Superchargers on PlugShare

[MarcoRP]

A lot of you reading this thread will probably see there is nothing new with what I’m saying.

It concerns adding in construction Superchargers to PlugShare. When PlugShare started adding Superchargers on the site, they were approached by Tesla. Tesla indicated that Supercharging sites could only be added by the moderator(s), the reason that no user can add “Supercharger” type plugs, so then most users use the ordinary Tesla HPWC plug, or even CHAdeMO plugs so that it shows as a fast charger.


Usually, when adding an ordinary charging location (other than Supercharger) that is coming soon or not active yet, PlugShare has a tendency to let it pass 99% of the time. Seen the deal with Tesla, PlugShare either removes premature Superchargers or otherwise they turn them into restricted wall outlets with the name being either the city they’re in or otherwise, the name of the mall/business it is at, like in this case of Lenox Square - Atlanta. They cannot be edited. PlugShare’s basic message: DO NOT MANUALLY ADD SUPERCHARGERS!


Often when a Supercharger is online, it takes several days for it to appear on PlugShare, due to its’ presence on Tesla’s website, then for PlugShare to actually see the it on “the list of Superchargers to add”. The process takes on average a week or so, but can sometimes take much longer than that for the Supercharger to “officially” appear. The problem with this is that is as soon as a Supercharger goes online, any which user can go and add one on PlugShare. Then obviously, PlugShare restricts the Supercharger, but then some other user has restricted chargers off his filter, so then he/she adds another Supercharger location in addition to the already existing one, like here, at Lenox Square again.


I wish that there was somewhere on PlugShare I could place this so that it would have a higher effect, except that PlugShare has actually found us a few Superchargers, so is it actually that bad to add Superchargers manually?

I think this is sort of a good discussion here. I know a few TMC users have found Superchargers through PlugShare, as have I. Any thoughts?

 

[dgpcolorado]

Since Tesla cars with navigation know where all the Superchargers are, listing them on Plugshare is less useful than it is for other kinds of charging. Plugshare can help with listing amenities or user issues with the Superchargers, but it isn't really a priority. I use Plugshare a lot when looking for L2 charging away from home but, for finding Superchargers, supercharge.info and Tesla's map are my go-to websites. I use supercharge.info so much that all I have to do is type "s" into my browser address bar and it comes up as first choice!

 

[TexasEV]

I agree with @dpgcolorado. I don’t know what the OPs relationship is to Plugshare, but that site/app is irrelevant for superchargers. No one else cares how or when Tesla superchargers are added to it. I use it when I’m going to a strange city and looking to see if there’s a level 2 charging station convenient to where I’m parking for several hours, or staying overnight, but there’s just no reason to look at it to find where superchargers are. The Tesla web site, in car nav, and supercharge.info are much more useful for that.

 

[paulkva]

I agree with @dpgcolorado. I don’t know what the OPs relationship is to Plugshare, but that site/app is irrelevant for superchargers. No one else cares how or when Tesla superchargers are added to it. I use it when I’m going to a strange city and looking to see if there’s a level 2 charging station convenient to where I’m parking for several hours, or staying overnight, but there’s just no reason to look at it to find where superchargers are. The Tesla web site, in car nav, and supercharge.info are much more useful for that.

I agree PlugShare isn't helpful for finding superchargers, thanks to Tesla's maps and supercharge.info, but it has been helpful to me when I want to know how busy or reliable a supercharger location might be. Of course it's only as good as the data users enter into it, but in my experience any supercharger I've looked at on PlugShare has a decent number of recent check-ins.

 

[Chuq]

Someone added this to Plugshare some time ago. "... to keep it off the public's radar". If you want it off the public's radar, don't add it to Plugshare!
As a result of this one not being visible to many (due to filters), someone added it again (the green icon right next to it).

So now there are two inaccurate locations, one marked wall outlet and one marked Tesla HPWC, when in action fact neither are available.

 

[cwoernle]

Can a PlugShare app's route map be shared/uploaded to the interface screen in a Model 3 using Version 9 software?

 

[Chuq]

Hall of shame:

Daly City, CA is now on Plugshare officially, but a few days before there were *three* user added ones, all with incorrect details:

Some people have filters and so on, so they may not see some locations (e.g. restricted locations, or wall outlets) - but when you go to add a location you get a message like this - bright red text! How hard is it to miss?

Anyway, all is good now. Thought I'd contain my rants to this thread!

