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DrivingRockies
Closed
There were an app or two that had the info but it was removed at Tesla's request. I assume to reduce strain on the API involved, since those in cars inquiring are probably low impact.
Telling vandals which sites were currently unoccupied was counterproductive.
But unless you're in the car, what purpose would the information serve? Unless you have a choice of which supercharger to head to (unlikely except in California) there is no practical benefit to showing the information. Even in the car it's questionable, as usage changes after you make your decision. If it shows full, it could be half empty when you get there, or there could be more people in line waiting. A better solution is to expand the busy superchargers and add more sites, as Tesla is doing.
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
Completely agree with these points, restating the first one slightly:
1) There is a practical benefit to showing the information if you have a choice of which supercharger to head to
2) Tesla is expanding busy superchargers and adding more sites
Since Tesla is expanding and adding more sites, at some point it won't just be in California where you will have a choice of two (or more) superchargers within range, and thus experience a practical benefit.
This feature came in handy returning from a trip where we had enough charge to stop either at Seaside or Gilroy, but not enough to get home. As we approached Seaside, we were monitoring its status on the map and saw it filling up rapidly, such that when we reached it, there was already one car in line. But Gilroy showed that less than half its stalls were full, and since it had recently expanded, that meant there were around 8 stalls free. So our choice was:
1) Stay at Seaside and wait for a stall to open up, knowing that most of the cars already plugged in had arrived recently
2) Continue on to Gilroy where there are currently 8 stalls free
The choice was obvious; we proceeded to Gilroy, and there were still plenty of spots available when we arrived. Having the information probably saved us 15-20 minutes of waiting in line, depending on when the second-longest car there was finished charging, plus I got a faster charging rate at Gilroy because I didn't need to share a paired stall. And now that there is a third supercharger (Del Monte) in the area, which wasn't open at the time, the ability to see current status should help balance the load between all of them.
cpa
Active Member
I can think of a couple of uses--perhaps remote; perhaps only for road geeks like me.
It is nice to see trends and tendencies in advance of leaving on a trip. For example, I have noticed that many Superchargers are quite busy during lunch times--generally 11:30-1:30. If I know this sort of trend in advance, I can schedule my departure times to avoid that particular spot during those hours, or I can charge at those times fully aware that I might be spending additional time waiting or receiving a slower charge and adjust my destination or arrival time accordingly.
Other Superchargers seem to experience seasonal or one-off heavy usage (see the congestion along Interstate 5 at Corning and Mt. Shasta ostensibly for the imminent solar eclipse.) If a pattern is seen a day or two in advance, at least I can expect that there likely will be delays and can factor these putative delays into my day's journey.
Routes with high density like I-5 in the Valley can also be viewed in advance to determine which locations get the most traffic. We can then decide to charge more (or less) at Supercharger A because we have every reason to believe that our next stop will be Supercharger C or D, depending.
In addition, it is unclear why some Superchargers will show one or more stalls continuously in use. It seems quite implausible that remote Superchargers will have someone plugged in at 4:45 AM week after week. It has been suggested on this forum that Tesla reflects stalls that are out of service or that have reduced power with an occupied symbol on the battery picture. This information is nice to know.
I agree that for now that this is probably only important in California and a small handful of other routes. But I believe that this advance knowledge down the line would be a nice benefit to driving Tesla--to set Tesla apart from the public charging stations that will result from the VW settlement that will be used mostly by drivers of other BEVs.
It is nice to see trends and tendencies in advance of leaving on a trip. For example, I have noticed that many Superchargers are quite busy during lunch times--generally 11:30-1:30. If I know this sort of trend in advance, I can schedule my departure times to avoid that particular spot during those hours, or I can charge at those times fully aware that I might be spending additional time waiting or receiving a slower charge and adjust my destination or arrival time accordingly.
Other Superchargers seem to experience seasonal or one-off heavy usage (see the congestion along Interstate 5 at Corning and Mt. Shasta ostensibly for the imminent solar eclipse.) If a pattern is seen a day or two in advance, at least I can expect that there likely will be delays and can factor these putative delays into my day's journey.
