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Sometimes You Need To Go To Plan C To Charge

Dave Cundiff

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Plugshare appears to be wrong in the case of Mifflintown, PA. This is the description of that site from https://tesla.com/findus, which clearly states it would work on a Rivian if you had the NACS to CCS Adapter. The same information is shown on supercharge.info as well as the "Charge Your Other EV" section of the Tesla app. I used the Report button on this Tesla site on PlugShare to hopefully correct that inaccuracy, but that will take a few days. For whatever reason, Plugshare doesn't let the user-community crowdsource the data on Tesla Supercharger sites.

In fact, there's a check-in from a Mach-E on Sep 28 at this site on Plugshare:
I've also used the "Report" button just now, @DeafPug. PlugShare's Data Integrity staff (Cesar and Cherish) are superb. I wouldn't be surprised if they got to it today.

This is Dave talking, NOT PlugShare, but my observations suggest that most of the large networks want to do their own updates, especially to PlugShare's Description field. At this time, crowdsourced data on PlugShare are generally more robust and more reliable than company-supplied data, but I believe PlugShare needs a good relationship with the big networks.

Nothing is perfect. Thanks for reporting discrepancies!
 

johnmcgrann

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Seriously! I need my R2 to have a range of at least 350, but 400 would be (as one of my kids used to say) "more better." We're heading up again the first weekend in December and will stop at the Tesla chargers in Mifflintown to try them for 10 minutes. We'll be parking for the day in a campus garage with L2 chargers so we'll be fine, but I need to know if Mifflintown will work for us.
Yep, I made this same trip from Lancaster to State College in March 2023 to see Bruce Springsteen at Bryce Jordan. I was a novice EV/R1 driver at this time, assumed 250 miles round trip would be a breeze fully charged. Left home at 100%, but between climbing the mountains, 4 ppl in the truck, some :rolleyes: beer in the spare wheel well, and unseasonably cold temps, by the time we got close to State College I knew I wouldn't make it home so we diverted to that Sheetz. It was crazy watching my range drop on some of those hills!

Glad you found a solution.
 

Mooeymoose

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We went to the Purdue game this past weekend and need to charge near campus. I am dumfounded that a top engineering college campus does not have a fast charging on campus. The only chargers are 15 min in out of the way.
Universities, I would think could install fast chargers As part of senior project where the profit can be used for some pet projects. There are a lot of lessons in installing, maintenance, management that makes sense for universities to get behind
 
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KBabione

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I am dumfounded that a top engineering college campus does not have a fast charging on campus.
Amen! Most of the time we go to Penn State we're up there when there's not a football game and one of their parking garages has 4 L2 chargers that work well for us. A couple of hours on a L2 is enough to get us home without another stop. We did the same thing at a University of Maryland football game - parking in one of their garages with L2 chargers (which were happily free) and just left it plugged in for the whole game, again giving us enough juice to get home without charging again.

I'm guessing the reason we don't see public L3 chargers on campus is because of the cost of installing them and the lengthy time to get the investment back. It's really only visitors to campus who need fast charging. If you're going to be there all day then relatively inexpensive L2 charging is plenty.
 

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DeafPug

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I am dumfounded that a top engineering college campus does not have a fast charging on campus.
Several years ago, I contacted the small college I attended to offer a donation of some EV charging hardware along with a matching donation from my employer. A coworker’s wife worked there and it was just outside of the EV roundtrip range of their Volt. Talked to one of the folks in the facilities department for a little to teach them about EV charging. It didn’t go anywhere initially, but three years later, they contacted me and asked if the offer still stood. We met and talked about options for where to install the hardware. Shortly after that, another alum asked about donating solar and the two projects were combined. This solar power EV charging system is now used on a daily basis by students and faculty and some of the general public.

Be the change that you want. The Tesla Wall Connector is only $420 each. With an explicit offer of a hardware donation (letting the college cover the install) may be all that is needed to spur action.

