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2019 Supercharging Speed Update Nerfed Overall Charge Times

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SSonnentag

埃隆•馬斯克
Apr 11, 2017
1,969
2,685
Arizona
I’ve been keeping track of my supercharging speeds off and on, and I’ve come up with the following graph. You can clearly see how the recent updates have increased the peak charge rate, but it drops off much sooner and causes an overall increase in charge times. A charge from 20% to 90% now takes about 10 minutes longer than the original charging curve.

Can anyone else confirm what I’m seeing?

E32595DA-9AF0-4CEC-A630-E80B9679CFD8.jpeg
 
Yes, I can confirm that.
The same update that enabled the higher peak charge rate also causes much earlier taper.
For me in Europe it's even worse: we got just the earlier taper without the increase in peak rate.
See Latest Sc Results for a graph of some of my charging sessions before and after the update.
 
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My 2014' P85+ is a CPO and i usually charge at home. However, since these latest 2019.xx.xx updates have been rolling out - the times that i do SC is roughly 1 to 2x a month where i used to get a sustained 90 to 100+ from 15% is now 90kw and drops very fast. I rarely stay above 100 more than a few minutes with even little to no battery left to start with. My car is in the SC right now getting a few things fixed i also informed them of this.
 
2015 85D here - with the latest update (2019.20.4.2) I’ve seen a max charge rate of 124 kW, up from a max previously of 118kW. However...the earlier taper you described is kicking in for me as well. Above 20% SOC, I’m seeing about 10 - 15kW less power than previously. This seems to be across temperatures- consistent rates from 70F to 110F. If typical superchargers are spaced about 120 miles apart, using 130 to 140 mi of rated range, that means I’m typically charging to 70% SOC, where I’m now pulling roughly 40kW instead of about 55kW previously, which means those last few miles are going in about 25% slower. Overall I’m (wildly) guessing that typical supercharging is about 10-15% slower.
 
I noticed this too, but air temperature may also be playing a role.

On my s100D, I can charge at 120kw and it remains above 100kw until 60%. After the update, I can charge at 140kw for 10 min but then it tapers hard, around 70kw at 60%.

Now it was the difference between March and June, so it is a lot warmer outside now. Perhaps the weather is causing the battery to taper early due to heat? Or perhaps the 10min spent at 140kw heated up the battery to cause early taper.

Will need a lot more controlled testing to find out.
 
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Now it was the difference between March and June, so it is a lot warmer outside now. Perhaps the weather is causing the battery to taper early due to heat? Or perhaps the 10min spent at 140kw heated up the battery to cause early taper.
The early taper definitely isn't caused by the increased peak rate at low SoC: Europe did not get that increase in peak rate, yet we still see the early taper.
Also, I'm quite sure it's not the higher temperatures, both from comparing with last years summer charging sessions and from charges early in the morning at 16°C (70 F).
Temperature and other factors seem to play a role in the new charging strategy, I'm seeing more variability now - but the basic fact is that taper starts earlier than before.
 
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This seems to correlate with the changes made in mid-May as a result of the battery fires, "to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity." It's also resulted in a number of us losing the top ~12% or so of our battery's capacity (gradually soft-capped from 4.2 V down to ~4.07 V over the span of about a month). There's a monster thread about that going on over here, but I did post this update into it with a specific eye toward supercharging:

