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Supercharger - Tumwater, WA

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Since you insist! ;)

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Go ask inside how upset customers have been that those spaces have been blocked off :p
The parking lot was about half full when I was there (3pm Saturday), so I couldn't do any investigative reporting.

I'm wondering if there any other SuC's at gas stations (none that I know of in the PNW). It occurred to me that if the charging stalls are ICEd, we could just block the gas pumps, not that I'd advocate such measures :rolleyes:
 
The parking lot was about half full when I was there (3pm Saturday), so I couldn't do any investigative reporting.

I'm wondering if there any other SuC's at gas stations (none that I know of in the PNW). It occurred to me that if the charging stalls are ICEd, we could just block the gas pumps, not that I'd advocate such measures :rolleyes:

I mentioned before in this thread that this location might be good and bad when it comes to being ICEd. Bad because it’s a small busy location... but good because most people won’t spend more than a few minutes at a gas station, especially if done getting gas or not getting gas. Probably a restroom stop and food/drink purchases. Soooo, cars probably will be turning over every five minutes or so, which isn’t a terrible wait time if you find it ICEd... and we can send a slight nudge by just hanging out in the parking lot waiting... which will cause traffic in/out to wait behind or find another way around. Hopefully if it’s an issue the station owner will put some cones or signs out at those spots with a “for EV charging only” or “move cone ONLY to charge” etc...
 
I mentioned before in this thread that this location might be good and bad when it comes to being ICEd. Bad because it’s a small busy location... but good because most people won’t spend more than a few minutes at a gas station, especially if done getting gas or not getting gas. Probably a restroom stop and food/drink purchases. Soooo, cars probably will be turning over every five minutes or so, which isn’t a terrible wait time if you find it ICEd... and we can send a slight nudge by just hanging out in the parking lot waiting... which will cause traffic in/out to wait behind or find another way around. Hopefully if it’s an issue the station owner will put some cones or signs out at those spots with a “for EV charging only” or “move cone ONLY to charge” etc...

I like this location based on a worst case scenario...

If I'm stuck in traffic in freezing cold weather for hours between here and centralia... Skipping a SC location because it's really busy, etc...

Just need that Longview location to kind of even it out. :)
 
There are many gas station/truck stop superchargers throughout the US. I would not consider the Fred Meyer, Hy-Vee, or Meijer locations to be gas station superchargers though. Those are grocery stores (and more!) that also have gas stations and now superchargers. It just made sense to put the supercharger next to the gas pumps. Same goes for the "Arlington" supercharger which I would classify as a casino supercharger (there are a few others!) even though the supercharger is right next to the gas pumps.

Back east there are loads of superchargers at Sheetz and Wawa gas stations. But these are much more than just gas stations and offer ample parking. I like these ones quite a bit mostly due to the 24/7 availability of high quality (though not necessarily cheap or healthy!) made to order food. Of course they also offer the typical convenience store amenities if that's what you're in the mood for. As an aside, there is likely a good business opportunity for someone to build a similar chain west of the Mississippi, perhaps this time with EV charging already built into the ground plan. The Eddie World superchargers in Beatty, NV and Yermo, CA are somewhat different, but similar in nature to Sheetz and Wawa.

There are also quite a few truck stop superchargers, particularly in West Texas. I like the ones that are hosted by Love's which tend to offer huge parking lots and many amenities. I am not a fan of most of the Flying J, Petro, and TA superchargers. The lots are too small and the amenities are not as nice. I would suggest to Tesla that they try to enter a broad agreement with Love's and get superchargers installed at about half of their (over 300) locations. Some of the more urban ones would be redundant or unnecesary, but most of the ones out West would be good.

Lastly, there are a few oddball superchargers that are squeezed into typical small gas stations. The one in Needles, CA comes to mind and it is one of the worst superchargers int he country (in my opinion of course). Admittedly, they don't have much to work with in Needles, but hopefully they can at least put one in a hotel parking lot there once that contract is up.

As for the Tumwater truck stop location, as I stated up thread, it is not good. There is not enough space for a supercharger here imo, but at least the amenities inside are decent (large bathroom, McDonald's and typical convenience store options). The North Bend location is even worse. It's just a regular convenience store with a single bathroom stall, not even one for women and one for men. It also didn't look like it would be a 24 hour store, but I'm not sure. There are at least a few other stores and a Popeye's within walking distance. All in all, I think these are the two worst truck stop supercharger sites that I have seen (and I have seen nearly all of them). So somewhat disappointing. But of course, the more superchargers the merrier. I just hope they eventually put one at a more appropriate location such as Hawk's Prairie. This one is so close to Centralia anyway.

Okay, so that was more information than the vast majority of you wanted, but I figured I'd overshare anyway :)
 
There are several gas stations that I know of that host superchargers. A number of Shell stations host them in the Southwest, and I believe across I80 in the Rocky Mountain states. Makes sense -- they make their money on the in-store buys, not on the gas (at least not much), so it's a way to get well-heeled customers to have to spend time and money in the stores.