Routes with high density like I-5 in the Valley can also be viewed in advance to determine which locations get the most traffic. We can then decide to charge more (or less) at Supercharger A because we have every reason to believe that our next stop will be Supercharger C or D, depending.
In addition, it is unclear why some Superchargers will show one or more stalls continuously in use. It seems quite implausible that remote Superchargers will have someone plugged in at 4:45 AM week after week. It has been suggested on this forum that Tesla reflects stalls that are out of service or that have reduced power with an occupied symbol on the battery picture. This information is nice to know.
I agree that for now that this is probably only important in California and a small handful of other routes. But I believe that this advance knowledge down the line would be a nice benefit to driving Tesla--to set Tesla apart from the public charging stations that will result from the VW settlement that will be used mostly by drivers of other BEVs.
Prospective Tesla owners would like to gauge how congested SC stations get. Particularly during heavy travel times, like right now on routes to the eclipse path.
This also would apply to a current Tesla owner planning on taking a future trip on a particular route at a particular time. Even if historical data wasn't made available (which would be the most ideal solution), they could still get a feel for what to expect by checking real-time conditions from their phone or computer at a similar time of day and/or day of the week as their planned trip.
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
I plan out a trip by going and sitting in the car, and scrolling around in the map to look at various supercharger locations.
There's no reason for Tesla to provide supercharger status (or other navigation services) to non-owners, and even for owners, trip planning probably doesn't justify the ability to get this status from a random device that isn't your car.
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
Didn't say the data was useless. I said it would be difficult to justify making the data available to non-owners or outside of the car, because the primary use case is helping you navigate while you are in your car.
I was thinking more of getting to a supercharger, seeing it's full, with a few people waiting, and deciding to head to the mall for a few hours (a lot of superchargers are at malls), until there is a vacancy.
You're a family of 4, and you see it's full, and decide to go to lunch, but 15 minutes later you see that there's a vacancy, so one driver heads over there to plug in.
The app could also alert you to a vacancy.
There are other things that could be done, like being able to see how long people have been charging to gauge how long a wait it might be.
You're a family of 4, and you see it's full, and decide to go to lunch, but 15 minutes later you see that there's a vacancy, so one driver heads over there to plug in.
The app could also alert you to a vacancy.
There are other things that could be done, like being able to see how long people have been charging to gauge how long a wait it might be.
Agree - google auto collects and shows a histogram of relative popularity and occupancy over time and current for every site. It is useful in many ways for both guesstimating and precise planning. I can't imagine a good reason why Tesla wouldn't help it's owners with such info- other than maybe there's other more pressing priorities of things to do, like, say, rolling out a new car model.
Your statement "there is no practical benefit" is false.
I'm about a block away from a Supercharger right now. I'm working from a Starbucks for a bit before supercharging because the bays were more than half full when I arrived and I didn't want to slow the other current owners down by parking next to them sharing juice. Today, I'm not in a hurry and they might be. In this case, it would be great to see when charging bays opened up, so I know how much time I should kill over here without repeatedly walking back and forth.
I can understand why maybe the public shouldn’t have access to this info but why not make it a part of the Tesla app accessible after login? I think it would be great to have some data for each one, maybe google type graphs for historical busyness. It could be helpful to plan before a trip.
cpa
Active Member
You can. But you must be in the car. Moreover, the car only shows occupancy/vacancy within a relatively small radius of your current location. For me in Fresno, California, I can see some of the eastern and southern Bay Area, Interstate 5 from Manteca to the Bakersfield/Buttonwillow ones, Fresno, Fish Camp, Mammoth, Groveland, Atascadero, San Luis, and sometimes the two in Folsom.
It is only a 3 1/2 hour drive to the Roseville and Rocklin SC, yet they do not appear. Ditto for Mojave.
So, I echo that it would be nice to be able to use an app that is connected to our account to view current and historical usage. ChargePoint has something that resembles usage over the past week, if I remember correctly.
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