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2013 P85+: Supercharge rates throttled by Tesla

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Hey folks,

I took delivery of a 2013 Model S P85+ through the Tesla CPO program about 2 years ago and recently noticed a dramatic slowdown in supercharge rates. I used to supercharge at 90kW+, and now only charge between 40kW-55kW under ideal conditions. My supercharge speeds have dropped by about 50% since I took delivery of the car.

I escalated with Tesla service. Tesla confirmed that my charge rate had been software limited through an update and canceled my service appointment:

>Recently, our product engineers have updated the charge profile in your vehicle's battery management system. This adjustment/reduction to peak charging power does add additional charge time, but is designed to protect batteries that have higher amounts of supercharging events to improve battery longevity. [...] Tesla offers no guarantee or warranty on supercharging speeds. Even though the vehicle you bought was certified, it was pre-owned, therefore, some wear and tear should have been expected.

The charge rate reduction is being attributed to "higher amounts of supercharging events", but that took place before I owned the car and Tesla did not disclose the condition of the battery at the time I took delivery. It now takes about an hour to get enough charge to continue my long-distance trips. My vehicle is still under warranty, but Tesla doesn't believe this is a warranty issue.

Anyone have thoughts or suggestions? I'm feeling pretty bad about this one - I was a big advocate for the Tesla used market since my CPO experience had otherwise been great.
 
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Reactions: Chaserr
I have the same problem with my 2015. It has less than 30K miles. Also have a service appt scheduled.

Max I can pull is ~59kW. Unacceptable.
By contrast, and not to brag or flaunt it, my 2015 S70 (that's pre-facelift) with less than 30k miles was pulling 116kW last weekend at the start of the SC session with a linear taper after. Oh, my firmware version is 2018.14.2. I dread being forced to update, and yes, I am well aware of the hoopla around updating.
 
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I'm not sure what's going on with our 2013 S85 with 77K miles on it. About 10% of our miles are done through Supercharging, but ever since software update 2019.16.X, I haven't seen SuC rates above 50kW at >120kW charging stations (only tried it twice since the update). I've had much better luck with at the 72kW "Urban" charging stations where I'm able to get the full 72kW rate; however, the speed tapers significantly sooner and overall charging to 80% SOC seems to take an extra 8 minutes.

My issue is that Tesla does not communicate very well and we're all left to guess what is going on and why. One of my update notes indicated faster charging speeds, pre-heating the battery, and faster overall charging durations...but I have yet to experience any of those things. Quite the contrary, I've experienced slower speeds and thus longer charging durations. Again, I'm not sure why. It could be any combination of the following:

1) Software update has slowed SuC speeds
2) Hardware at the charging station was deffective (several stalls were broken when I went)
3) Something's funny with car's hardware

I'll never know for certain, but I'll keep trying. As for road-tripping with the 85, I think it might just sit in the garage and it's time to go back to the TDI especially on peak holiday weekends when SuC networks are impacted.

My hope is that this ding in SuC speeds is just temporary and a future update will improve the experience.
 
It appears that as the early batteries age, their ability to charge at high power decreases. Unfortunate, but as they stated, there is no warranty for Supercharge rates.

Doesn’t that somewhat defeat their claim of it being a road trip-worthy vehicle on the Super Charger Network?

No way I would take my car on a cross country trip now. Going to NYC from Boston takes 7+ hours with charging. It’s unreal.
 
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Reactions: Eclectic
Doesn’t that somewhat defeat their claim of it being a road trip-worthy vehicle on the Super Charger Network?

No way I would take my car on a cross country trip now. Going to NYC from Boston takes 7+ hours with charging. It’s unreal.
It certainly would make long road trips painful having to spend twice as long at Superchargers. It's hard to tell, based on this forum, how many people are being throttled. Tesla is horrible at communications.
 
One of my update notes indicated faster charging speeds, pre-heating the battery, and faster overall charging durations...but I have yet to experience any of those things.
As I wrote a while back, "I would assume that the only improvement would be from battery preconditioning, and everything else would be the same. "Up to 25%" includes "1%", so set expectations accordingly."
 
I have a 2013 P85+ as well and I haven't seen any difference in supercharging rates. Although I did get a message once that said something to the tune of "we've reduced charging to 80% due to high volume at this charging station." I just bumped it back up to 90% and all was right in the universe.
 
Doesn’t that somewhat defeat their claim of it being a road trip-worthy vehicle on the Super Charger Network?

Yes, it does. They are capping the battery capacity and reducing the supercharging speed on the older cars.

According to Tesla, they are doing this to "protect and prolong" the life of your battery. Translation: Keep the batteries operational (if that's the right word) within the warranty period at the expense of packs' capacity and charging rate. Good for Tesla (in a way, since they do not have to replace your battery), bad for us.
 
Yes, it does. They are capping the battery capacity and reducing the supercharging speed on the older cars.

According to Tesla, they are doing this to "protect and prolong" the life of your battery. Translation: Keep the batteries operational (if that's the right word) within the warranty period at the expense of packs' capacity and charging rate. Good for Tesla (in a way, since they do not have to replace your battery), bad for us.

I bought this car to travel and regularly use the supercharger network. If this is truly the case, and they don’t make it right, I am really going to throw a *sugar* fit.