by Vas Mylko, Roman Bilusiak
This post is a continuation of Tesla Road Trips, Part 1. Today we are describing our progress of deeper integration with the mother site tesla.com and the corresponding Tesla-related UX at curiosio.com.
Stations vs. Census Points & Parks
In our database, we have all Tesla Superchargers and Destination Chargers, and compatible fast and slow chargers by ChargePoint. We decided to show charge-safe areas instead of individual charging stations. The motivation is that you shall be focusing on the experience instead of worrying about charger-to-charger hopping.
We clustered all genuine Tesla fast and slow chargers by census points and parks. If there is at least one Supercharger at the point then we show a filled lightning marker on the map. If there are only slow chargers then we show contour lightning marker. The map is not overcrowded with markers, and you are not counting stations. It’s by design. Below is side by side of south Texas for comparison, with Austin on top and Boca Chica at the bottom of the map.
Charging & Perimeter
The question of the day was when to show the census points and parks with chargers? At all zoom levels? Or start showing from a certain more practical zoom level? Below is the map of the United States with all markers. We did not like it because it’s neither practical nor aesthetic.
Hence we decided to start showing the markers of the chargers from a deeper zoom level. When the scale shows 100 km / 50 mi then the chargers are emerging over the map. Below is a screen recording of Perimeter zooming over Texas.
Integration with Tesla.com
What if you want to know one level deeper what kind of Supercharger is out there? E.g. how many stalls? Or how many Superchargers are located at that point? You can click the charger marker and you will be navigated to tesla.com with the genuine raw viz of their chargers in that area. Below is a screen recording with clicks on select lightning markers.
Tesla vs. ChargePoints
We do not show ChargePoint stations on the map. The main reason is UX. How to handle a click on them? What if there is a mix of genuine and alternative stations at the same point? Opening two tabs — one with the Tesla website and one with ChargePoint looked like overengineering. Showing all individual stations wasn’t cool either, though individual clicks would work…
But we do geofencing and guarantee that the area is charge-safe. All routes in the proposed trip plans will be safe. Your Tesla will tell you en route when/where to charge, so you may even charge at some different stations, depending on your driving style, batteries, landscape, temperatures, etc.
[GET TRIP] for My Tesla is not implemented yet
This is a notification that we have only finished the integration of Tesla chargers for the United States, implemented an interactive map with chargers, linked clicks on the charging markers to the mother site Tesla.com. For now, you could play with Perimeter and charging coverage. [GET TRIP] is not operational yet.
The stuff is working in the Lab. We are testing. Expect the fully working My Tesla functionality in the US by the end of June. Stay tuned and follow your curiosity.
