Magic Dock Road Trip: MA > CT > NYC

[Jonathan S.]

Part 1: Planning & Packing

The Brewster NY Magic Dock was in the original rollout.
But somehow I’d never noticed that it takes me something like only one minute longer than my usual route from Western Mass to NYC.

Like almost all Tesla Superchargers stations, located along an interstate highway, at a junction even.
Without knowing any better, if you looked at a Supercharger map, you’d think that Tesla deliberately choose routes that EV drivers take for road tripping – crazy!

The location is far earlier along my drive than necessary.
But if I top off there on my drive down to NYC, then I can make it to the new Magic Dock in Enfield CT on my drive home.
Two charging stops instead of one, but better to have two reliable Magic Dock stops than one inherently unreliable EA stop.

Plus I was so curious to check out a Magic Dock!
Except then I read the thread here, which on Sunday evening was still potentially implicating the Magic Dock, uh oh...

But I proceeded with my plan anyway, and packed up the CT – with both skis and a road bike in mid October, and NYC metro area destination, you know you’re in for a good time!

(For those of you familiar with alpine racing, just don’t laugh too hard at my ancient SL skis – rest assured that all my skimo and nordic gear is current.)

Rear seat wells filled with tires: Vredestein collapsible spare on left, road bike front tire on right.

Footwear collection: ancient “plug” boots (please, no laughing for anyone of you with alpine racing knowledge, and at least give me some credit for the canted lifters) and old (yet still respectable) road bike shoes (with both types of footwear horribly awkward for walking):

 

[Jonathan S.]

Part 2: Driving & Charging

The adapter deployment is amazingly clever!

I must have been behind in my Social Media Influencer video viewing, since I didn’t realize that a Magic Dock is essentially just an entirely separate CCS1-P<>NACS-R adapter that automatically attaches to the NACS-P cable depending upon the user profile in the Tesla app.
(Which makes the existence of the A2Z aftermarket prototype even less surprising since the Magic Dock adapter is the same thing, just releasable only within the Magic Dock stall, not by the EV driver.)

From when I opened the app to when charging started, still faster than EA with Taycan Plug & Charge.

That is, on my third try.

First try, pulled in and learned just how short that Supercharger cable is!
Makes sense given how the Tesla charger port location is so far back as to be part of the tail light assembly.

Later on, back home, I measured my wife’s i4 port location at ~36” back from the rear bumper.
The Taycan location, although on the correct side of the car, is ~54” back from the front valance.
And although the i4 rear bumper would be fine hanging over the curb, the Taycan front valance, not so fine!

Second try, pulled in closer, but still wasn’t quite there.

A third try would have succeeded, but I instead switched to the eighth stall, which was set up for parallel parking only.
Although since nobody else was there at first (Monday morning, ~10:25), I could have taken up multiple parking spaces.

Eventually a couple other cars arrived.
Still though, only three out of eight spots were occupied.
Then again, had this been an EA station, would have had only four chargers, one of which would have broken, so me plus two other cars would have been a full house!

Had been hoping to hit 150 kW, or at least 149.99999999 but no such luck.
Although still better than any EA sessions my wife and I have experienced.
Unless you count one session that took 26 minutes to initiate, or what the i4 thought was EA but turned out to be a restricted-access ABB R&D facility.

Brewster was recognized by PCM as a charging location, and displayed battery temp reflected that.
Started at 128kW w/ 52% and stayed around then until eventually decreasing (since I was charging to 99%) to typical EA throttled speeds.

Lost several seconds at the end puzzling over whether I should first press the Taycan charger release or the Magic Dock button release, then realizing it probably didn’t matter at all.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Part 3: Skiing and Lego

I didn’t take any pictures this time
But here’s a video edit our daughter made of my footage from last month:




I did take a picture on the drive down there.
Or rather, when I was literally in Park, waiting to get onto the GW Bridge (which then was fast, as was the rest of the drive, whew).

Apres ski was filling up a large cup at the Lego store’s Pick a Brick wall!

A few pics (of both skiing and Lego) are posted from my summer trips there:

https://www.strava.com/activities/9596354950
https://www.strava.com/activities/9876118049

 

[Jonathan S.]

Part 4: Road Bike Riding

Stopped in Greenwich CT to visit a friend and go for an after-work spin.
(Not that I got all that much work done during the day.)

Video footage is pending our daughter’s TikTok, but here are some pics.
(No, we're not brothers, although we’re probably cousins of some sort.)

Wife: “You and your friend look like all those middle-aged guys I see riding their road bikes when I’m out driving!”​

Me: “Would you rather I look like a middle-aged guy who doesn’t do anything like that?”​

​

Link for those into Strava:
https://www.strava.com/activities/10051771983



Best scene that was unfortunately not captured in a picture:
As we were biking back through town to my friend's house, I saw a CT ... in my color (or some other vaguely off-white color) ... and then shortly after that I saw a caravan of two Taycan sedans.
So over the span of a few blocks, that's three more Taycans than I've ever seen anywhere near where I live!

 

[Jonathan S.]

Part 5: Driving & Charging, Return Trip

At the Enfield CT Magic Dock, out of twelve chargers, a Tesla was at one end, with nobody else (Monday night, ~8:55).
So I just parallel parked to take up two spots.

I’m sure that eventually I could have parked head-in and gotten the cable to work, since I was very close on my second try at Brewster.
But the research curiosity wasn’t worth a few extra minutes.

Enfield Tesla Supercharger is not known even by Google, since it opened only at the end of last month.
But with Sport Plus drive mode, battery temp was at 82F, so I didn’t bother trying to trick the PCM with another charging location.

SoC started at something like 9%, and almost immediately reached 132kW.
I was tempted to stay longer to see if the speed might increase.
But I barely needed much to get home, so didn’t bother.

Note that of the amenities in the shopping plaza, the Big Y supermarket closes at 9pm.
The Wallgreens closes at 10pm.
But I choose instead to use the after-hours restroom (at least for guys) located to the left of that one-story building (in the background,on the right), behind some bushes and electrical equipment.

Barrels for trash and recycling.
The two adjacent parking spaces for this charger could in theory be used for CCS1 parallel parking at a charger.
(While being prepared to move immediately if an EV driver needed the van-accessible parking spot.)

 

[MHC]

How do you know which station have a magic dock? Also do you sign up in the Tesla app for plug and charge?

 

[Jonathan S.]

Tesla website and app can filter for Magic Dock.
App is necessary to charge. But using the app takes less time than writing this post.
Total time for charge to initiate is less than EA for Plug and Charge.

 

[Kayone73]

I assume you have the 400V converter installed in your car?

 

[Jonathan S.]

^ confirmed

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