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Supercharger Locations

Since the announcement of Superchargers on Sept. 25, I've not seen any mention anywhere about detailed plans or installations of Supercharger stations outside the first few that are still prominent on the web site.

In the Motor Trend announcement they were talking about Milford Ct. and Wilmington DE. Did those happen?

It's time to start thinking about 2013 vacation plans and it'd be nice to know if the East Coast will have stations (or anywhere else for that matter).

I picked up my car at the factory on Saturday and set out for my home in Western Orange County (373 miles). Because there was a large delivery crowd, I was sent off from Fremont with 206 miles in the tank. I easily made Harris Ranch. Now it gets funny. I had seen the pictures of the SuperCharging station and expected a big TESLA tower with 6 bays of charging. The navigation screen said that the charger was on my right and I looked and didn't see anything but a Shell station and a Subway. I drove around twice and couldn't see anything that looked like the picture. Finally I got out and asked someone and I was pointed to the charging station which is actually just a pole in the ground.

There is a large sign that says, IF YOU LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE, LEAVE YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER SO YOU CAN BE CONTACTED. This is hard to believe but the guy who had parked his car there took about an hour in a restaurant. When he saw me there, he told me he didn't have a cell phone so he couldn't leave a number. I waited about 45 minutes for him to appear. When he finally figured out how to put the car in reverse, charging went smoothly. I got about 200 miles on the gauge and then another car pulled up. I stopped charging and let the new guy in.

I arrived at Tejon Ranch and that looks like the photo. There was no one else there and I took a dinner break and charged to 200+ in about 45 minutes.

When I got to the LA area I stopped at the Hawthorne facility. The navi system directs you to a locked gate, but the entrance is around the back and easy to get to. When I arrived there was the Tesla Tower and 6 bays but only two have chargers and when the first bay is occupied, the second gets a minimal charge. I had to use the second bay because the first bay was occupied by a guy who apparently was deaf because he had his radio so loud that my ears hurt. When I realized I was only getting 8mph of charge, I left. I went back the next day to try things out and the first pump put out 280 mph, and I took a 1/2 hour charge to 240.

It's a great system and easy to use but you have to be prepared to wait. I drove to San Francisco last year and the round trip was $220 in gas. Coming back from Oakland/Fremont the cost was zero, and the wait was part of the learning curve.

Harris ranch is a known problem that is meant to be fixed soon with a real supercharger station.

As far as their plans, while we may not know the exact locations, we know their intentions, and there are some things that are so obvious they are a 100% certainty. Interstate 95 Miami to New York, 100%. Interstate 5 San Diego to Seattle 100%. Interstate 80 San Francisco to New York 100%. Texas triangle and Interstate 40 is probably a given as well. Where exactly on these corridors the chargers will be depends a lot on what deals Tesla comes up with, and they don't really know (but I'm not sure it matters). Timing is the bigger question, and there they presumably have a much better idea than we do, but don't want to commit to anything. In the future I'd probably prefer expected opening dates once a deal is inked and construction begins rather than the current practice of announcing them after they are operational.

(correction, actually I meant interstate 95 from Miami to Maine)

I would like to see supercharge stations on Interstate I95 and I26 in South Carolina. The electric utilities (SCE&G and Santee Cooper (public utility)) are fighting this in the state legislature because it infringes on them. It is up to the state legislature or the feds to correct this.


@Kalikgod - George B told me that they are location constrained right now. They have more capacity to build out locations than they have approved locations, so the new PM probably won't speed it up that much.

It's raining: Five occupied bays in Hawthorne Supercharger canopy tonight:

You can now search for "Tesla Supercharger" at

Let's try 2 pictures again:

I'm not sure if this was mentioned on this thread since I haven't read the whole thread...

When I took my trip from SF peninsula to Socal, I met an electrician at the Tejon Ranch SC. He was bringing a few more SC on line there. I spoke to him about the situation at Harris Ranch - there being only one SC available. He said that he is contracted to start installing a 10 bay supercharger at Harris Ranch starting in February (this was mid January). He expected it to be completed by early May, this year.

So, for those of you having to wait at Harris Ranch (like me when there were already 2 Model S when I drove up), after May there would likely be no wait as long as all 10 bays are up and running.

Primm, Nevada. Barstow-Las Vegas is 160 miles, or longer depending on your destination in town. With frequent cold weather over the pass, a charger before Las Vegas will be needed for travel to and from L.A., especially for 60 kWh owners.

did not take my 60 kkWh to Vegas this weekend.

