250kW supercharger disaapointment

[Zoomit]

Thanks. I guess it all boils down to charging amps. My understanding is that the pack voltage is 350 nominal, which puts charging amps around 700. The amps are spread more or less evenly over all the cells, and since the Cybertruck will have a larger battery, the actual charging amps per cell will be lower than 2170. So the 250kW rate (700 amps) can be maintained longer for the 4680 since each cell isn't charging as fast as 2170 and therefore doesn't produce as much heat. I think that means charging times will be the same as if the battery were 2170 even though the 4680 will maintain 250kW longer. Does that sound correct?

Charging amps isn't as important as charging power as the Superchargers are clearly limited by power not amperage. The Model 3 pack does reach just under 700A when starting from 0% SOC and under ideal conditions but the amperage quickly decreases as the voltage rises. They are about 350V nominal in a 96s configuration. The CT, and I strongly suspect all cars with 4680 cells, will likely be a 108s configuration. This matches the new S/X and reduces the needed amperage for a given charging power level.

All of this is really not that important though for Cybertruck charging speed. The fact that V3 Superchargers are limited to 250kW (apparently) means the much larger (~200 kWh) battery in the Cybertruck will take 50% longer to charge in many scenarios than the Model 3/Y. Since the Tri Motor Cybertruck also has a range that's about 50% further than the Model 3/Y, the average mi/hr charge rate at a V3 stall will likely be somewhat similar between the 3, Y and CT.

 

[theothertom]

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[DRYDD]

I have had similar experiences and have also been disappointed with a much lower Kw actual charge rate. Like many things in life the answer is not always simple! Have a look at this you tube video that explains some of the science behind battery technology. Tesla simplify the message which I guess is understandable.

Also I spoke to a very helpful technician at a Tesla 250kw site near Edinburgh where I was only getting 80kw. He said it was to do with the electricity grid which was limiting supply? Hope this helps but I very much sympathise with those who experience the problem. I love my model 3 LR Tesla and couldn’t go back to a ‘gas guzzler’ but the EV industry plus UK gov must sort the infrastructure out!

 

[golferguy]

I have had similar experiences and have also been disappointed with a much lower Kw actual charge rate. Like many things in life the answer is not always simple! Have a look at this you tube video that explains some of the science behind battery technology. Tesla simplify the message which I guess is understandable.

Also I spoke to a very helpful technician at a Tesla 250kw site near Edinburgh where I was only getting 80kw. He said it was to do with the electricity grid which was limiting supply? Hope this helps but I very much sympathise with those who experience the problem. I love my model 3 LR Tesla and couldn’t go back to a ‘gas guzzler’ but the EV industry plus UK gov must sort the infrastructure out!

You left out some very important variables. First, what was your starting SOC when you plugged in? If you arrive at a V3 SuperCharger with more than 25% SOC, you won't get full rate. Full rate charging happens at approximately 25% and below. Once you hit 50%, 80KW and below is very normal.

Another variable, temperature. Did you use in car Navigation to drive to the SuperCharger destination and have at least 20 minutes driving time? If not, the battery was not pre-conditioned.

Also what Tesla do you have? Model S and X before 2020 don't have capability for even 200KW if I recall correctly. Only the newer 2021+ X and S along with all M3 and MY can support full V3 charging.

Finally, maybe there was a grid limitation but from the above, there are many more variables you should be considering.

 

[Danzel]

According to tesla it’s better to arrive with 20% or less if you wanna maximize charge rate.
I tried a V3 Supercharger 250kw (first time using supercharger by the way) arrived at 6% Soc and battery was precondition and warm.
Got 246kw for the first 8 mins and then around 150kw. I only charged for about 20 mins up to 45% Soc which was more than enough to get me home. Overall pretty good experience for my first time using it.

 

[Lightbulb]

Yeah I've had great success with the 250kw chargers for road trips. especially then the route has a bunch of them. I try to roll in around 3-5% SOC and it holds 250kw for 5-8 minutes out of a 10 min charge that I need.

I will admit that the 250kw is a bit of a misnomer when thinking about it compared to the 250kw, but that's as a basic consumer looking at two numbers and not with an understanding of how electricity and batteries work.

 

[AlexHung]

I will admit that the 250kw is a bit of a misnomer when thinking about it compared to the 250kw, but that's as a basic consumer looking at two numbers and not with an understanding of how electricity and batteries work.

