Rumor out here in AZ is that Yuma will be a location for Supercharger in the fairly near future. In looking at Google Earth there appears to be a very likely candidate for the chargers...Yuma Palms Regional Center. Tons of parking, and all kinds of restaurants and stores. Anyone out there live in the area? If so, you might keep an eye open for construction there.
I'd sure love a 40+ amp J1772 there. That's about my max distance in the Rav4 from San Diego, and I have to cross a 4000+ foot pass to get there.
Not at Yuma Palms, but close, about 2.5 miles away: , yuma, new, stations - Business - YumaSun "A request to put the supercharging station at the Pivot Point Conference Center was approved recently by the city's Design and Historic Review Commission. The station would have eight stalls and provide free charging to supercharging-enabled vehicles."
Glad to see that this SCS will soon be in place. Phoenix to Yuma and Yuma to San Diego are both do-able in a 85kWh car, but we will all feel a sense of relief when additional Superchargers are in place, especially for summer driving when a/c is a must.
J1772 is better than nothing. I find anything less than a SC is a waste of time when driving cross country. The only time J1772 is of any value is overnight charging.
Found an article from a couple of months ago that reported that Yuma was to be the first supercharger in Arizona. Wonder what happened. Tesla to Open 6 Supercharger Stations in Arizona; First One to Be Operational By Years End in Yuma
When I spoke with the Hilton Garden Inn manager last October, he indicated it would be 4-6 months. Hilton doesn't want construction to interfere with parking during their busy winter visitor season. The Hilton shares the parking lot with a convention/conference center, so Hilton's share of the parking area is limited. The planned location of the superchargers is to the left of the front of the Hilton building--maybe 100 feet from the entrance. Without appropriate warning signage, it is likely the superchargers will be ICE'd many evenings.
I hope that wise minds prevail and the location of the supercharger spaces is changed to help insure that they will not be ICE'd. The hotel has every reason to want convenience for their guests, but locating a lot of expensive technology where it is unlikely to be available for its intended users would be really stupid. I suppose that Tesla might want the superchargers in a high visibility area for 'promotional purposes', but I doubt that this potential benefit outweights the downside risk. I wonder who makes theses decisions and how they weight the stated and unstated established criteria for placement (e.g. likelihood of being ICEd, closeness of food/shopping, access to freeway ramps, near interstate junctions, between major cities, distance to next supercharger, etc.).
It looks like the Yuma Supercharger is getting close. This is great for us - we go between PHX and SAN and points beyond almost every weekend, and the promise of a station in Yuma was pretty much a deciding factor in purchasing the MS. Location is excellent, in a kind of minor-lot in front of the Hilton. It's not a preferred area for the hotel so shouldn't get clogged up by ICE (we have a Leaf now and are particularly sensitive to this issue). There's a great park next to the lot with a nice playground set and trails next to the river, and an old steam locomotive on display. This is absolutely perfect for us because we have kids and 45 minutes of charge should give them enough time to run off their car-sterphobia, and I can get in a run as well. There's no fast food near, but we don't eat that anyway and the many picnic tables are perfect for a relaxing food break with healthier stuff we bring. That much charge time should give us enough to get up over the hump and back down into EV land; we'll see how we modify this when El Centro opens up. The charger boxes look great and totally futuristic against the wetlands, I-8 overpass and freight rail behind them. So cool, and so happy Tesla is such a smart company.
Here are some photos of the area last year prior to construction. Wow.. Photos already on this site... I had just found out....!!!!! It has been confirmed by the Hilton Garden front desk tonight 9:15 PM MST that the Supercharger construction a in Yuma AZ is well underway. AWESOME. I hope to get some photos messaged to me tomorrow. I'll post asap!! There is Main Street just a block away with restaurants etc. .... a couple minute walk.. It is visible from the supercharger location.
Great first post! How many charging bays are there? Did you make note of the other infrastructure - superchargers themselves, 480 V distribution box (large, often with Square-D insignia), utility transformer (shorter box, often dark green)?
Thanks. I meant to post two more pictures but had a problem and ran out of time figuring out this UI. Let's try this: There are eight bays, two of them w/o the boxes yet, just the posts. The only electrical equipment I saw were the above, nothing else. Plus one unopened wooden crate :smile: The salespeople in SD told me two weeks ago when I was putting my deposit down, that Yuma had just broken ground and would be online "in three weeks," so pretty close. We also swung by the El Centro location and circled the parking lot of the mall where that one's supposed to go in, but didn't see anything. Can;t wait for the car, can't wait to use the site!
From the Supercharger Progress wiki: 3551 S. Dogwood Road, El Centro Our information is that consturction should be starting in El Centro about now - perhaps the Yuma crew is heading here next.
May have been mentioned before, but Yuma to El Centro is only 60 miles. But, I don't know the logistical problems in spacing SC's in that area. It may be a question of either too far or too close where too close would be better. Electrical availability may be the defining decision.
There are large spaces of next to nothing along I-8 and I-10 in western AZ and eastern CA -- so grid connections definitely play a part. But there are some other superchargers in AZ that are pretty close together: Buckeye and Gila Bend are even closer -- about 40 miles between the 2 Carl's Jr locations. Gila Bend to Casa Grande is ~65 miles (give or take a couple miles depending on where the Supercharger location ends up). Gila Bend to Wickenburg is 92 miles. Back to I-8: Gila Bend to Yuma is 115 miles -- right about Tesla's target spacing of ~125 miles El Centro to San Juan Capistrano is 170 miles -- a bit too far, so another Supercharger will be needed in the San Diego area... Too bad its not even showing on the 2015 map (yet?)...
Terrain to the west of El Centro may be the reason, I know that gas mileage goes down a lot over that segment so it may be tough to do Yuma to SAN in a 60 without El Centro. Also since the most southerly supercharger in California will be San Juan Capistrano those traveling I-8 to I-5 North etc would have a problem. Going East you might be going to Tucson, hence (I guess) Gila Bend. Now I'm hoping they put solar panel canopies over these stations by the summertime Yuma's HOT
There's a possible answer to this heavy coverage: solar canopies. But really, it just looks to me like they're getting SoCal and AZ done, and to do AZ they have to do I-40, I-10 and I-8, plus route 93 for Phoenix to LV.
