Holiday Weekend Forces Pain On Tesla Owners In Hour Long Supercharging Lines

I think that is Madonna Inn and not Kettleman. Also there are 15 cars in line, it's not half a mile long =) Might have gotten the stories crossed. This is what Kettleman looks like: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mega-supercharger-lounge-food-kids-area-kettleman-baker-ca/

The Madonna Inn Supercharger is where they rolled out a temporary "mobile supercharger" the day before. It's a Megapack with 10 extra plugs that can fully charge 100 cars or so. They can haul it around anywhere if there is going to be crazy demand in an area.

It looks like they have 3 more stalls coming soon there, and those aren't V3 superchargers. If they upgrade to V3 it cuts charging time by 30% for newer cars.

SJD Your comments seem to avoid the real issue. The fact is there wasn't and isn't enough capacity to keep a large fleet of EVs moving on the road. ICE machines are far more convenient is this situation and have set the market's expectation of what a "refueling" stop should be. Until EV's come close to meeting that benchmark the market for EVs will be limited.

I gassed up my ICE in 5 minutes no problems. I had 400 miles of range on a cold day in Chicago. The cold temperature did not affect the range as it would in an EV.

Valid comments, no one should ever have to wait more than a few minutes to fuel up and ideally it should only take 5-10 min to tank up while you're travelling (I don't mind stopping for 30-60min to eat or do touristy things, but that should be optional).

There are only a handful of V3 superchargers out there right now, same with fast CCS chargers (which Teslas can also use). I think both programs will ramp up quickly. Either can add almost 100 miles in 5 minutes to an EV and should help add more capacity very quickly. I just got 1,000 free supercharging miles and am planning to do a roadtrip, will see how bad it is in Dec. I was able to make it from San Jose to Reno in a single charge with snow and uphill driving last year. Looking forward to a trip where I have to use a charger to see what it's like.

For local charging, it depends on where you live. There are now 40 (yes 40) Superchargers in the Bay Area--with 12 to 37 chargers each--and well over 1,000 level 2 charging stations. The free ones are getting competitive but the Superchargers rarely have any wait.

"Mobile Superchargers" are gas powered. LOL!!!

Nope, the mobile superchargers use a 3 MWh battery pack, enough for about 100 cars.

Wow, crazy! Nothing like being held hostage by your $70,000+ luxury EV which is out of juice while on the way over the river and thru the woods to Grandmother's house on Turkey Day.

When will the fools who have Tesla's realize that Tesla is a monopolistic organization that is unfriendly to consumers and who will likely, eventually attract the attention of class action lawyers and the US Justice Dept to investigate and possibly prosecute ifs monopolistic practices.

First we saw how Tesla's iron grip on the Tesla resale market (allowing it to manipulate and perhaps prop us residual values). Second we saw how Tesla's iron grip on the parts supply chain for Tesla cars (3 month repairs for minor fender-benders) and the repair network (very few independent body shops are Tesla certified due to the cost (about $200,000 - $500,000 for training and necessary (Tesla-supplied) tools) and parts availability issues. Now we see the challenges of Tesla's heavily promoted but very thin Super-Charger network.

Flip side, the "socialist' Tesla owners will be smug while waiting in the "Free Electricity" line taking comfort that losing your autonomy is one of the side effects of creeping socialism.

The Tesla business model is one of pure socialism - using other people's money to fund losses (with no end in sight) and non-economic business decisions, all the while engaging in restrictive business practices.

I am very surprised that the Big 3 have not engaged in a stealth campaign to get the Justice Department to start an investigation. By the way, this is topic that the Trump Team can really jump on - Tesla as an enemy of Trump America.

#Teslas.are.not.viable.everyday.cars

#Tesla.Does.Not.Turn.A.Real.Profit


I guess the 'socialist' Tesla owners

Maybe team tRump can try to extort this from another world leader at the direction of Putin. Nothing says "freedom" like embracing the former KGB leader of a socialist country who murders his opposition. Seems we are heading that way.

Tesla is not a monopoly by any definition. They represent less than 2 percent of all cars sold in the US recently. There are a growing number of EVs available to purchase. They have horrible business practices that will come back to haunt them. The Ford Mustang Mach-E will do serious damage to tesla s it is a better vehicle with real dealer experience. Tesla is structurally unprofitable and this will become more painful for them as the Elon con is to promote endless growth. That is not happening. Sad.

Cannot they not find other public non Superchargers and pay to charge instead? I'm sure wait times will be an added OTA feature soon.

You can see how busy stations are from the map, could be user error. There are also thousands of destination chargers that are slow, but are often at cool places like wineries and restaurants. I would rather do one of those than wait in line for 30-60min.

Guy on my street had his Model X put on a flatbed and taken away for service. Something about the suspension being in a a fault mode. Can't be driven. Not good.

