How long were you driving before you plugged in, I find it takes an hour or more of driving to get the battery warm enough for fast charging, also did you put the supercharger in the navigation to get the battery warming started
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Actual supercharging cost?
- Thread starter Darthbenji
- Start date
I did put the supercharger in the nav. Drove for 30 mins or so and preheated for 20 or so before hand. It was about 12 Celsius.
I’ve owned Teslas since 2013 and until last year always in California (now live in Vancouver). I am used to thinking of Supercharger costs in terms of $/kWh of charge gained.
I have yet to use a Supercharger in Canada because my X has free lifetime charging and I have not made any long trips in my 3. I just discovered that in Canada charging costs are calculated by time and charge rate (kW).
This effectively makes it impossible for me to know in advance how much it is going to cost me to Supercharge. I can only roughly estimate it.
I find this very bizarre, and frustrating. I assume it is because the federal govt (or all the provinces) does not allow electricity to be resold by the kWh by third parties? There are some US states that have the same law, but they are the distinct minority.
Here is an example of the charge rate schedule. What a mess. Let’s say that I pull into the Supercharger with my 78kWh battery at 10% and I want to charge up to 90% to make it to my next Supercharger stop. There is no way I can calculate what it is going to cost me, nor do I know what I will pay per kWh.
I have yet to use a Supercharger in Canada because my X has free lifetime charging and I have not made any long trips in my 3. I just discovered that in Canada charging costs are calculated by time and charge rate (kW).
This effectively makes it impossible for me to know in advance how much it is going to cost me to Supercharge. I can only roughly estimate it.
I find this very bizarre, and frustrating. I assume it is because the federal govt (or all the provinces) does not allow electricity to be resold by the kWh by third parties? There are some US states that have the same law, but they are the distinct minority.
Here is an example of the charge rate schedule. What a mess. Let’s say that I pull into the Supercharger with my 78kWh battery at 10% and I want to charge up to 90% to make it to my next Supercharger stop. There is no way I can calculate what it is going to cost me, nor do I know what I will pay per kWh.
Where did you source that number from?
Here in BC I pay C$0.09/kWh for residential electricity. Why am I paying triple that at a Supercharger? That’s even more that I usually paid for much of the year in California.
Well it's still a lot cheaper than filling up with gas. Here's the most recent page of Supercharging for my 3LR. All charging done since Christmas and all in Alberta. Most of the time I pull in with 10-30% and leave with 85-100% charge, hence the longer charges. Also, factor in that sometimes I don't have time to heat the battery before pulling in (see the 69 minute 'cold' charge). I know the most expensive one ($14.30) was a charge to 100%. That trip also required a 4 hour stop at an L2 charger (30A) and a limp in to the next Supercharger at 4%.
I tend to make trips into areas with poor charging infrastructure and don't want to get stranded at -27C so most of these charges are overdoing it in order to err on the safe side. I bet most don't spend anywhere as much time at a Supercharger as I do, unless they don't know any better (i.e. still in the 'fill the tank' mindset). The most recent (top) one would be a more typical charge: pulled in with a warm battery at 9%, left with 75-80% charge. That would be a more typical charge if I was in an area with decent Supercharger infrastructure and not worried about getting my family stranded in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery.
No, I can't calculate ahead of time what it's going to cost me, but a 'good' charge is around $8 and a 'long fill' charge is <$15. Why would I worry when it's always $15 or less? Most people I know would love to see $14.30 'fills' for their vehicles.
I tend to make trips into areas with poor charging infrastructure and don't want to get stranded at -27C so most of these charges are overdoing it in order to err on the safe side. I bet most don't spend anywhere as much time at a Supercharger as I do, unless they don't know any better (i.e. still in the 'fill the tank' mindset). The most recent (top) one would be a more typical charge: pulled in with a warm battery at 9%, left with 75-80% charge. That would be a more typical charge if I was in an area with decent Supercharger infrastructure and not worried about getting my family stranded in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery.
No, I can't calculate ahead of time what it's going to cost me, but a 'good' charge is around $8 and a 'long fill' charge is <$15. Why would I worry when it's always $15 or less? Most people I know would love to see $14.30 'fills' for their vehicles.
Commercial rates are nothing like residential rates. For commercial electricity, we also pay a demand charge. This is based on our peak power draw in a month (then multiplied by total consumption). My business' consumption rates are about the same as my residential rates, but the demand charges double the bill and my demand is usually between 16-22kW. For a commercial L2 charger, with the demand charges, the cost to provide the electricity would be roughly double what it would be in a residential situation. I cannot begin to imagine what the charge would be for a peak draw of 8 Superchargers * 250 kW/Supercharger = 2,000 kW!!!
Paying triple at a Supercharger is likely a very reasonable charge considering the demand charges. Also, there needs to be a premium charge over home charging otherwise the Superchargers would be overrun with people who should otherwise be charging at home.
I thought it was organizations like Hydro-Quebec that were prohibiting the sale of electricity, which led to paying per minute for a "service" instead of paying per kWh for electricity (which would make more sense). I've recently been told that it's the Canadian measures organization (Measurement Canada?) that would require an official counter on every charging station... Let's just hope these issues get resolved so we can eventually pay a flatter fee per kWh.
As others are saying, don't expect something close to the residential rate though. Commercial + demand charges will apply, and Tesla should at least break even so this must pay for chargers + infrastructure, maintenance etc.
As others are saying, don't expect something close to the residential rate though. Commercial + demand charges will apply, and Tesla should at least break even so this must pay for chargers + infrastructure, maintenance etc.
60 kwh is 60 minutes, the Tesla rates are targeting 24 cents a kWh for Canada.
Thanks for the explanation, and while I agree that Supercharger rates should be somewhat higher than residential rates, triple the price seems excessive.
At a Supercharger it will take far less than 60 minutes to add 60kWh to the battery pack. I’ve never spent an hour at a Supercharger and have often added far more than 60kWh to my X100D.
Yup, those are the rates I was charged at 2 different Superchargers today, though the ones I was at maxed at 150, so the top tier was 100-150 kW for $1.25 per minute. I made the same stops at those same Superchargers last week, and paid $0.43 and $0.44 per minute. The price almost tripled since last Thursday. A very unhappy surprise.
Be careful what you wish for. If you look at the US, the rates range from $0.28/kWh off-peak, $0.40/kWh on-peak and around $0.33kWh where there's no peak pricing. If you convert the per min rates in US (in certain States where they can't charge by kWh), you'll notice that the Canadian equivalent is roughly in line after the currency conversion, so that US$0.28/kWh, US$0.40/kWh, and US$0.33/kWh can very well end up being CDN$0.36/kWh off peak, CDN$0.51/kWh on-peak, and CDN$0.42/kWh no peak, That's still at least 3x more than charging at home. I was averaging $0.21/kWh using Superchargers before the rate increase by strategically charging below 10% and stopping around 65%, now I think it'll be a 65% increase based on my charging habits in the 60kW to 120kW range. That 65% bump on CAD$0.21/kWh would make it around CAD$0.35/kWh, which in my case will mean I'm still better off on the per-minute rate than the per kWh non-peak rate Tesla would likely charge in Canada.
Now the question is can we complain about the Tesla claim of $0.26/kWh in "Charging costs are approximate. Charging cost estimate assumes Supercharger cost of $0.26 per kilowatt hour." (Supercharger | Tesla Canada) when that appears next to impossible to achieve after this significant rate hike.
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