Jumping right to DCFC hardware is potentially problematic, particularly with commercial electric rates including demand charges that can be prohibitively expensive for lightly used sites.
 

zefram47

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Plan A was to drive 45 miles to the Tesla chargers at the Sheetz in Mifflintown and charge what I needed there to do the 80 miles home. No matter what my wife did, she couldn't get the chargers there to come up as available to Rivians. Finally she got the dreaded "Tesla Only" notification so we knew it wasn't an option. The Rivian kept wanting to route us to a L2 charger where we'd only need to charge for 90 minutes...Not desirable. We did stop at the Sheetz anyway for a bio break and all of the chargers were full with Teslas and a Cybertruck was waiting - legitimately Tesla only. I was pretty sure I had seen that these chargers were open to folks with adapters...Perhaps I missed something.
The single best way to know what Tesla chargers are available to NACS/Magic Dock users is Tesla's own map. Using the filters for Open To NACS and Open To Other EVs shows the SC at Mifflintown to have 8 units available for NACS (adapter) vehicles.

https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bo...094&zoom=11&filters=party,nacs&location=26708
 

DarthBrader

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OP, how did you determine that the Mifflintown charger was Tesla only? Just based on Plugshare? Today, I see it is listed as open to other EVs on both the Tesla and Rivian apps.

What I'm wondering is if Tesla dynamically restricts them based on demand--like when they're full because of an event. I've never heard of that happening, but it would make sense if Tesla wants to do that.

Hopefully we get some more options in the charging deserts of central PA. Seems like there are projects in the works (slowly)--hopefully not too little too late.
 
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KBabione

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OP, how did you determine that the Mifflintown charger was Tesla only? Just based on Plugshare? Today, I see it is listed as open to other EVs on both the Tesla and Rivian apps.

What I'm wondering is if Tesla dynamically restricts them based on demand--like when they're full because of an event. I've never heard of that happening, but it would make sense if Tesla wants to do that.

Hopefully we get some more options in the charging deserts of central PA. Seems like there are projects in the works (slowly)--hopefully not too little too late.
It actually started when my wife was looking for the Mifflintown charger on the Tesla app and couldn't find it. I was driving so I couldn't check it and I'm smart enough not to suggest that it might have been a user error. I just looked at the Tesla app myself and you just needed to scroll a bit to see it and it clearly tells you it's open if you have an adapter. I was 99% sure that I had checked that Mifflintown was open to non-Teslas but couldn't argue with her. With that said, it was completely full when we arrived there to use the bathroom with a Cybertruck waiting to charge, so it could have been a long time before two stations next to each other (or the station on the far right) opened up. I sincerely hope Tesla isn't dynamically making stations available to others based on usage - doing so would make trip planning impossible!

It all worked out in the end and I've had many more responses from helpful people than I expected with this post. Hopefully the idea of having multiple plans, just in case, will help someone else out on a future trip.
 

UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan

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I was pretty sure I had seen that these chargers were open to folks with adapters...Perhaps I missed something.
Sorry to say, largely user error and you missed a lot. Tesla did not open the entire network to non-Teslas. That topics been covered across multiple threads. And if you didn't filter out that network in your Rivian's nav (or your Rivian Mobile app), it would have routed you to one that is open to Rivians if one was available en route. And if other networks (EA, EVgo, Chargepoint, etc.) were also included in your search filters on both platforms, it would have navigated you to them.
 

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zgStevieD

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"I sincerely hope Tesla isn't dynamically making stations available to others based on usage - doing so would make trip planning impossible!"

From what I've read... they do!
 

DarthBrader

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It actually started when my wife was looking for the Mifflintown charger on the Tesla app and couldn't find it. I was driving so I couldn't check it and I'm smart enough not to suggest that it might have been a user error. I just looked at the Tesla app myself and you just needed to scroll a bit to see it and it clearly tells you it's open if you have an adapter. I was 99% sure that I had checked that Mifflintown was open to non-Teslas but couldn't argue with her. With that said, it was completely full when we arrived there to use the bathroom with a Cybertruck waiting to charge, so it could have been a long time before two stations next to each other (or the station on the far right) opened up. I sincerely hope Tesla isn't dynamically making stations available to others based on usage - doing so would make trip planning impossible!

It all worked out in the end and I've had many more responses from helpful people than I expected with this post. Hopefully the idea of having multiple plans, just in case, will help someone else out on a future trip.
Thank you for the diplomatic clarification! And I definitely agree that waiting at a mobbed Tesla station would be way way down on the list—like plan F.
 