 

[mociaf9]

From a human factors perspective, Plugshare is going about this the wrong way. Instead of restricting the type of connector someone can add to a site, they should allow them to choose a supercharger but then when someone tries to submit they should be redirected to a page telling them not to add supercharger sites in construction or "coming soon" as they will be added by moderators only once they are fully functional. The end result is the same, i.e. the user can't submit a site with the supercharger connector. But instead of forcing them to try to work around the limitation which isn't made explicitly clear this allows them to "fall into a trap" where they are more likely to learn and understand not to attempt to evade the limitation.

 

[MarcoRP]

lol , just the last 2 days!

 

[Chuq]

Another example: Someone added an under-construction supercharger, marked it as restricted, as a wall outlet, and gave it a vague name. End result - someone else adds it because they didn't see the other one or wasn't aware it was a supercharger. Whoever added it went to such lengths to not make it obvious (not sure why - so the admins wouldn't see it and delete it?) that no-one else knew either (until you went to look at the photos).

I wish that Plugshare had a feature for displaying under construction superchargers, but they don't, so adding fake info to get around it just makes the data in Plugshare less useful for everyone else.

 

[Chuq]

And again... I would find it strange that a McDonalds would have a "NEMA 15-40 under construction".... and now an under construction Tesla supercharger appears right next to it, so it's obvious the first was trying to do the same thing covertly. Why do people do this? You don't get points or anything from being the first to add a station (in any case, Plugshare adds a new pin when it goes live and deletes the old one)

 

[XHabjab]

I agree with @dpgcolorado. I don’t know what the OPs relationship is to Plugshare, but that site/app is irrelevant for superchargers. No one else cares how or when Tesla superchargers are added to it. I use it when I’m going to a strange city and looking to see if there’s a level 2 charging station convenient to where I’m parking for several hours, or staying overnight, but there’s just no reason to look at it to find where superchargers are. The Tesla web site, in car nav, and supercharge.info are much more useful for that.

I generally agree with your comments, except the part about "irrelevant for superchargers". I use PlugShare when travelling, and valid, correct Supercharger content is relevant and useful for several reasons.

• I want to see what charge sites are along my route (J1772, HPWC, Superchargers). This has been especially necessary in North Dakota and Canada. There are SCs going in these routes now but they're not there yet.
• I make use of and leave info on PlugShare about poor charge rates, out of order stalls, power failures etc. Including Superchargers.
• I make use of info about static characteristics of a location. Availability of 24 hour restrooms, food choices, bad part of town, etc. Including Superchargers.

PlugShare is a good tool (for locations populated with valid data) at all charge sites, including Superchargers.

I have a problem with @MarcoRP polluting the valid information with garbage data, which he know is intentionally incorrect, and is really extra work for somebody else to clean up later. I see that he is the second ranked user on the PlugShare leaderboard with 3000 new sites added. Those all can't possibly be valid. I would suggest almost none of them. That is a lot of cleanup work for somebody else.

Marco does a lot of good for TMC, Supercharge.info and (maybe) Plugshare, but he treats this as a role playing game and misuses the tools available to maximize his RPG points.

Opinion: the direction he is pushing is valuable and useful but he is overdoing it and destroying value by trashing the crowdsourced data for his own "points".

(Edit) Looking at all the posts in this thread, Marco starts off by bragging about his efforts, and what wonderful things he has done by getting around barriers and working around the system. He has another post where he is laughing about something which I don't understand (it's in French but I think I see through the language barrier - still don't get his point). Every other post is describing a problem with his activity.

He still doesn't get it. I hope he does soon.

Marco does good stuff, but his bad stuff currently outweighs the good. I don't want him to get mad, take his bat and ball and go home. I'd like it if he could quit the nonsense. I don't see anybody that appreciates it.

 

[Big Earl]

The solution is for PlugShare and Tesla to come up with a coming soon pin for Superchargers that are under construction, similar to what Electrify American and PlugShare are doing.

That said, I suspect Tesla isn't interested in adding more publicity on Supercharger construction. Adding under-construction sites on PlugShare gives users an avenue to post comments about construction times and project delays, which is typically bad publicity.

 

[Chuq]

The solution is for PlugShare and Tesla to come up with a coming soon pin for Superchargers that are under construction, similar to what Electrify American and PlugShare are doing.

That said, I suspect Tesla isn't interested in adding more publicity on Supercharger construction. Adding under-construction sites on PlugShare gives users an avenue to post comments about construction times and project delays, which is typically bad publicity.