I had a chance to test out a non-urban supercharger (Sunday) – first time since the Gimpening:
  • Starting at a well-primed 30% charge (driven roughly 25 miles with the nav set to the supercharger, ambient temperature in the low-to-mid 70s°F), power delivery ramped up normally to ~86-87 kW (peak with this battery pack is 90 kW), held for a few seconds, then rapidly declined into the mid-to-upper 70s — settling to 72 kW around 32%, sloping off fairly normally from there.
  • At 70% charge, power delivery was ~56 kW; at 80% ~48 kW, and at 90% ~25 kW — dropping off rather precipitously from there. (EDIT: Keep in mind, these percentages represent roughly 12% less charge than they did a couple months ago, so higher charge rates at these reported "percentages" are not entirely unexpected.)
  • At 100% charge, rated range was displayed at 221 miles with ~66.8 kWh stored in the battery (right in line with previous estimations, easily 30 miles and ~9 kWh less than I was seeing two months prior), while power delivery trickled in at 2 kW.
  • Power delivery continued between 1-2 kW until the charger finally cut itself off with 226 miles rated (256 ideal) and ~68 kWh stored; interestingly, because I had already programed my next destination, the energy gauge's trip estimation displayed this extra range with 100% easily for the first couple miles… I wish I'd taken a picture, because after canceling and reprograming the route, it recalculated with the "new" 100%.
  • Even though available regen was displayed down to ~20 kW, I had zero regen available for the first ~1%; by 98% the hash marks had disappeared, but I continued to see reduced regen all the way down to 93% at least… not as bad as when the update was first loaded (before I'd lost the majority of capacity the update would eventually take — I wasn't getting regen back until the low-to-mid-80%s, whereas prior to the update it was ~95%), but still not exactly ideal.
  • After driving 23.4 miles to the next destination — dropping 13%, consuming 8.6 kWh and averaging 367 Wh/mi, rated range was displayed at 195 miles, and again 100% charge calculated out to ~66.75 kWh (± .25 kWh). :cool:
So it would seem that supercharging has been hobbled somewhat on the low-end (I wish I'd started at a lower SOC), but holds up in the mid-to-upper range — until reaching ~90%, at which point it's close to parity — maybe slower at it reaches 100%. I was hoping that extra juice it managed to squeeze in would redefine the capacity of the battery back upwards; alas… Tesla giveth, and Tesla taketh away.
 
Hi all, 2015 P85D here with 30,000 miles. I’ve been reading through the two gigantic battery threads (battery limit and supercharge limit) but they don’t reflect what I’m seeing. This thread is much closer, but mine is much more drastic. Starting about two or three weeks ago (coincident with .16.2? .20.4?) my supercharging rates are DRASTICALLY lower over the entire SOC. Reproducible at several SCs, normal temps, pre-warmed or not, different stalls, non-shared, etc.

My taper curve is simply about 40% lower than what would be normal. At 50% SOC, I’m at a paltry 36kW. It’s roughly at about 90-SOC=kW whereas it should be about 125-SOC=kW. I called the 877 #, the first time they said SC rates are like 20kW all over the country. Yeah, no. Hung up and called back and they went through the whole gambit, saying the battery is fine, but SC rates vary, etc etc etc. Curiously, they said there was “something noted” on my account, but it might be “just for engineering” and that she had to get clearance from a supervisor to tell me. She backtracked though and said she was looking at the wrong thing. I’ve been mostly using 75kW SC stations so I’m not sure if the peak rates have been capped (a la the 90 battery fiasco) but the overall charge curve is way lower than those folks anyways.

Thoughts?
 
I would estimate that roughly 1/2 of the 26 supercharging stops we have made during the past 12 days were providing lower or much lower than optimal charging rates. Many of the sites required unplugging and replugging in order to get charging started again as they would just dwindle down to zero charge rate and stop. Some sites topped out at around 60 kW (no pair sharing involved). One topped out at 50 kW. Most started at 140 kW, but then dropped to 40-60 kW within 5 minutes, and then gradually dropped from there. We were doing some rural travel, so none of these values involved sharing a charger with another car.

After this latest 4,000 mile trip, it has become obvious that Tesla has some serious maintenance issues that need to be addressed with their supercharging locations.
 
We completed a 6,500-mile trip about a week ago in our X 100D. I think pretty much all of the stations we visited were listed as 150kW, and we almost always got 139-143kW at the start. While we did sometimes see early taper, it didn't seem any worse than what I'd seen on previous road trips. By 50% SOC maybe I was down to about half speed, or 72kW. (There was one time it was quite a bit slower, maybe 60kW at 30% SOC, but I changed to another stall and it was much better).

However, we also sometimes saw some phenomal rates - 143kW to start, which stayed really high - maybe over 130kW? - past 50% SOC. Even buying fast food, we sometimes had to really hurry back to the car!

Some of the issues mentioned above in this thread only affect 85kWh batteries. But others don't, and even my car varied widely. I have no idea how to explain the discrepancies - it didn't seem to correspond neatly to temperature or driving speeds.
 
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Our "Classic" 2013 Tesla S85 VIN near 6000 (very early car) is not (yet) affected by the newest update.
Charging to 97% original capacity after 130,000km.
Have the original "A" spec battery pack that has always been limited to 88kW maximum supercharging rate since purchase.
The rates posted in this thread are similar to those we have always had with our car.

