I’m just finally getting around to posting my recent supercharger visits. My wife left town for a one week business trip, so immediately I thought: “Road Trip!!!”
I completed a weekend trip up through NJ and into NY to bag 24 new superchargers. It was a lot of driving so didn’t get to do any real sightseeing.
September 18, 2021:
Baltimore, MD – South Caton Avenue
Towson, MD
Middletown, DE
Pedricktown, NJ – John Fenwick Service Plaza
Mount Laurel, NJ—James Fenimore Service Plaza
Woodcliff Lake, NJ
Yorktown Heights, NY
Fishkill, NY
Lodi, NJ
September 19, 2021
Brooklyn, NY – Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY – N 12th Street
Glendale, NY
Queens, NY – Queens Center
Flushing, NY
Roslyn Heights, NY – Willis Ave
Lake Grove, NY
Riverhead, NY
Montauk, NY
Water Mill, NY
Copiague, NY
Trenton, NJ – Richard Stockton Service Plaza
Cherry Hill, NJ – Walt Whitman Service Plaza
Pedricktown, NJ – Clara Barton Service Plaza
A couple of highlights/lowlights or other information:
1. I tried to hit the Jersey City 1st St supercharger on the first day. I knew it was Valet parking but hoped for the best. There were two orange cones blocking the driveway. I parked in the driveway just short of the cones and tried to find someone. I yelled out “Hello” a couple of times but no response. So I just drove away. This was very frustrating as I had been through horrendous traffic in Jersey City just to get to the supercharger. There were numerous streets blocked off for some sort of street festival, so that made matters worse.
2. My last stop of the day was to be in Lodi, NJ. I had booked a hotel room located about 2 miles away from the Supercharger. But as I was leaving my next-to-last supercharging stop at Fishkill, I noticed that the Lodi SC pin on my center console had changed to “limited capability.” I worried that the SC might have become non-operational. I arrived there and discovered the problem to be that half of the pedestals (4) were inoperative, but the other 4 were OK. I watched as Tesla after Tesla tried to plug into those inoperative pedestals. I spoke with several of them, and they were all locals. Several of them said they had just charged there the previous day.
3. I was able to escape parking charges at Brooklyn Museum, Glendale, and Queens because I was in and out before the grace time expired. No parking charge was levied at Flushing.
5. At Flushing, the garage was supposed to be valet only, and there are only 4 Urban SC. They let me drive in but one of the pedestals was down and the other three spots were taken. I asked the other drivers if they were close to completion, and one said yes. He departed about 10 minutes later and I plugged in for just a few moments.
4. I had to pay parking charges at Brooklyn Atlantic Ave ($4) and Brooklyn N 12th Street ($10). Brooklyn N 12th Street is at the William Vale hotel and is valet parking only. I explained that I only needed a couple of minutes to register at least one added mile, and so they allowed me to ride in the vehicle and they drove it in and then back out after I had added one mile. The parking charge was $6 (which they would not waive), and I added $4 as a tip because they were very nice about the whole thing.
5. On the drive outbound in eastern Long Island, I saw a lot of fire department vehicles at many intersections. Turns out they were preparing for some big motorcycle road for charity. As I continued east I noticed the heavy traffic going westbound was extremely heavy and slow, and I was very worried that my return trip to the west was going to be miserable. As I approached Southampton the motorcycle caravan came up behind me …. a fire department vehicle with red lights flashing followed by 200+ motorcycles. We had to pull over to let them pass. After reaching the Montauk supercharger and then heading westbound again, the traffic was much lighter. I can only guess that the intersections blocked by fire department vehicles had been the cause of much of the congestion.
