Tesla Supercharging Amenities Really Need to Be Better — Great Example – CleanTechnica

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Also: You Can’t Rely on NACS Superchargers for Cross-Country Travel in Compatible Non-Tesla EVs

If you live in northern Wisconsin, you see the “massive” brand-new Quick Trip gas stations/convenience stores everywhere. They are places where you can buy a soft drink, a gallon of milk, and/or a hot meal etc., etc. while you are filling up your car with gas. We have similar big convenience stores/gas stations in Utah under the Maverik brand. Rumor has it that these stations make very little on the gas, but big profits on the convenience store. If you have observed the price of a candy bar or a bag of sunflower seeds in these places, you understand how that works. Although, the price of milk and bread rivals that at Walmart. If this works for gas stations where you spend 5 minutes filling up your car, how much better should it work for EV charging stations, in particular Superchargers, where you have access to well heeled customers for 20 to 40 minutes while they are charging?

Strangely, we are lucky to get a clean restroom at a hotel 20 yards away or a supermarket 200 yards away or a TJ Max 300 yards away, and seldom even a true convenience store right next to the Superchargers. Even trash cans and window cleaning fluid, squeegees, and paper towels are very rare. Maybe this makes sense to keep leg thrombosis at bay, but it can’t make business sense. Maybe this makes business sense for the 8-stall Supercharger in Rawlins, Wyoming, where we seldom see another car charging. But for the usually busy 32-stall Supercharger in Beaver, Utah, or the usually fully occupied 48-stall charger in Baker, California, there has to be a potential gold mine of customers to tap.

The first place I’ve seen this fully exploited is at the “small” 16-stall Supercharger in Nephi, Utah. The Supercharger in Nephi has 8 stalls on either side of a commercial building which stood empty for 2 or 3 years. That building is now occupied by Cody’s Gastro Garage restaurant, which really knows how to target its customers (see the menu in the photo above, also excerpted below).

The Cody’s 10 Minute Tesla Menu reads in part as follows:

1. Falcon Fruit & Yogurt
2. Battery Boost Breakfast Burrito
3. Model 3 Breakfast Sandwich
4. Cyber-Cluck Chicken or Turkey Wrap
5. Model 3 Quarter Pounder
6. ELON-Gated Ham or Turkey Hoagie
7. Powerwall Pork Sandwich

Then there is the GIGAFACTORY GLUTEN FREE MENU, which includes hoagies, wraps, and sandwiches.

These people are obviously very Tesla EV knowledgeable and have a terrific sense of humor. My wife ordered chicken wings and fries from the regular menu, and when it was slow arriving, they threw in free chips and salsa. This is at the same Supercharger where I saw my first non-Tesla EVs charging. See the Model 3 and Y line up at the drive-through chargers in the photo below.

My wife, our small dog and I have commuted back and forth 5 times from Utah to northern Wisconsin over the last five years, so we are most familiar with the Superchargers over that route: what to expect and what not to expect. We usually drive south a little, then west to Minneapolis, then southwest to I-90. We cross South Dakota on I-90, then drop southwest through the Black Hills into Wyoming. We cross the rest of Wyoming on I-80, which takes us southwest again into Utah and Salt Lake City. Fortunately, the Superchargers are never spaced much more than 100 miles apart over this whole convoluted route. This last fall, we dropped all the way south to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit my brothers, then southwest to Cedar Rapids Iowa, then the rest of the way on I-80 through Iowa and Nebraska to join our regular route through Wyoming on I-80. On these routes, we never worry about charging. We just drive our preferred shortest route and there has always been a functioning Supercharger with available stalls at every stop. Below, I will address two subjects: 1) What kind of amenities we find at the Superchargers en route, and 2) How many of the V3 and V4 250 kW “NACS” Superchargers we find en route that can be used by non-Tesla EVs. Question: Can a non-Tesla EV use all the Superchargers on the route? The answer is no!

