Daily nightmare descends on Tesla charging lot in San Francisco

Minutes after last call on Lombard Street, when dozens of people descend from the stage at Silver Cloud — and the mechanical bull at Westwood — the party picks up at another unexpected place nearby: the new Tesla Supercharger lot. 

A line of red taillights cues up haphazardly on Moulton Street, a narrow alley leading into the 16-charger lot. Bass reverberates though the apartments surrounding the space. Upstairs, residents stare at ceilings, waiting for the 20-minute charges to finish. By design, electric cars are quiet — but this lot is not. What was built as a climate-friendly solution has become a nightly nuisance for a residential pocket in Cow Hollow.

Located at 1965 Lombard St. near Webster Street, the charging stations were formerly part of a straightforward parking lot for the adjoining Hotel Del Sol. The lot had a few slots for gig cars, but it was never a nightlife destination — disturbances were rare and sporadic, according to Laurel Calsoni, who lives in a nearby building. For the better part of 2025, the site was fenced off and built out. By early 2026, the 16-stall Tesla Supercharger station was operating 24/7, unmanned.

“Peaceful enjoyment of my apartment has been nonexistent,” Calsoni said during a phone call with SFGATE.

Charging chaos

San Francisco has two other 24-hour Tesla Supercharger stations, both of which are located in commercial areas: One is in the Target parking lot at Geary Boulevard and Masonic Avenue, while the other is in the Safeway parking lot in the Potrero Center at 16th and Bryant streets. By contrast, the newest Lombard charging lot is the only one situated among apartment buildings. Blocks from the Highway 101 on-ramp to the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s an alluring location for both gig drivers and other charge-starved drivers going between counties. Beyond convenience, the 24-hour feature also offers lower nighttime charging rates.

For neighbors like Calsoni, the lot has been life-consuming. Weekends — Friday through Sunday from midnight to 5 a.m. — are the worst times, when thundering music blasts while the Teslas charge up. “It’s the bass,” Calsoni said.

Videos shared with SFGATE confirm the commotion.

Calsoni and her neighbors have tried to address the problem in many ways. She filed a formal complaint with the city’s planning department on Feb. 2 and reached out to Patrick McCormick, the captain of the San Francisco Police Department’s Northern Station, for assistance. She’s also gone outside repeatedly to ask drivers to lower their music and has been met with hostility. “Tesla owners are arrogant as hell,” she said. “... They think they are at their ‘Own Private Idaho’ out there.”

Other neighbors on Moulton Street, including Ray Whelan, have organized and sent a letter to District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill’s office. In it, they’ve detailed the daily congestion nightmare, including cars entering from both sides of the lot, competition for spaces and frequent honking at all hours of the night. A Jan. 14 comment on plugshare.com, a website for finding electronic vehicle chargers, backs these accounts. 

“Gets extremely crowded at night when the cost is lower,” it reads. “The entrances are poorly designed and there's cars coming from multiple directions, leading to a lot of confusion about who's next. Witnessed lots of arguing and line cutting while I was here.” 

During a phone call with SFGATE, Whelan, who has lived on Moulton Street for five years, said he’s all for activating spaces and doesn’t want the lot shut down. One of his suggestions for traffic control is enforcing a one-way traffic flow with entry only from Lombard Street and exit only onto Moulton Street. Since the lot opened, the line of Teslas waiting to enter the lot from Moulton has blocked residents from entering or exiting their garage for over 10 minutes.

Power issues and pushback

There are other issues tied to the lot. Residents have experienced two PG&E shutoffs since it opened, with another one scheduled this Thursday from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. for trench work associated with the chargers. According to Whelan, there have been no offers of bill credit from the company as compensation for the inconvenience. In an email sent to SFGATE on Wednesday, PG&E confirmed the two planned outages at the building, but added that credits are not offered for planned outages. “Bill credits are typically provided for unusually long outages, usually due to storms,” wrote PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian.

While neighbors are in touch with Sherrill’s office, no specific interventions have been announced yet. A building manager has put up signs asking drivers to keep the noise down, and the chargers continue running 24 hours a day.

“I’ve heard and appreciate the concerns raised by residents along Moulton Street,” Sherrill wrote in a statement to SFGATE. “While conversations are ongoing and it’s too early to speak to specific interventions, my team is working closely with the property owner, the Planning Department, and SFMTA to identify solutions that address increased traffic on Moulton Street and evening noise, while allowing the electric vehicle charging station to continue serving the community.”

SFGATE reached out to Tesla and the planning department for comment but did not hear back before the time of publication.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:40 p.m., Feb. 18, to correct the number of outages at the lot.

This article has been updated.