HighVoltOverland

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For trips like this, I like creating an out-and-back trip plan in the vehicle to give it a chance to monitor energy levels along the way and plan for available chargers. The plan would be slightly off from reality with your tailgating consuming 5% of the battery at your mid-point destination, but it would be adjusted as needed.

Add your destination, select the up arrow to show the destination and add a stop at the end of the plan back to your current location (Home). Use the gear symbol to make sure the routing options are correct for charging networks and if you have one of the NACS adapters on hand. These are the route settings I use on my trip planner because I have a NACS to CCS adapter.

1730689108407-2b.jpg


On the Map screen, if you select the Hide menu at the top and then select Incompatible, the map will hide these incompatible Tesla-only stations in the future to avoid confusion.

Having said that, Plugshare appears to be wrong in the case of Mifflintown, PA. This is the description of that site from https://tesla.com/findus, which clearly states it would work on a Rivian if you had the NACS to CCS Adapter. The same information is shown on supercharge.info as well as the "Charge Your Other EV" section of the Tesla app. I used the Report button on this Tesla site on PlugShare to hopefully correct that inaccuracy, but that will take a few days. For whatever reason, Plugshare doesn't let the user-community crowdsource the data on Tesla Supercharger sites.

1730688187890-gb.jpg


In fact, there's a check-in from a Mach-E on Sep 28 at this site on Plugshare:
1730688397825-ss.png


Other than the mislabeling on PlugShare as Mifflintown being Tesla-only, I'm not sure why you weren't able to see it. I did just check on the main map on my Rivian, and it showed this Tesla Supercharger on the map and had it listed as Adapter-Required, which looks correct.

I suspect it would have worked if you had a NACS to CCS adapter and did try to plug-in. When you run into those full sites, it can be a little problematic to find two stalls that are next to each other to charge a Rivian. I used the Overland Park, KS Tesla site on Thursday. It's a 12 stall site and when I pulled up, there were 3 stalls available, but none of them were adjacent to each other, so I wouldn't have been able to plug-in. I waited for a few minutes and a vehicle left, but it was again in the middle of a block of cars, so it didn't help me. After a few more minutes, a second vehicle left, adjacent to one of the 4 gaps in the line of charging stations, so I was able to park in one and use the cable from the adjacent stall to start charging. 20 minutes later when my charging session was done, there was only me and one other vehicle left at the site, so it was a transient burst of traffic.
Is there any chance this location has multiple lines of Tesla chargers that were installed at different times (and are different generations?)
Recently on my trip to pick up my GFC I stopped in Nephi, UT and was puzzled for a few moments as the diner had a line of 8 Gen 2 chargers on the North side of the building, and 8 gen 3 chargers on the south side, much less visible from the road.
 

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Is there any chance this location has multiple lines of Tesla chargers that were installed at different times (and are different generations?)
Recently on my trip to pick up my GFC I stopped in Nephi, UT and was puzzled for a few moments as the diner had a line of 8 Gen 2 chargers on the North side of the building, and 8 gen 3 chargers on the south side, much less visible from the road.
I zoomed in on the map on the supercharge.info web site and this didn’t list two sites at Mifflintown. The site in Nephi is the one I mentioned earlier in this thread that is technically two independent sites on opposite sides of a building. Construction was first seen in Mifflintown on Feb 14 2024 and the site went live on July 12.

The confusion on Non-Tesla charging at this specific site was from bad data recorded in PlugShare. Corrections have been requested already, but that hasn’t been processed by the people in charge at PlugShare, so it is still marked as Tesla-only, but apparently only on PlugShare.
 

TTedP

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The single best way to know what Tesla chargers are available to NACS/Magic Dock users is Tesla's own map. Using the filters for Open To NACS and Open To Other EVs shows the SC at Mifflintown to have 8 units available for NACS (adapter) vehicles.

https://www.tesla.com/findus?v=2&bounds=40.83218027469517,-76.88947909003906,40.33259910575571,-77.84940950996094&zoom=11&filters=party,nacs&location=26708
same. I always check the Tesla app if a SC is part of my plan.

I've also found plug and charge via Rivian dash sometimes doesn't work but when initiated through the Tesla app, it's good every time.
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