Northern Wisconsin to Southern Utah: Supercharger and Destination Charger Amenities

We’ve taken the I-90/I-80 hybrid route numerous times, so we are more familiar with the amenities on that route.

Note: The new 250 kW V3 and V4 chargers useable by non-Tesla EVs are in bold. Tesla has installed numerous higher speed V3 and V4 250 kW Superchargers which can be used by other EVs in the last few years. Many of these filled the longer gaps in the network. Others were upgraded for routes with heavy traffic. However, there are long stretches where you only have the old chargers, which can’t be used with non-Tesla vehicles. Bottom line: On the long cross-country routes I’ve traveled. if you aren’t driving a Tesla you can’t count on a Tesla (NACS) Supercharger the same way you can count on a regular Supercharger if driving a Tesla. On these trips there are significant stretches through South Dakota on I-90 and all of Wyoming on I-80, with only the older Superchargers that can’t be used by non-Tesla EVs. This doesn’t mean that non-Tesla EVs can’t travel these routes, but they will have to rely on CCS chargers which generally have fewer stalls per charger and have lower reliability.

Both Routes

• Three Lakes, Wisconsin (our summer home base)
• Wausau, Wisconsin (clean restrooms, Hilton Garden Inn — 400 feet)
• Stevens Point, Wisconsin (out of the way on route to Minneapolis)

I-39/I-94/I-90/I-80 Route (again, stations that can be used by NACS-compatible non-Teslas are in bold)

• Menomonie, Wisconsin (supermarket — 400 feet)
• Oakdale, Minnesota (supermarket — 400 feet)
• Bloomington, Minnesota
• St. Peter, Minnesota (fast food — 1000 feet)
• Worthington, Minnesota (our overnight stop two miles from the Supercharger — fast food 300 feet away)
• Mitchell, South Dakota (Culver’s fast food — 2 miles)
• Chamberlain, South Dakota
• Murdo, South Dakota (the only Supercharger I’ve ever seen with waste baskets and windshield washing gear next to the stalls and a true “western themed” convenience store within 75 feet)
• Wall, South Dakota (Wall Drug Store/restaurant — 300 feet)
• Custer, South Dakota (overnight at Bavarian Hotel with Destination Charger. Supercharger 300 feet from downtown restaurants)
• Lusk, Wyoming (4 slow 120 kW chargers, overnight at Pioneer/Best Western Motel/restaurant across the street from the Supercharger)
• Casper/Evansville, Wyoming (convenience store — 200 feet)

I-39/I-80 Route (detour over Madison, Wisconsin)

• Note: On this route there was always a clean restroom within 100 yards, but I don’t remember specific amenities otherwise
• Madison, Wisconsin East Town Mall (Barnes and Noble, etc.)
• Dubuque, Iowa
• Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• Grinnell, Iowa
• Des Moines, Iowa
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Lincoln, Nebraska
• Grand Island, Nebraska
• Lexington, Nebraska
• Gothenburg, Nebraska
• Kearny, Nebraska
• North Platte, Nebraska
• Ogallala, Nebraska
• Sidney, Nebraska
• Cheyenne, Wyoming (4 old 120 kW chargers, 7 miles off I-80 but near a mall)
• Laramie, Wyoming

Both Routes

• Rawlins, Wyoming (Burger King — 1000 feet)
• Rock Springs, Wyoming (mall with TJ Max — 750 feet; restaurant open after 4 p.m. — 75 feet)
• Evanston, Wyoming (Hampton Inn Hotel with clean restroom — 75 feet)
• Draper, Utah (Arctic Circle fast food within 75 feet)
• Lindon, Utah (our home base)
• Nephi, Utah (Cody’s Gastro Garage — 20 feet)
• Beaver, Utah (Starbucks — 75 feet; Dairy Queen — 400 feet; Mexican restaurant — 1.5 miles)
• Cedar City, Utah
• Saint George, Utah (our southern Utah home base)

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