@mbcaffe, I'm driving the 60 home to Vegas from Fremont this weekend, and might be on whatever the electrical equivalent of fumes is by the time I hit the driveway, even with a range charge at the Barstow SC. A Primm SC would be very handy.

Cut your speed by 5 mph and you'll add lots of margin.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE build a charging station somewhere along the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando. I live in Sarasota (where atleast 4 Model S currently reside) and frequently commute to Orlando. Florida is a GREAT market for Tesla. Beautiful weather and wealth are in abundance down here - the two most important factors in Tesla ownership.

While I think the road trip thing is silly since few people do it regularly, if Tesla wants to climb this mountain in addition to the achievement the S is on its own as a non-long-road-trip car, they may want to think about two things as improvements: (1) make first routes like DC-Boston/SF-LA "idiot proof" before making new routes just "doable"; (2) consider possible differences in range anxiety in different markets (see below).

As a layperson without data, on the west coast it strikes me that people are more concerned with traffic/range from some city (eg SF) to some far away rural place. While on the east coast, from my experience, the anxiety comes mostly from traveling from one quasi suburban place to another like place *through* a city (eg NYC and even DC/Boston). I have range anxiety all the time trying to make it through NYC in my ICE vehicle. Therefore to "idiot proof" this route, I would think Tesla would be well served "book-end" these pass-through cities with superchargers (eg 15-20mi or where open to the N and S of NYC, S of Boston and N of DC ... Later E of NYC, W of Boston and W of DC). While this would slow supercharger deployment elsewhere (given finite resources), building confidence on the first routes would likely be a far greater service to Tesla than having more "doable" routes initially.

Did you notice new much welcome amenities at Hawthorne Supercharger :)

Pack your own meals! A garbage can and two outdoor benches have been added:

Look! You don't have to hold your bladder after hours any more. New toilet trailer is now 24 hours :)

Thanks so much Tesla!!!

@village33 - all the owners who aren't on that path may disagree. It seems better to give the most use to the most people with each new supercharger deployment. Sometimes that will require synergy between multiple locations, but a few here and there would make things much easier for those nearby.

I don't have my car yet, but how much energy/charge is used up sitting in traffic jams? I am thinking not much since the car is not moving, therefore, less power is needed. Would the slow creeping along on the Chicago highways during rush hour be a concern?

Not just less, but almost none (other than heating and radio, etc.) An ICE car can idle itself empty, while an EV is hardly effected at all. The motor does not need to keep spinning to keep warm.

In very cold weather, the battery would have to warm itself somewhat. But there's not much "work" being done, so the load is much lower than for making a engine tick over.

@Neech - basically 100W for running the computer equipment, plus whatever you use for lights, HVAC, radio, etc - of these heating/cooling are the primary ones to worry about. That doesn't mean that it is good to be sitting stopped in traffic, as you are still burning energy without moving forward, but it does mean you don't waste as much.

There are other little things Tesla can do like keeping up a directory of hotels with EV charging access or helping to integrate one of the charge locator sites into the navigation system.

Just to be clear though, if the weather is really cold the heater will definitely be eating up range sitting in traffic jams, and your wH/mile will be really high. Just saying "other than heating" isn't really fair. But still, definitely not a worry for commute distances.

+Glad to hear long traffic jams would not eat up much energy. I could easily turn down the heat, but need the radio to keep me from expressing any road rage that might build up ;)

Radio runs off the 12v battery as do some other things

true, but it's best to think of that as a buffer. All the power ultimately derives from the drive battery. There's no separate charging mechanism or path for the 12V in normal operation.

I was a little disappointed that the 4th quarter shareholder letter was vague on future Superchargers. "Construction planning is underway to install additional Superchargers in 2013. Our plan is to expand
coverage on the U.S. West and East Coasts, and around the rest of the country." I had heard 90 new SC in the US by the end of the year at the Santa Monica store.

mauterin - it is TM policy to not telegraph where and when Superchargers will be located. They do not want to be pestered or held to specfic location before they cut the real estate deal, or to a schedule that they end up missing. Therefore, the pattern is to give general numbers and regions, then get the individual SC sites up and running first, and then announce them. That is smart as no one gets dissapointed.

+1 PDave

And the real estate does not skyrocket and the electricians bid for the job so costs are minimized

Did you miss the bit about a step change in the speed of charging? The NYT article was going to be about that till Broder got it.

@blephneiben how did it go? Considering doing a factory pickup and driving home to Henderson.

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