Originally published on CleanTechnica.
As promised, the latest firmware update to Tesla’s operating system (2.52.22) has given drivers the ability to check the status of Supercharger stations within the car’s navigation system. The new feature has been dubbed “Live Status.”
That is to say, drivers can now confirm before heading to a Supercharger station if there are any open stalls for charging — greatly lessening the likelihood of unknowingly heading to a Supercharger station that’s full when you need to charge.
There’s still some possibility of doing so, though. There have been some reports of a bit of lag time between the feature updating — in other words, you could potentially head to a Supercharger station that shows as nearly full but is actually completely full. Though, that seems like an unlikely situation and the software will surely be continuously refined to try to cut down on any such possibilities. Either way, the introduction of the feature is a huge improvement.
The Drive provides more:
“News of this latest feature was posted on Tesla Motors Club forum, and owners quickly confirmed the finding by posting map photos showing Supercharger stations and their availability. A horizontal red status bar is displayed above each station on a map; the more stalls that are in use, the more full the bar appears.
“An owner The Drive contacted about this new feature confirmed the recent addition, and noted stall availability had been accurate when he tested it. The Drive reached out to Tesla to find out if the status uses predictive, historical, or real-time information, but did not hear back by the time of publication.”
Have any of our readers given the new “Live Status” navigation feature a try yet?
We’ll probably know more about the new feature relatively soon, as I’m guessing that CleanTechnica‘s Kyle Field will end up doing an article on his first-hand experiences with it.
Photo by Kyle Field
Reprinted with permission.