Tesla Removes Signs/Bollards from Magic Dock Supercharger Site

[Mach-Lee]

Tesla has now removed the sign bollards from their Brewster, NY Supercharger site, making it easier for non-Teslas to pull forward so the cable reaches. This appears to have occurred only a day or two after Marques Brownlee (who has a huge following) made a video of Tom Moloughney struggling to charge his F150 Lighting because the cable didn't reach. Tom had to pull up all the way basically touching the bollard before the cable could reach the charge port. Apparently a certain someone saw the video, tweeted, and the bollards were magically removed a day or two later. I have to say I'm impressed with the speed of the response, I'm not used to that from large companies...

It's a good change, removing the signs will make it much easier to pull forward over the curb so the cable will reach our charge ports.

Before:

After:

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[dbsb3233]

They did that at some of the others too, seemingly at the same time they put in the MDs.

 

[bshaw]

This is a great sign and I interpret this as a good faith effort by Tesla to make their stations actually viable for other vehicles. Taking the wrong spot still seems to be a problem, but non-Teslas could use those adjacent spots no problem while an MME is charging.

I do remember the EA station that got wrecked by a car running into it... removing bollards unfortunately increases that likelihood.

 

[Logal727]

I’m pretty disappointed they haven’t rolled out more Magicdocks yet after they were taking action on this so quickly.

 

[dbsb3233]

Yep. Been almost 3 months now since the first one went in, then 12 in 2 weeks.

I suppose they're gathering data for the trial period now, but disappointing nonetheless. And zero word on when they'll resume.

 

[Logal727]

Yep. Been almost 3 months now since the first one went in, then 12 in 2 weeks.

I suppose they're gathering data for the trial period now, but disappointing nonetheless. And zero word on when they'll resume.

Thankfully seems like the other networks around here have taken it seriously, seeing less problems on PlugShare

 

[RickMachE]

Keep in mind that rolling these out requires they meet the requirements to get the federal funds. They'd likely want to roll out all physical requirements to a site at once, vs. say adding magic dock and removing a bollard, then having to come back because the site requires X, Y, or Z.

 

[JRSNoVa]

This is a great sign and I interpret this as a good faith effort by Tesla to make their stations actually viable for other vehicles.

I take it as a sign that Musk lives his life on social media and manages his companies in reaction to postings from people with lots of followers.

 

[dbsb3233]

Keep in mind that rolling these out requires they meet the requirements to get the federal funds. They'd likely want to roll out all physical requirements to a site at once, vs. say adding magic dock and removing a bollard, then having to come back because the site requires X, Y, or Z.

I'm still not sure if that's really what they're aiming for. We assumed so at first, but there were a few clues along the way that they may just do their own thing and not be constrained chasing the subsidies. It's possible they're just looking to pull in some extra revenue at low-usage SCs (where they won't create a bottleneck for Tesla drivers).

In fact from the very start they only announced 10-20% of SCs planned for MDs. Could have been the plan all along. And the hell with credit card readers and screens and all that.

 

[RickMachE]

I'm still not sure if that's really what they're aiming for. We assumed so at first, but there were a few clues along the way that they may just do their own thing and not be constrained chasing the subsidies. It's possible they're just looking to pull in some extra revenue at low-usage SCs (where they won't create a bottleneck for Tesla drivers).

In fact from the very start they only announced 10-20% of SCs planned for MDs. Could have been the plan all along. And the hell with credit card readers and screens and all that.

They have committed to the government 3,500 fast chargers by end of 2024. That was a deal, one would assume it included financial incentives.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

They have committed to the government 3,500 fast chargers by end of 2024. That was a deal, one would assume it included financial incentives.

Of course they also said they'd have FSD in 2016... ?

 

[mburtsvt]

I’m more convinced it’s three fold.

1) To get government funding for adding charger availability for more vehicles to use.
2) To stop the hemorrhaging of cash from supercharger cost, (I got to believe they add about $1-2K to every car sold just to support the charger system).
3) To eventually spin off the supercharger network to avoid anti-competitive legislation into it’s own company, (think Starlink).

 

[Glen Boise]

Keep in mind that rolling these out requires they meet the requirements to get the federal funds. They'd likely want to roll out all physical requirements to a site at once, vs. say adding magic dock and removing a bollard, then having to come back because the site requires X, Y, or Z.

We need to remember that there is more to getting Federal funding, besides having a J1772/CCS plug. The law requires the DCFC site be located within 1 mile of an interstate interchange that is listed on the State NEVI Plan as a planned location for a station. (States can get variances from the FHWA for some requirements.) Can anyone tell us that the Super Charger sites, with Magic Dock, comply with those requirements?
This is not to say, Tesla would not try making deals with some states to get Federal funding for future conversions for otherwise compliant Super Charger sites and for new compliant sites. Funding conversions would be a new wrinkle in the BEV infrastructure improvement efforts. They would be cheaper and quicker than building new. They would be popular with more conservative states with low BEV adoption rates.
On the other hand, these Magic Dock conversions are probably more about getting more use out of the expensive equipment. After all, are not BEV's something like 12% of all the cars on the road in the USA today. That means that there is a lot of expensive charging equipment that is under utilized today around the nation. (I agree with the comment that Tesla is waiting to see how things are working out and getting the "bugs" out before going for further conversions. We see this with the bollard removals.)

 

[SWO]

They have committed to the government 3,500 fast chargers by end of 2024. That was a deal, one would assume it included financial incentives.

Based on past experience, how much is a Tesla commitment worth?

Have they actually committed to anything? I did a search and found the White House "fact sheet" , but the only thing in writing I've seen from Tesla is an ambiguous tweet:



And a comment that the White House "plan" (not Tesla's commitment) is "aggressive"

Tesla told the DOT that the plan was "aggressive" and "could lead to a shortfall in the number of compliant charging stations available given the pace and scale of deployment,"

 

[SWO]

I’m more convinced it’s three fold.

1) To get government funding for adding charger availability for more vehicles to use.
2) To stop the hemorrhaging of cash from supercharger cost, (I got to believe they add about $1-2K to every car sold just to support the charger system).
3) To eventually spin off the supercharger network to avoid anti-competitive legislation into it’s own company, (think Starlink).

I agree with all that, but I also think Tesla sees that CCS is going to eventually be the standard and the magic dock prepares for an eventuality where they are building Teslas with CCS plugs while also supporting legacy vehicles.

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