Spot on there. Notably, ABetterRoutePlanner uses supercharge.info, not Tesla as its source! That means they appear on ABRP less than 24 hours after being marked as live on supercharge.info. It would be great if Plugshare did the same thing (specifically, imported the "construction" and "open" ones - "permit" is probably a bit too early to mark as "coming soon" as some don't progress past that stage).

 

[Twiglett]

I’m the same as @Chuq
I use ABRP for actual route planning but plugshare for letting other know about stall issues or getting useful info about what’s at each location.
I find it really annoying that plugshare goes to all these unlisted, behind the scenes methods of hiding newly working superchargers. It really devalues their platform and make me less and less likely to use it.
If they have a policy they need to state it and be up front about it, right now the policy is fighting its users not benefitting them.

 

[mociaf9]

I’m the same as @Chuq
I use ABRP for actual route planning but plugshare for letting other know about stall issues or getting useful info about what’s at each location.
I find it really annoying that plugshare goes to all these unlisted, behind the scenes methods of hiding newly working superchargers. It really devalues their platform and make me less and less likely to use it.
If they have a policy they need to state it and be up front about it, right now the policy is fighting its users not benefitting them.

The real problem is Tesla. First, they don't want people knowing about locations under construction or not yet active, and Plugshare, for some reason, has agreed to their request to not allow user added superchargers. Partly this is to avoid dumb/inattentive users making mistakes and relying on a charger that isn't there yet, which is a reasonable, if somewhat paternalistic, goal. But, IMO, the major part is Tesla's ridiculous penchant for controlling all information. But that wouldn't be a big deal if not for the second thing, which is that Tesla is extremely dilatory about updating their own data to show that a supercharger is working. That delay is then forced on to Plugshare since they've agreed to wait to officially list superchargers until Tesla does. If Tesla updated their own map within anything like a reasonable time from opening a new supercharger, then Plugshare would also have current data on those sites.

 

[XHabjab]

The real problem is Tesla. First, they don't want people knowing about locations under construction or not yet active, and Plugshare, for some reason, has agreed to their request to not allow user added superchargers. Partly this is to avoid dumb/inattentive users making mistakes and relying on a charger that isn't there yet, which is a reasonable, if somewhat paternalistic, goal. But, IMO, the major part is Tesla's ridiculous penchant for controlling all information. But that wouldn't be a big deal if not for the second thing, which is that Tesla is extremely dilatory about updating their own data to show that a supercharger is working. That delay is then forced on to Plugshare since they've agreed to wait to officially list superchargers until Tesla does. If Tesla updated their own map within anything like a reasonable time from opening a new supercharger, then Plugshare would also have current data on those sites.

And again, it is not just Tesla chargers where this happens. My understanding (which might be wrong) is that PlugShare gets info on all commercial network sites from the network owner/administrator.

I know that this how it works for Tesla, ChargePoint, Blink, FLO. I think it is the case but with less confidence on other networks.

I tried to update info on a ChargePoint charger - no can do.
I reported inaccuracies on several other sites - acknowledge and ignore.

 

[Twiglett]

It would be great if that was their policy and told people about it. But they don’t.
I’ve submitted feedback on a few things to them and they respond back, but anything about supercharger hiding and they never reply.

 

[Chuq]

(Crossposted from the North Bay thread. This site was recently found to be active but the next day it wasn't... This issue has occurred for many sites)

Plugshare is an absolute dogs breakfast at the moment. Two pins added, because the first one was set to "restricted" .... so that people wouldn't see it (what's the point)?! Or to hide it from Plugshare admins (tip: that doesn't work)?.

Plus it appears to be on Google Maps as well. Not sure if Google takes a feed from Tesla or another source. That's even more of a problem because people can navigate to Tesla POIs with the in-car navigation.

 

[MarcoRP]

(Crossposted from the North Bay thread. This site was recently found to be active but the next day it wasn't... This issue has occurred for many sites)

Plugshare is an absolute dogs breakfast at the moment. Two pins added, because the first one was set to "restricted" .... so that people wouldn't see it (what's the point)?! Or to hide it from Plugshare admins (tip: that doesn't work)?.

Plus it appears to be on Google Maps as well. Not sure if Google takes a feed from Tesla or another source. That's even more of a problem because people can navigate to Tesla POIs with the in-car navigation.

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