on Friday. We're in northern CA now on the 101.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

I’m not sure if this has been reported, but some positive changes to the signage. First, the red permanent signs have been cut off and moved back into the grass so that charging is now possible with bicycles racks. Second, temporary printed paper signs have also been attached to each stall. Good news. Charged around 9:30am Tuesday and I was the only one. I highly recommend charging outside of the busy 11am-2pm timeslot. Edit: I also used my “skip Portland“ route from Corbett to Sandy, then through Estacada-Silverton to Salem, missing Woodburn. Awesome until I had to drive on I-5 south of Salem. I’ll look for another alternate route.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Crazy busy on a Tuesday afternoon. Full house and two waiting. New icon shows “medium wait”

 

[wdolson]

Wonder what's going on this week to have the extra traffic. Though it might just be summer travel.

Tesla badly needs another SuC in that area. The Dalles is probably the worst bottleneck in the NW now that Grants Pass has had some relief with the new Medford charger.

 

[Quigibo]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1431030916659388419

 

[acarney]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1431030916659388419

A little disappointed Kyle (Out of Spec Motoring on YouTube) didn't tag Elon and Tesla! We all need to tag them every single time something happens to the Dalles location or we have to wait in line. I know Hood River is coming but we need Boardman, OR (or around there) as well if we really want this route to be a non issue.

 

[acarney]

Also interesting to note that in 2015 Tesla considered the "useful life" of a supercharger location to be 12 years before equipment would need to be replaced. I'm not sure when this location went live, but on plug share there are pictures as far back as 2014. That means the useful life could be around 2026 for this location, or maybe 5 more years. I would think Tesla would try to upgrade/replace to build a replacement site a year or two before that useful life figure reached it's end considering permits and building can take at least a couple months or almost a year (or over in rare cases). I'm not entirely sold on Hood River being a "replacement" for this location since that still stretches the distance to Tri Cities or Pendleton to 150 miles (Tri Cities) and 148 miles (Pendleton). That's stressful for 75kWh Model S/X and Model 3 SR+ and anyone towing. It also makes this route impossible if the Dalles is down (or removed in a few years) and Pendleton or Tri Cities is down. If there was another supercharger somewhere around Boardman you probably could skip Tri Cities or Pendleton and continue on whichever direction you're going...

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Wonder what's going on this week to have the extra traffic. Though it might just be summer travel.

Tesla badly needs another SuC in that area. The Dalles is probably the worst bottleneck in the NW now that Grants Pass has had some relief with the new Medford charger.

Just “normal” summer traffic. This SC is a must stop for just about everyone traveling from Portland east. Anyone and everyone should try to avoid “peak” hours of 10am-3pm, especially Friday-Sunday, yes hard I know.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1431030916659388419

 

[pdx_m3s]

I just hope Tesla re-thinks their plan to open up their network. The SuC network is a top selling point and it’s going to be strained under the weight of 1+ million new Teslas on the road each year, let alone other EVs. The SuC network is not growing at the same rate as Tesla vehicle sales. The network is growing linearly while vehicle sales are growing exponentially. Opening up the network will cause brand damage and degrade the Tesla user experience.

 

[acarney]

I just hope Tesla re-thinks their plan to open up their network. The SuC network is a top selling point and it’s going to be strained under the weight of 1+ million new Teslas on the road each year, let alone other EVs. The SuC network is not growing at the same rate as Tesla vehicle sales. The network is growing linearly while vehicle sales are growing exponentially. Opening up the network will cause brand damage and degrade the Tesla user experience.

They want in on that sweet sweet government money. Potentially that will cause an explosion in supercharger growth… but I suspect they’ll be bottlenecked with project management and site/permitting. Though, they are hiring strong right now for supercharger deployment jobs…

 

[Rocky_H]

Also interesting to note that in 2015 Tesla considered the "useful life" of a supercharger location to be 12 years before equipment would need to be replaced. I'm not sure when this location went live, but on plug share there are pictures as far back as 2014. That means the useful life could be around 2026 for this location, or maybe 5 more years. I would think Tesla would try to upgrade/replace to build a replacement site a year or two before that useful life figure reached it's end considering permits and building can take at least a couple months or almost a year (or over in rare cases). I'm not entirely sold on Hood River being a "replacement" for this location since that still stretches the distance to Tri Cities or Pendleton to 150 miles (Tri Cities) and 148 miles (Pendleton).

?? I am entirely lost on what the tangent of "useful life" of the equipment had to do with anything. That's irrelevant. This is a bottleneck on a route where an original old site was built kind of small. Later on, other locations around it along the route will be built to spread out the load. The exact same thing happened with Ellensburg, WA. It was a tiny 5 stall location that was getting slammed and was quite a chokepoint for a while, and then Cle Elum and Yakima were built on either side of it, and now there's not really much talk about Ellensburg, because everyone isn't being funneled into having to use that place.