FYI, posted in case this helped others understand.
 
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Hi all, 2015 P85D here with 30,000 miles. I’ve been reading through the two gigantic battery threads (battery limit and supercharge limit) but they don’t reflect what I’m seeing. This thread is much closer, but mine is much more drastic. Starting about two or three weeks ago (coincident with .16.2? .20.4?) my supercharging rates are DRASTICALLY lower over the entire SOC. Reproducible at several SCs, normal temps, pre-warmed or not, different stalls, non-shared, etc.

My taper curve is simply about 40% lower than what would be normal. At 50% SOC, I’m at a paltry 36kW. It’s roughly at about 90-SOC=kW whereas it should be about 125-SOC=kW. I called the 877 #, the first time they said SC rates are like 20kW all over the country. Yeah, no. Hung up and called back and they went through the whole gambit, saying the battery is fine, but SC rates vary, etc etc etc. Curiously, they said there was “something noted” on my account, but it might be “just for engineering” and that she had to get clearance from a supervisor to tell me. She backtracked though and said she was looking at the wrong thing. I’ve been mostly using 75kW SC stations so I’m not sure if the peak rates have been capped (a la the 90 battery fiasco) but the overall charge curve is way lower than those folks anyways.

Thoughts?

2015 85 at 35k miles here..I'm seeing a similar drop to you. Haven't followed up with Tesla yet. Hoping another update in the near future will help. If not I will address it at the next service visit.
 
Has anyone gotten anywhere by contacting Tesla. My 85d 2015 now starts @70kWh and drops to the 50s in a minute. Regular less of state of charge and temperature. Basically adds 20-30m to session.

I sent two tickets to them. Never responded... actually received the automatic feedback emails about those tickets without any responses.

The main reason to getting this car was the supercharging options.
 
Has anyone gotten anywhere by contacting Tesla. My 85d 2015 now starts @70kWh and drops to the 50s in a minute. Regular less of state of charge and temperature. Basically adds 20-30m to session.

I sent two tickets to them. Never responded... actually received the automatic feedback emails about those tickets without any responses.

The main reason to getting this car was the supercharging options.

Nothing. Supercharged just yesterdat at a 12% SOC to start at 70kW then it dropped to 56% within less than a minute. I only stayed there 20 mins, but man if i stayed there for the same time prior to this change i woulda been near 90% SOC instead of unlatching at low 50ish %.
 
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I'm planning a road trip with my S75 using abetterrouteplanner and was curious how the estimated charging times (which are supposedly based on current data) compared to reality so I charged at local SuC. My charge from 10% to 50% was 7 minutes longer than predicted (21 vs 14) and to 80% was 19 minutes longer than predicted (50 vs 31). I guess I learned to assume a 50% longer charging time than abetterrouteplanner predicts.
 
My 2014' P85+ is a CPO and i usually charge at home. However, since these latest 2019.xx.xx updates have been rolling out - the times that i do SC is roughly 1 to 2x a month where i used to get a sustained 90 to 100+ from 15% is now 90kw and drops very fast. I rarely stay above 100 more than a few minutes with even little to no battery left to start with. My car is in the SC right now getting a few things fixed i also informed them of this.
same here. took same trip as last year-same route and the supercharging times this time around were alot longer and it was summer vs winter and alot less people at the SC. So yes they did something to mess with how fast you get juiced up. WHy???? its pretty crappy really and i hate they can just monkey with that and also even derate you battery OTA and you cant do anything about it. Seems criminal somehow.
 
I only supercharge on road trips and usually use the charge time for lunch or dinner break, which realistically means we usually have to rush our meal. When we were on our way down to SoCal last week in our S75D, there was one segment that I did capture the charging status. This is from CA central coast Cambria to Oxnard SC, started charging at Oxnard with SOC 35% @125kW, then after 10 minutes SOC 58% @71kW, then after another 20 minutes SOC 81% @31kW. Total added 46% in 30 minutes. That was more than enough for us to get to the next stop so we hurried and left. The tapering seems drastic and if I needed more charge it may increase wait time for other people if there are other people waiting. But we take this same trip 2 times before and it does not seem worse.