Canuck
Well-Known Member
I used Kelowna, Merritt, Kamloops, Hope and Vancouver on Friday and they all worked GREAT even in some extremely warm temperatures.
Using one at each of those locations really doesn't tell us much. You need to arrive with a low battery and test all of them to ensure they ramp up to 120 kW (or close to it). I find at least one or two that do not at each location. Most people don't even notice or care if they spend extra time -- so it's not an issue. But I use them a lot to and from my cabin and I know which ones to avoid since they don't ramp up over about 70 kW. I am also convinced Tesla is not allowing us to supercharge as fast we used to -- and lots of others report that too --likely to protect the battery but maybe to dissuade use.
Kelowna has an entire fleet of taxis called "Current Taxi," and they seem to constantly be using the supercharger. So I guess this is the Canadian version of Tesloop. Probably no issues with crowding in Kelowna, but I still find this practice/business model rather reprehensible.
They have a contract with Tesla and Best Western that costs them about $5 per charge. Tesla won't allow them to block use (I've never seen Kelowna full and rarely see anyone else but them) and it will expand before that happens -- unless their contract expires or is terminated which would free up the stations but expansion is more likely. I find the business model that of the future. Let's encourage taxiing people around on rainwater (95% of BC's power is from dams) rather than fossil fuels. Nothing reprehensible about that to me.
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