Supercharger Reservation System

Description

Create a reservation system that holds a station for use within a short window, with a buffer if you are just a short distance away (but outside the reservation window) and approaching the supercharger. It could be automated if the driver is using the Tesla navigation system for a road trip, and provide a notification/warning if the stations might be fully occupied.

Competitive/Pricing/Notes

Add red, yellow, and green lights to each charging station. Red means in use, reserved for use within the short window, or out of service. The car that reserves the station would be notified which station to use and would be the only car that would know that it can plug into a red-lighted station (since others would think the red light means it is not working). Maybe Tesla can restrict a station so that only the reservation holder can receive a charge? Blinking red means a car will be fully charged (and presumably the station will be available) within x minutes or less.

Yellow indicates that the station is receiving reduced power because another car has priority charging in the paired station. Green means the unit is not reserved and does not have a car plugged into a paired station, or that the car plugged into the paired station is drawing low power because it is approaching full charge.

A system with some of these features would make supercharger selection more friendly and intuitive and might be designed to accommodate (compensate!) Tesla owners in some favored fashion if the system is opened to non-Teslas later this year.

Moderator: One issue is blocked stalls.  It’s possible your “reserved” stall is iced or otherwise blocked, even though the Supercharger is operational.  Still, a reservation system can make sense in some situations.

Rather than requiring all 25,000 stalls to be replaced or reworked for lights, it would be cheaper and easier to provide an indicator in-car.  It would direct you to a specific stall and show the status of all the stalls.

Status

Unknown.