This weekend we traveled between San Diego and Los Angeles. Our Tesla navigation informed us that we would need to stop in SJC to recharge (which we had easily done more than a year ago) and we did again on Friday, March 31st at approx. 4pm. When we arrived all 7 stalls were in use and there were 3 cars waiting ahead of us. There was not a single driver in any car that was charging. There was also an attendant station this time but no attendant. 2 drivers waiting to charge were clearly upset. 1 gentleman said he had been there nearly an hour waiting. After 30 minutes the attendant returned and spoke with the upset people waiting. After almost 2 hours of waiting - it was at last our turn (keep in mind during that WHOLE time only 2 cars had moved from their stalls - 5 of the original cars that were there at the start were still there). When I plugged in, my computer told me "3 1/2 hours to complete charging". I panicked. I had an upset sister at this point and 2 upset kids as we were suppose to stop in Disneyland. The Tesla Attendant then informed me that "Tesla" had turned down the SuperChargers because they were blowing fuses and being over-used by Tesla owners. He said my best bet would be to report this to Tesla on this site. Honestly, our Friday night was ruined from not getting to complete our plans because we couldn't "SuperCharge" as we had done in the past. We also found the lack of respect by the Tesla owners practically abandoning their cars at the SuperCharger station to be extremely rude and disrespectful . The Tesla Attendant said there was nothing he could do. He said "fights" break out almost daily at this station. Needless to say our return to San Diego Saturday night (April 1st) was no better. We arrived at 9pm. All 7 stalls full. No drivers to be found anywhere. We got a stall about 50 minutes after arriving. We charged only 20 minutes with my computer saying I would have 14% battery upon arriving home since my battery was not fully charged. My sister said she is going to tell every person she can NEVER to buy a Tesla based on this experience... I was in complete tears over the stress of it all. Clearly I will not be driving my Tesla ever again to Los Angeles unless that can be fixed. More stalls. Return to actually Super Charging (3 1/2 hours is not a Super Charge) and please MORE Super Chargers along the I-5... how can Tesla find this to be acceptable??
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With today's Model S' 100D range of 335 miles, there is not need to stop in between San Diego to LAX which is about 110 miles.
mwallach, sorry for your experience. It would be hard for those of us that love Tesla but for non Tesla lovers a total fiasco.
@mwallach
The reality is in front of our eyes: There are so many gas stations in so many intersections but there are hardly any Superchargers for comparison.
So to catch up with the convenience of gasoline station availability, it's a huge problem.
Tesla has continuously tried hard to solve that problem but it is still a work in progress.
However, in the mean time, what can owners do?
1) Write comment on Tesla Contact page and suggest another location for Supercharger.
2) If you have resources, trade in for a highest range you can which was 85, 90, now 100 kWh, and higher in future.
3) Plan your Supercharging stops prior to your trip.
4) Check Supercharging Status on your 17" display during the trip.
So maybe the owners who didn't return as quickly as you would normally expect were simply waiting for their charge to complete versus being discurteous to those waiting.
Regardless, this is known to be one of the most congested SC locations so be forewarned.
Yes, they are returning to the stabilized mission. It's great to see California wild life recovering from sea otters, sea lions to swallows. Now, if we can just keep the WH from mucking it up!
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-swallow-capistrano-20170602-htmlstory.html
Its good to see number of tesla on the road but its very disappointing that people do not respect other travelers on the road and use tesla supercharger as parking spot and do not move the car as soon as it charged.
I believe its time for everyone to start sending email to testa to solve the supercharger issue and start charging idle time to ignorant peoples.
Thank you
I thought Tesla has $0.40 idle fee per minute since December 16, 2016.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/improving-supercharger-availability
http://i.imgur.com/f7p0olh.jpg
I agree with @mwallach that the long term solution is to size the capacity for peak time.
I get that SJC is serviced by SDGE, the most expensive utility on the US mainland, but still. Inconsiderate a-holes should be prohibited from owning Teslas.
I went there one or two times and will avoid it forever.
Are there folks who still use the charging stations as parking spots?
Have the idle fees eliminated the freeloader problem?