Space is pretty tight there, which is what made me wonder. Good info on the upgrade, will be very welcome
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Wiki UK and Ireland Supercharger Site News
- Thread starter WannabeOwner
- Start date
Would be interesting to measure the width between the bolt holes and see how that compares with one of the existing tombstone widths…
The above plan shows the stalls on the north side of the car park near the garage, but the stalls are now on the west side. The north side is where I originally saw most of the digging, possibly for the power supply. The other equipment is in the north west corner now.
The layout has changed quite a lot.
This is great news since I have to think carefully about my SoC before venturing into the Yeovil area for any length of time.
Actually now I think about it, I just have to think carefully.
Too much thinking going on... I think.
DigbyChicken
Member
Having been born, and having spent much of my life, in Yeovil, thinking carefully before venturing here is always advisable.
jimbo_hippo
Member
Scotch Corner is consistently one of my slowest charger stop so I’d hope for some basic upgrade of the ‘floor’ speed of these chargers. It may be that I just imagine it as the distance between chargers in this region means I always have to start low and go high but I do a lot more Netflix at Scotch Corner than anywhere else for sure!
Congestion on busy weekends could be down to this too. Squeezing some faster base speeds for older cars like our two whilst not sharing connections could speed up and decongest this busy site an awful lot and since there’s not much space for queueing it would be a win all round.
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jimbo_hippo
Member
Here’s a pic I didn’t share. It’s looking like a continuous line all the way along that back edge now. Wouldnt want to guess the quantity but it looked like there’ll be a good few and more than on the original pans but that’s just an uneducated guess on my part.
cezdoc
Member
Thanks for the explanation @Stuart1714 , I see what you mean & I've got my eye in now.
It looks from the photos like there are 5 charger cabinet bases (although one of them, with the lifting eyelets, appears to be a slightly different design) implying up to 20 charging stalls. Some or all of the charger cabinets are evidently on site already so we'll find out soon enough. Impressive stuff.
Also need that once-pinned, now-gone location between scotch corner and Grantham too, which would help ease things for A1 traffic. I do try to advise scotch corner as it’s so busy and - as you note - so slow at timesScotch Corner is consistently one of my slowest charger stop so I’d hope for some basic upgrade of the ‘floor’ speed of these chargers. It may be that I just imagine it as the distance between chargers in this region means I always have to start low and go high but I do a lot more Netflix at Scotch Corner than anywhere else for sure!
Congestion on busy weekends could be down to this too. Squeezing some faster base speeds for older cars like our two whilst not sharing connections could speed up and decongest this busy site an awful lot and since there’s not much space for queueing it would be a win all round.
It is common for target dates to become placeholders rather than real planned dates in some instances (I don't know if this applies to Rownhams). If the location remains on the list Tesla just roles them over to a future date.
I did my first return trip from Aberdeenshire to West Sussex. Easy journey, but I can see trouble ahead already:
The main route from Scotland to England via the M74 and M6 only contains 18 supercharger stalls over three sites between Hamilton and Preston. It's a natural bottleneck on a core long distance route.
My experiences:
Abington 6 Chargers (9am Saturday Morning): 5 spare chargers --> 1 spare charger during my southbound 25minute charging session.
Gretna (10am Saturday Morning): 2 spare chargers noted on southbound driveby
Tebay (10:45am Saturday Morning): 5 Spare chargers --> 3 queueing Teslas during my southboard 45 minute charging session.
Gretna (1pm Sunday afternoon): 3 spare chargers noted on northbound driveby
Abington (2pm Sunday afternoon): 1 spare charger on arrival, 3 queueing Teslas 15 minutes later on departure. I decided to finish early and continue my supercharge at Dundee where there were no other Teslas charging.
So this experience will only get worse. While I see plans for new supercharger sites, I don't see any upgrade / expansion plans for existing sites. Gretna in my view should really be a 16 Stall Site. At the moment, I cannot use it as part of a planned stop. It will only ever be a last resort or drive-by opportunity. It's just the kind of place where you turn up only to find four Teslas queueing up in front of you who don't want to pay robbery fees to the Ionity network.
Tebay should have 8 stalls northbound in addition to existing site, and Abington should also be a 16 stall site.
The main route from Scotland to England via the M74 and M6 only contains 18 supercharger stalls over three sites between Hamilton and Preston. It's a natural bottleneck on a core long distance route.