Or ignore the words “Up to” or “Maximum”

 

[tivoboy]

According to tesla it’s better to arrive with 20% or less if you wanna maximize charge rate.
I tried a V3 Supercharger 250kw (first time using supercharger by the way) arrived at 6% Soc and battery was precondition and warm.
Got 246kw for the first 8 mins and then around 150kw. I only charged for about 20 mins up to 45% Soc which was more than enough to get me home. Overall pretty good experience for my first time using it.
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8-10 minutes ast 250KW is about all I have ever gotten on a 250KW charger and that was arriving sometimes at 0% up to about 5%.. the most i think that curve maintains is about 15 minutes or slightly less. I can usually get about 200 miles added in 20 minutes (from that low SOC) and that is enough to get me to at least my destination or next planned stop.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Or ignore the words “Up to” or “Maximum”

yes, and it reminds me of a call to an internet service provider last week who stated "You can get up to 100 MB download." No, I want to know what I am "guaranteed" to get. She couldn't answer, so I said I can't subscribe.

 

[Lightbulb]

yes, and it reminds me of a call to an internet service provider last week who stated "You can get up to 100 MB download." No, I want to know what I am "guaranteed" to get. She couldn't answer, so I said I can't subscribe.

To be fair, what internet speed you get, largely depends on your router. I was paying for 350mb/s speeds but only getting 30mb/s, then I bought a nice asus router and now I get my stated speed, but I get your point!


I suspect the cyber truck will be able to have a longer curve closer to 250kw with this larger battery park, making the v3 a bigger upgrade over v2. I’m still thankful for them over the v2, for the small charging speed increase and in the winter where the cables get really stiff when it’s cold

 

[Zoomit]

Got 246kw for the first 8 mins and then around 150kw

it holds 250kw for 5-8 minutes

8-10 minutes at 250KW is about all I have ever gotten

Since this thread is about expectations, I think it's important to mention that under optimum conditions, the Model 3/Y should only charge at 250 kW for less than 5 min before it starts to taper at around 26% SoC. The simplified math is 75*0.25/250/0.95*60 = 4.7 minutes. This is starting from 0% SoC and under the most ideal battery conditions, which are rare. So most people will see 250 kW for just a few minutes at most.

That is unless the battery charging profile has changed since we reverse engineered it in 2019. If anyone can take a picture of your car's screen charging above 245kW and above 26% SoC, it would be helpful for the community to post it, as it would signify an improvement in the charging profile. Likewise, if someone can take a video of it staying at 250 kW for more than 5 minutes, that would also be helpful. Indicating the car's age and battery capacity is important information to determine if improvements might be limited to specific configurations.

 

[Silicon Desert]

To be fair, what internet speed you get, largely depends on your router. I was paying for 350mb/s speeds but only getting 30mb/s, then I bought a nice asus router and now I get my stated speed, but I get your point!

Yup certainly agree with all that. Where I live, we don't have super fast cable services and our router can handle 5 times more bandwidth than what services can deliver up here. I suspect your point is a main factor in a big city or area where they have super nice bandwidth. Sorry to digress from the topic.

 

[terranx]

Since this thread is about expectations, I think it's important to mention that under optimum conditions, the Model 3/Y should only charge at 250 kW for less than 5 min before it starts to taper at around 26% SoC. The simplified math is 75*0.25/250/0.95*60 = 4.7 minutes. This is starting from 0% SoC and under the most ideal battery conditions, which are rare. So most people will see 250 kW for just a few minutes at most.

That is unless the battery charging profile has changed since we reverse engineered it in 2019. If anyone can take a picture of your car's screen charging above 245kW and above 26% SoC, it would be helpful for the community to post it, as it would signify an improvement in the charging profile. Likewise, if someone can take a video of it staying at 250 kW for more than 5 minutes, that would also be helpful. Indicating the car's age and battery capacity is important information to determine if improvements might be limited to specific configurations.

Well keep in mind newer models have 82kW batteries. Not sure when they changeover was. I’m fairly sure my 2022 mode held 250kW a bit past 26%, but I only supercharged it once so far so I haven’t verified that.

 

[Zoomit]

Well keep in mind newer models have 82kW batteries. Not sure when they changeover was. I’m fairly sure my 2022 mode held 250kW a bit past 26%, but I only supercharged it once so far so I haven’t verified that.

Yes, that battery pack has more energy but there’s at least some evidence (more evidence) that it has a more conservative charging profile. Frankly, I haven’t paid much attention, maybe it’s resolved, but the higher capacity was a result of a chemistry change which could have compromised the charging performance.

 

[terranx]

Yes, that battery pack has more energy but there’s at least some evidence (more evidence) that it has a more conservative charging profile. Frankly, I haven’t paid much attention, maybe it’s resolved, but the higher capacity was a result of a chemistry change which could have compromised the charging performance.

Yeah I do remember seeing that, but I'm quite certain I had better charging behavior than that. Could be they've revised the charging profile between the launch of those batteries and now.

Probably will be a while before I get below 10% again, but I can test supercharging at a 250kW location next time I do.

 

[Big Earl]

Since this thread is about expectations, I think it's important to mention that under optimum conditions, the Model 3/Y should only charge at 250 kW for less than 5 min before it starts to taper at around 26% SoC. The simplified math is 75*0.25/250/0.95*60 = 4.7 minutes. This is starting from 0% SoC and under the most ideal battery conditions, which are rare. So most people will see 250 kW for just a few minutes at most.

