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Supercharger - Vancouver, WA
- Thread starter iwannam3
- Start date
In fairness, this Vancouver SC, should it turn out to be a SC, was never on the planned SC map. I think the SC team does the best they can to hit certain locations, but when they have a motivated partner or get a good deal, they tend to take it even if it's not exactly in the area they were originally looking at.
The Portland service center is already maxxed out and I don't know where they would put a supercharger. They are parking new cars in a field across the railroad tracks from the place because they have no room.
I have written McMineman's suggesting they put in a destination charger at some of their properties. The Edgefield would be ideal and would get them extra business both from tourists who want to stay outside of downtown and travelers on I-84 who need a boost. The Edgefield has so many activities as well as being a hotel too. I would expect it would be a popular destination charger. The Edgefield is also only 2 blocks from I-84 off a major offramp.
I have written McMineman's suggesting they put in a destination charger at some of their properties. The Edgefield would be ideal and would get them extra business both from tourists who want to stay outside of downtown and travelers on I-84 who need a boost. The Edgefield has so many activities as well as being a hotel too. I would expect it would be a popular destination charger. The Edgefield is also only 2 blocks from I-84 off a major offramp.
snort
Member
I agree. First time I ever had really serious range anxiety was The Dalles to Centralia. I wanted to catch the sunset along the river and left The Dalles at about 80%. Oops. This was before the Sandy charger was built. The J1772 at the Gee Creek rest area really saved me.
My first choice along I-5 between Seattle and Portland would have been somewhere near Longview. Vancouver is 166 miles from my house; pretty far. Not as convenient for Portland stopovers but it would let me go Seattle->Springfield with only one stop, where today I have to do two.
As you say, good for skipping. With an ICE, there aren't that many places where there won't be a gas station within 10 miles or so. So you can skip stations until you know you're close to the end of your tank. With Tesla "stations" 100 miles or more apart, you can't skip any, even though your "tank" still has almost 50% in it. We need to get them down to 30 miles apart or so, which is the case in big parts of california and the northeast.
Yarder
Member
That is SO good!
I have to pretty much go full up in Centralia, mess around a bit in Portland, then go way South to Woodburn to have enough to get back to Centralia.
Last year, the ONE time I didn't do that, I didn't quite fill up in Centralia. I told my guys that we would have breakfast at the Country Cousins, but we went to McDonalds, and I don't think even then they chewed their food! So, I wasn't as full as I had planned. We went on to the Portland Convention Center, drove back at night, in the rain, in January cold, with the two other burly guys in the car, and probably 20 miles out of Portland my car told me to go under 60 to make it back to Centralia. We turned off the heater, seat warmers, and the radio and drove slowly in the 65+ MPH zone to make it back.
I have to pretty much go full up in Centralia, mess around a bit in Portland, then go way South to Woodburn to have enough to get back to Centralia.
Last year, the ONE time I didn't do that, I didn't quite fill up in Centralia. I told my guys that we would have breakfast at the Country Cousins, but we went to McDonalds, and I don't think even then they chewed their food! So, I wasn't as full as I had planned. We went on to the Portland Convention Center, drove back at night, in the rain, in January cold, with the two other burly guys in the car, and probably 20 miles out of Portland my car told me to go under 60 to make it back to Centralia. We turned off the heater, seat warmers, and the radio and drove slowly in the 65+ MPH zone to make it back.
Two photos posted on the PDXTesla Google group, taken on November 2 by Gary Whiting, re- posted here with his permission.
Phil Gorski
Member
Stopped by today. Spoke to workers and they said there will be 12 bays and the believe it should be open by Thanksgiving. Shot this clip before they showed up.
Really hope this actually opens by Thanksgiving. I'm going on a long road trip in early December and I have to make it from my house in Ocean Park, WA to The Dalles, OR (a little over 200 miles) and the temps will most likely be in the 30s-40s. Hard to make that on a 75D that already has 6% degradation. So pleased that Tesla is putting in this Supercharger - awesome location!
I've found it to add much more than to my trips because my car cannot receive more than 70 kW from the chargers there (I've tried them all at different times and under different conditions). Plus my car arrives there with a higher SoC, meaning the charge rates are low anyway (around 30-40 kW), so unless I want to spend an hour sitting there for my car to get a decent charge, it really isn't worth the huge time sacrifice. Also HWY 26 sometimes slows to a crawl if there is a snow so I try to avoid it during winter.
I stayed there this summer, and found all my conversations with the staff about even the possibility of L1 charging to be frustrating at best. A walk around the property with a careful look found no outlets anywhere near an easy to park spot, except for in staff areas. Because there was nothing available and my particular route resulted in having a rather low SOC there, I had to take a detour to Sandy. It's not bad, it just could have been totally seamless. Since they have a hotel they could do the easy option of providing a half-dozen 20A L1 spots, really helping folks who are staying over for a day or two.
At the Edgefield, they probably would need to get some electricians in to run some power lines, but since there is a brewery, distillery, and winery on the property, it's almost certain they have some industrial power there, possibly even 3-phase. I would think it would be a fairly short run from the brewery to the parking lot behind the wine tasting room.
Maybe McMinnemin's management is just blind to the coming EV shift? Quite a few wineries in California and Oregon have put in destination chargers and there is a lot less to do at a single winery when charging than at a McMinnemin's property, and the one thing you can do at just a winery makes you unfit to drive if it's a long charge...
There is power all over the property, it's just not exposed via outlets. I'm certain they have three phase as I saw service equipment for it. Agreed that the lot behind the tasting room would be great. If they didn't want to do that there is already power very near the front hotel parking lot, and that would be limited to genuine destination charging.
Stopped by about 4 PM today. The utility transformer is in place (hooray!) BUT the power distribution center is not, and it did not appear to be sitting anywhere on site. Some minor landscaping still needs to be done, but otherwise it looks like the site is mainly waiting for delivery and installation of the distribution center hardware. Then the electricians can wire it all together and the utility can connect. Hopefully inspection and activation won't take too long after that. It appears that these inverters are the135 kW supercharger II. The back covers and hoods are temporarily reversed, waiting for wiring.
Attachments
A dry day today so I stopped by. 12 stalls. I am wondering about the supercharger at the opposite end of a parking spot. 11 are at the front of the parking stall, but 1 is at the rear. Why? They could have easily put it like the rest.![KIMG0449[1].jpg](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/data/attachments/243/243285-0d2a9322761ce13bfb847df23289f091.jpg "KIMG0449[1].jpg")
![KIMG0448[1].jpg](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/data/attachments/243/243286-80696b0defa848babc436715dfb6c4dc.jpg "KIMG0448[1].jpg")
![KIMG0450[1].jpg](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/kimg0450-1-jpg.261029/ "KIMG0450[1].jpg")
This allows cars that can't back in because of bike racks or trailers to pull in forward to charge. Not the best execution of this I have seen -- the stall around the corner would be blocked
Right. They would actually block fewer stalls by pulling up sideways to the stalls to the left. There are a lot of Superchargers with one or two forward stalls, usually not designed well because the trailer would be sticking out blocking traffic. This is the first I've seen that would actually be blocking more stalls than pulling in sideways...
They mean well. And some people are not good at backing up, so still useful for them.
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