My experiences:
Abington 6 Chargers (9am Saturday Morning): 5 spare chargers --> 1 spare charger during my southbound 25minute charging session.
Gretna (10am Saturday Morning): 2 spare chargers noted on southbound driveby
Tebay (10:45am Saturday Morning): 5 Spare chargers --> 3 queueing Teslas during my southboard 45 minute charging session.
Gretna (1pm Sunday afternoon): 3 spare chargers noted on northbound driveby
Abington (2pm Sunday afternoon): 1 spare charger on arrival, 3 queueing Teslas 15 minutes later on departure. I decided to finish early and continue my supercharge at Dundee where there were no other Teslas charging.
So this experience will only get worse. While I see plans for new supercharger sites, I don't see any upgrade / expansion plans for existing sites. Gretna in my view should really be a 16 Stall Site. At the moment, I cannot use it as part of a planned stop. It will only ever be a last resort or drive-by opportunity. It's just the kind of place where you turn up only to find four Teslas queueing up in front of you who don't want to pay robbery fees to the Ionity network.
Tebay should have 8 stalls northbound in addition to existing site, and Abington should also be a 16 stall site.
cezdoc
Member
Tesla don't indicate expansion plans, just (often notional) new sites, but site expansions do happen including 3 this year (London Canary Wharf, Bristol Cribbs Causeway and Exeter Darts Farm). So expansions up north may be in the pipeline but conversely there haven't been any new sites or expansions at Welcome Break service areas since 2017-18 (Hartshead Moor opened recently but were built in 2017).
Abington is pretty remote so there could be issues with increasing the power supply; in that case converting from V2 to V3 would help but this hasn't happened anywhere else so far (certainly not in the UK).
This year I've seen more chatter about queuing at these locations, a natural consequence of more Tesla's on the road, but at least the Nav indicates how busy they are and helps to an extent with journey planning. I've been doing similar trips from Aberdeen for 5 years and apart from Gretna haven't had any issues. I have a MS70 so can't avoid stopping at 2 of the 3 sites. Gretna seems popular for a lunchtime fill-up and because there are only 4 bays the chance of queuing and then a slow (shared) charge rate is much higher. Anecdotally any queues at Tebay and Abington move pretty quickly though - even when the services are very busy. Abington in particular isn't a stop where folk tend to loiter so I'm not too worried about queuing there - although where to park while waiting is another issue.
Mile for mile the east route via the A1 now has more charging capacity, e.g. Dundee - Adderstone - Scotch Corner has 20 stalls in total and the 6 at Adderstone are V3. And that's not including the ones at Edinburgh Service Centre. Overall I think the network expansion, opening up of new sites and alternative routes, plus software nudges (wait time icons, default 80% max at busy sites, overstay charges etc.) is keeping pace with demand up north but agreed it needs to continue growing.
i drove past Gretna heading south on Sunday morning and it was showing as full!! Can’t have been as bad as Tebay on Sunday lunchtime though - full, 1 stall out of action and seven cars queuing!
Burtonwood is easily twice as busy thsi past 3 months as its ever been.
I was here agian Sunday am, all stalls full, the 2 that were out of action were fixed and always one or 2 cars waiting. Ive never seen this in 3 years here.
As we know plenty more tesla on the road, expect mre of this.
OH and one guy in a merc hatchback ev reversed in and looked quite puzzled till the neighbouring Tesla put him right.. LOL
I was here agian Sunday am, all stalls full, the 2 that were out of action were fixed and always one or 2 cars waiting. Ive never seen this in 3 years here.
As we know plenty more tesla on the road, expect mre of this.
OH and one guy in a merc hatchback ev reversed in and looked quite puzzled till the neighbouring Tesla put him right.. LOL
I work near the Burtonwood chargers and used to use them with my free referral miles and they also pop up in my sat nav quite a lot and they are busy. It doesn’t help that they are V 2 chargers so when they are full, there’s lots of sharing of power and longer charging times.
One of the problems is also that Merseyside, and Liverpool, in particular don’t have any Superchargers. There is one planned for Liverpool which may relieve some of the pressure but I’ve not seen any definitive plans for it anywhere.
The Merc driver may be struggling though, it’s Welcome Break and a lot of Ecotricity chargers at Welcome Break are yet to be replaced with newer more reliable kit and the ones at Burtonwood seem permanently off.
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