That is unless the battery charging profile has changed since we reverse engineered it in 2019. If anyone can take a picture of your car's screen charging above 245kW and above 26% SoC, it would be helpful for the community to post it, as it would signify an improvement in the charging profile. Likewise, if someone can take a video of it staying at 250 kW for more than 5 minutes, that would also be helpful. Indicating the car's age and battery capacity is important information to determine if improvements might be limited to specific configurations.

Here’s a recent 5% - 50% test in ideal conditions with 140,000 miles. 2018 dual motor. 30 kWh added in ten minutes.

 

[tivoboy]

To be fair, what internet speed you get, largely depends on your router. I was paying for 350mb/s speeds but only getting 30mb/s, then I bought a nice asus router and now I get my stated speed, but I get your point!


I suspect the cyber truck will be able to have a longer curve closer to 250kw with this larger battery park, making the v3 a bigger upgrade over v2. I’m still thankful for them over the v2, for the small charging speed increase and in the winter where the cables get really stiff when it’s cold

Technically, it's really more dependent on the modem first, assuming it's either cable internet (DCOSIS 1/2/3) or some form of DSL. Any router from probably the past 10 years shouldn't have limited your available internet download speed to 30mb/s unless it was just incorrectly configured.

Many people have had a cable modem for years, and they don't provide anywhere near as many download streams as more recent DOCSIS 2.0 vs. 3.0 vs. 3.1 modems will.

 

[tivoboy]

Since this thread is about expectations, I think it's important to mention that under optimum conditions, the Model 3/Y should only charge at 250 kW for less than 5 min before it starts to taper at around 26% SoC. The simplified math is 75*0.25/250/0.95*60 = 4.7 minutes. This is starting from 0% SoC and under the most ideal battery conditions, which are rare. So most people will see 250 kW for just a few minutes at most.

That is unless the battery charging profile has changed since we reverse engineered it in 2019. If anyone can take a picture of your car's screen charging above 245kW and above 26% SoC, it would be helpful for the community to post it, as it would signify an improvement in the charging profile. Likewise, if someone can take a video of it staying at 250 kW for more than 5 minutes, that would also be helpful. Indicating the car's age and battery capacity is important information to determine if improvements might be limited to specific configurations.

All I can say is that I have definetly had ~250KW for more than 5 minutes, but yes it was most likely not more than 8 or so. I think I have a video still of the time I charged from 0% to 80% for my 2nd 250KW session. That was back in Dec 2019, during the I5 snowpocalypse

 

[Lightbulb]

Technically, it's really more dependent on the modem first, assuming it's either cable internet (DCOSIS 1/2/3) or some form of DSL. Any router from probably the past 10 years shouldn't have limited your available internet download speed to 30mb/s unless it was just incorrectly configured.

Many people have had a cable modem for years, and they don't provide anywhere near as many download streams as more recent DOCSIS 2.0 vs. 3.0 vs. 3.1 modems will.

Technically you’re right. But since the asus router is a modem and router combined as are most setups these days, it was sort of implied

None the less, the argument is still the same for the comparison to the charger speeds. It depends what you bring to the table. If you have a legacy model s or x you’re not going to get over 150kw, and same with a high state fo charge

If you bring the right stuff to the table, aka model 3/Y capable of 250kwh speeds, as well as a low start of charge with a warm battery, you will get the rated speed

For a lot of people; the 250kw chargers aren’t disappointing because we know what to expect and how the battery works!

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Technically you’re right. But since the asus router is a modem and router combined as are most setups these days, it was sort of implied

None the less, the argument is still the same for the comparison to the charger speeds. It depends what you bring to the table. If you have a legacy model s or x you’re not going to get over 150kw, and same with a high state fo charge

If you bring the right stuff to the table, aka model 3/Y capable of 250kwh speeds, as well as a low start of charge with a warm battery, you will get the rated speed

For a lot of people; the 250kw chargers aren’t disappointing because we know what to expect and how the battery works!

Older Teslas can still benefit from v3 Superchargers. As I mentioned before, I've hit 187 kW on my 2017 Model S when using a v3 Supercharger. While it's not 250 kW, it's better than the 140 kW I get at a v2 Supercharger and I don't have to worry about paired Superchargers. (On a recent road trip, a new Model Y pulled in and parked right next to me and my charge rate instantly dropped to below 100 kW. I switched stalls and was able to jump back up to over 130 kW. At the next Supercharger stop, I chatted with him for a bit. He thanked me for mentioning pairing and I noticed he paid attention when pulling in to charge at the next 3 Superchargers. With v3 Superchargers, you don't really need to worry about paired Supercharger stalls.)