 

[PLUS EV]

?? I am entirely lost on what the tangent of "useful life" of the equipment had to do with anything. That's irrelevant. This is a bottleneck on a route where an original old site was built kind of small. Later on, other locations around it along the route will be built to spread out the load. The exact same thing happened with Ellensburg, WA. It was a tiny 5 stall location that was getting slammed and was quite a chokepoint for a while, and then Cle Elum and Yakima were built on either side of it, and now there's not really much talk about Ellensburg, because everyone isn't being funneled into having to use that place.

Yup. Totally fine to keep the old sites for 12 years and just build new v3 superchargers in other nearby locations.

Also, twitter guy is being a little dramatic there. 3 cars waiting for 5 stalls is an inconvenient slowdown, but it's not the end of the world. Probably a 20 minute wait.

 

[acarney]

?? I am entirely lost on what the tangent of "useful life" of the equipment had to do with anything. That's irrelevant. This is a bottleneck on a route where an original old site was built kind of small. Later on, other locations around it along the route will be built to spread out the load. The exact same thing happened with Ellensburg, WA. It was a tiny 5 stall location that was getting slammed and was quite a chokepoint for a while, and then Cle Elum and Yakima were built on either side of it, and now there's not really much talk about Ellensburg, because everyone isn't being funneled into having to use that place.

Well what I mean is that soon or later this location will (or at least SHOULD) be on Tesla's radar even if they continue to ignore the crowding issue. Somewhere internally Tesla has determined "useful life" to be 12 years, and we're already about 7 years into that. So.... one would assume that Tesla will either upgrade/replace this site or do exactly what you explained and add in some additional locations around it. Hood River is a start, but I don't think they would just build Hood River and then allow the Dalles to fade away. I'm hoping that means soon (within a year or two) Tesla will spend some more effort on this route knowing that a key location is starting to reach the upper range of it's usable life. (it's likely these superchargers could last much longer than that but internally for accounting reasons Tesla has set the lifetime to be 12 years.)


I hope it's sooner rather than later, but it's one more thing I can hope is a nudge for Tesla to focus more on this route; not just that it's small and crowded a lot.

 

[Rocky_H]

Somewhere internally Tesla has determined "useful life" to be 12 years, and we're already about 7 years into that.

Oh. Well I'm sure they are going to build other nearby sites, taking the pressure off this one, in the next year or two--certainly sooner than 5 years.

 

[Raleel]

rise from the depths!

So, interesting thing here. I've gone to Portland a couple times recently, and notably, yesterday and came back today. Both times it did not route me through The Dalles. In fact, it didn't show The Dalles on the map. I drove by this evening (about 4pm or so) and it was empty. It didn't appear broken, though I didn't try. Nothing blocked, etc.

Note, coming down or coming back, The Dalles would have been the spot to charge normally. i've driven it many times. I arrive low in the range (this time, on the way down it would have been teens, on the way back around 25%).

Weirdly, it routed me into Boardman with 66%, leave with 90% so I could make a jump to Hood River Anchor Way and arrive there with 55% (stopped for lunch anyways). On the way back, we left west Portland with around 90% and arrived in Hood Rover with 45% where I charged and it wanted me to arrive in Boardman with 26% (which is fine, but I ended up drafting and holding the speed down a bit and making it back to the TC just fine).

But either way, The Dalles would have been more natural and would have had me with plenty of charge and time, but it really didn't want me there. Even with lower temps and a head wind, The Dalles is doable with my 2018 M3 LR RWD

This one is a somewhat serious issue, because the Gorge wind is so nasty heading down, and Boardman is so close to the tricities. I leave the house with 100% and i'm pulling in almost exactly 1/3 used, even with the headwind. It makes this trip MUCH longer than it should be because I have very slow charge times

 

[ReddyLeaf]

@Raleel, I almost never follow the navigation’s advice. With the older 215 mi 2015 S70D the charge rate is now pathetic above 50% SOC. I absolutely use the energy projection to minimize time at the SC, preferring to charge from 5%-50% instead of the navigation’s 20%-80% suggestions.

I usually leave the TCs close to full, target Hood River, but then usually stop at the Dalles because of the wind. Reverse trip is similar, stopping briefly in Hood/Dalles for bathroom break, then onto Boardman as quickly as possible, using the wind to my advantage. Troutdale is my preferred lunch stop, with Hood/Dalles as coffee stop. The addition of these three newer SCs on this route has allowed my total travel times to be similar to when the car was new and 150 mi legs required charging to 80-90%. I’ve had similar experiences on other routes where splitters are now at 75 mi distances. Even managed to keep up with newer Model Y’s whose owners didn’t know the tricks, or didn’t use 250 KW SCs.