If you own a vehicle from carmaker Tesla, you will be pleased to learn that locating an empty Supercharger station is about to get simpler.
Tesla has activated a much-awaited feature that will enable users to check the occupancy of the Supercharger stall in real time. The in-car Supercharger stall status will be live and let vehicle owners see how many stalls are available or occupied at a particular station.
The in-car Supercharger station status accessibility notification was made possible by Tesla, although it had already displayed data on some of its popular charging stall locations live on the dashboard for Supercharger.
The Update
The news of the update from Tesla comes from some vehicle owners who took to Twitter to share the update.
@elonmusk @ElonMuskNewsOrg brilliant update to Tesla Sat Nav charger info. #topteam #tesla #supercharger #dundee #Acleanfuture pic.twitter.com/yDDb3uV52P
— John van Dieken (@doubledutch13) Feb. 8, 2017
The feature was initially introduced to Model X and Model S via the version 8.0 software update in mid-January. However, other Tesla car owners revealed they spotted red indicators, as well as a footnote informing them of the Supercharger activity as a specific location. Thanks to the update, owners will be able to deploy the navigation screen of their vehicle to check the availability of empty Supercharge stations.
This change may be a minor one but will be welcomed by Tesla car owners as it will decrease the annoyance, which comes with having to visit a charging stall only to discover it is full. Now courtesy of the update from Tesla, car owners will be able to espy the Supercharger status on the map app, which is located on the center screen in the Model X and Model S.
In April 2016, Tesla's CEO Elon Musk confirmed that such a feature would be made available soon. However, it seems that the real time update for Supercharger stations was not on the company's priority list, but better late than never!
The Benefits Of The Feature
Drivers will be able to zoom out from the map and can check the charging stall occupancy in a particular region, which will negate the waste of precious time when they are selecting a specific route during a long journey. Thanks to alerts on the occupancy of a charging stall, Model X and Model S owners will not have to wait for a charging station to become available. They can simply navigate to the app, check the desired Supercharger station's availability and head there accordingly.
However, some owners who used the feature complained that there were inaccuracies on the map as it reflected incorrect free stations.
@FredericLambert Doesn't work very well. I'm currently sitting charging at one, nobody here besides me, shows 5 out of 8 free. pic.twitter.com/vRW4sfaIN3 — Frizull (@frizull) Feb. 8, 2017
This issue is believed to be due to latency, which results in a delay of two minutes.