Tesla owners are gullible FOOLS. The photo shows them burning up coal and oil to recharge their PIG TESLA golf carts.

Long wait times will be more commonplace as Tesla sells more vehicles. Meanwhile, whenever I see a long Tesla line, I just cruise on by in my F450 with well over 500 miles of range.

BTW, Tesla has to haul around it's broken down cars (provided they don't catch fire first), with a fleet of diesel F350 duallies lol.

The F350s are reliable too.

'Built Ford Tough'

Tesla shitbags inconvenienced...now that's something to be thankful for.

Wait for it, more and more gas stations are closing down. They'll eventually be spaced further out than the thousands of charging stations going up each month (already the case in CA, coming soon to where you live eventually). Let's be honest, you will have probably moved on to an EV well before that happens. I'm sure that Mustang is tempting.

San Jose Driver - there are very few big gas stations closing down - and they are being replaced by larger Wawas - and similar competitors.

There are three basic problems with Tesla that cannot be resolved easily

1 - Lack of Service centers that can reset the computers - while Tesla was once towing these cars to the nearest center at its cost - they stopped that with the Model 3 out of warranty. So you are pretty much at their control if your car decides to set a code and NOT start up. That will effect used vehicle values

2 - All battery packs eventually lose their ability to maintain a dense charge over time - which reduces range for older ones - again affecting used vehicle values.

3 - THe infrastructure is simply not available to move more than about 10% of the vehicles to Electric in most major metro areas - where they already do brown outs in the hot summer months. Add in that Electric Vehicles only MOVE the emissions around - and are not really that much cleaner than ICE cars.(according to two German Studies). So the value of an EV is not as green as you will try to say. Mining Lithium - for example - causes widespread environmental damage that pumping oil does not.


WE will need a charging station standard to be able to use all these stations on different makes of vehicles too - which will require laws to be passed to allow it.

1.) You can restart the computers really easily, hold down the click wheels for 5 seconds for the main CPU, 2 top buttons for the secondary CPU on the S/X. Hold the brake for a hard restart of the whole system while in Park. If you need anything beyond that, you'll likely need to swap out the whole CPU anyway and would have to go to a store regardless.

2.) Batteries degrade over time and Teslas have done an awesome job compared to other EVs like the Leaf. After 100,000 miles on my Model S, I still have the battery at 93% of its original maximum charge. I've probably floored the car 1,000 times. Also, it doesn't just stop working... even 15 years from now it will have some range which could enable a cheap secondary market for low range, used EVs.

3.) Have to disagree with moving emissions around, especially in CA where the rate of renewables is very high. The infrastructure is mostly there, and new flagship Superchargers are using both Solar Panels and batteries. Utilities are also building massive battery "peaker plants" which can double the output of existing plants. A key Tesla goal is to build a decentralized power station, and they are doing that right now with solar + Powerwalls.

4.) That standard is CCS, and it just really happened recently. Since all major manufacturers including Porsche, Audi, VW, MB, and Ford are backing it... has to potential to scale quickly. It would have been nice if a standard could have been agreed upon 7 years ago, so now we have an Apple vs. Android charging scenario. Teslas are the only cars that can use both the Supercharging network and CCS (and CHAdeMO, and J1772). It's a big added advantage that other manufacturers won't have... but I wish it was an open system from day one. Most people thought EVs would fail, but here we are.

This still reflects the current problem with EV's in general in the US. No significant infrastructure. With all the money by car makers being thrown at EV development one would hope and expect that infrastructure development is humming along at a similar pace.

EV Infrastructure developed by the government = Socialism.

EV Infrastructure developed by the free market - the way to go but will NEVER happen.

Wawa/Quik-Trip/Maverick Gas Stations/Convenience Stores - none of them have EV charging. Why?

Because there is no business case to have a bunch of EV's parked in front of your store for an hour while they charge, taking up valuable parking spots. If a convenience store looks crowded, people drive by and goto one that is less busy. This whole EV charging thing is about the real estate (which is built into gas prices at the retail level by the way).

The ask for "EV Charging Stations" is really a big ask because the "Greenies" are basically seeking free use of land to support the vehicles charging. The EV charging model is fundamentally broken because real estate costs are ignored.

Thoughts?

There is no business case for EV unless things become socialist and are paid for with other people's money. Hopefully that will never happen.

As a teenager, I worked after school at the local gas station. It was a dirty, greasy place with 4 bays to do minor car repair and maintenance.
Today, most gas stations are bright, clean "general convenience stores" that also sell gasoline. No more car repairs. These modern gas stations are money magnets and are springing up all over the country.

They are still relatively dirty and smell like crap. Ironically I went to a gas station last week to quickly balance the air in my tires and there was another Tesla doing the same thing. Now I can't imagine every going to the gas station every week to fill up. It takes me 5 second to plug in at work (free) or at home (cheap).