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Wait times at Super chargers?
- Thread starter Rick g
- Start date
I've made probably 150 supercharger visits the past year and a half and only waited a minute or two on one occasion. It's a regional thing and some areas are more busy than others.
I've also only experienced a few broken stalls. It's a quick move to a new stall and restart the charging session.
However! There is a difference between version 2 and version 3 superchargers. Version 2 are slower, and the stalls are paired onto single charging hardware. So you'll want to make sure you have one to yourself or it'll be slow. Version 3 are the new/current version and they're much faster and don't share any equipment.
GHammer
Dark Star
Ive charged at over 900 different supercharger locations all over the country and well over 1000 total charging sessions and i have waited for a stall exactly 12 times and never for more than 5 minutes. When traveling between urban centers, most of the time im alone or with one other car.
Iain
Member
I was talking to a Tesla employee today, while he was installing a new V3 charger and he said to still alternate parking spaces if possible, so you don’t slow the charge rate down.
GHammer
Dark Star
This doesn't apply to V3 sites nor does it always work with V2 sites since paired stalls are not always next to each other. You need to look at the stall numbers and not pair up with someone using the same number.
It is a good point to always check the numbering at V2 sites. Most are 1A/1B, 2A/2B, and so on. However a few are 1A/2A/3A/..., then 1B/2B/3B/... Springfield Oregon comes to mind as an example of the latter. Seems like almost every time I charge there, someone will pull into the stall I'm shared with - even though other non-shared stalls are available. I then end up showing the numbering and explaining the whole paired stall thing. Can't wait for the Harrisburg OR Supercharger to come on line so I can avoid Springfield on my trips along I-5.
Yep. I feel like I've experienced that somewhere on the east coast as well.
Additionally, I was at a Supercharger where there were two rows of stalls back to back and the paired stalls were "butt to butt" with each other.
I really wish they'd include some kind of stall recommendation when navigating to a Supercharger. It could expedite V2 charging quite a lot. I recently charged in Springfield, MO and when I pulled in there was one car in each of their paired stalls. I picked one that shared with a car that didn't have a driver so I wouldn't have to avoid eye contact. As I sat back down in my car two of the other drivers got out of their cars to unplug and leave. That would have been nice to know before I wasted time parking and plugging in.
Rice&Curry
Member
Well wait time are based on at least two main factors - ( a) long weekend/holidays - when most people are travelling and ( 2) State where travelling- for example- California has so many Tesla's that charging stations often get busy during holidays during peak travel times ( 9 am to 7 PM ).
Ciaopec
Active Member
Most of my 150,000 miles have been FL-OH. I've never had to wait at any of the charging stops you might be using. In the midwest I've only ever waited once in the Chicago area (for about 5 minutes). In Melbourne,FL I saw a wait only once when Elon was in town and SpaceX was doing something. Since then, a couple new chargers have opened in the area.
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The only place I've had to wait is Memphis. There is a permit for a new location there as well. Hopefully by the end of the year it will be online.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
Your Tesla will show the map and you can see if there are waits at chargers. Or if there is only 1 charger marked available, there may be a wait at that charger because you are seeing it when swapping out a car. Tesla tries to estimate a wait. The main sources of waits I have seen are:
- Urban chargers where people who can't charge at home/work are using superchargers as their main charging source. A bad thing to do, but the only option for people in that position.
- Chargers along popular road trip routes about 200 miles from a big town, in late morning -- everybody who set off in the morning for a road trip from this town along that route needs a charge at the same time, particularly on weekends. Ditto Friday night "vacation home" rush.
- Places Tesla just put in too few chargers
- Super heavy travel days (like Thanksgiving Wed and Sunday.)
I noticed this numbering scheme at the Columbus, TX, supercharger west of Houston. (Shameless plug: I thought it was so weird, I included it in my road trip video, at 3:04 here,
As far as waiting, outside of California, the only superchargers I've had to wait at were:
- Buford, GA
- Lake Charles, LA (because multiple stalls were offline)
- Raleigh, NC
Ciaopec
Active Member
I believe the original Superchargers were numbered this way. Maumee, OH is even a bit wierder as it started out with 6 spots 1A,2A,3A,1B,2B,3B.
Several years ago they added two new spots which just became 4A/B.
PackMan730
Member
If you're around Glendale CA or Burbank CA, there's always a line at any superchargers. Also, Santa Monica close to the pier I've noticed a big line.
Yes, but the In-n-Out line in Glendale is still a lot longer in both time and length.
PackMan730
Member
Yep, makes sense. Hardly anyone is using any of the EA chargers. Besides, in the Glendale area, EA chargers are at grocery stores or shopping centers where there are other useful things one often needs to do nearby while charging.
Personally, I don't care since I charge at home or work and only use public chargers when on the road where lines are only an issue when visiting folks or places that don't have charging in urban areas.
Personally, I don't care since I charge at home or work and only use public chargers when on the road where lines are only an issue when visiting folks or places that don't have charging in urban areas.
I would think twice about that. Watch a few videos about people that try and travel on EA chargers. Many are broken, slow, or take a long time to start charging. They don’t have any incentive to keep them working at peak performance since it was just a punishment for Volkswagen to install them after “DieselGate”. Long distance travel is one of the main reasons we bought a second Tesla instead of a MachE.
bradtem
Robocar consultant
EA has now being doing contracts with various car OEMs to provide things like "free charging for 3 years" at EA to try to match Tesla's original offer of free supercharging (now gone.) Nissan also offered free charging with the car but of course those 100 mile range Leafs were not suitable for road trips.
However, now that EA is in the business of selling charging subscriptions via OEMs (and possibly on its own) they will have a harder time having sucky maintenance. EA doesn't get that upset of a random driver has trouble charging (or a long wait) because of dead chargers, but the maker of the car won't want complaints from their customer quite so much. "You sold me charging and it doesn't work!"
Though unlike the other networks like EVgo, EA seems to try to make bigger stations with 6 or 8 units. Those (like Tesla SC) are much more tolerant of broken chargers. At worst they make the line a bit longer if you get a line (which you don't seem to much at EA.) A broken charger at a solo or duo charger is a much bigger deal.
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