Any benefit from Supercharger v3?

[_jmk]

During the investor call Elon mentioned indirectly that some cars might be able to take use of the supercharger v3 once it rolls out. M3 is a clear case, that will happily charge at 180kW. Any thoughts on X/S?

My car (02/18 X75) seems to currently max out at 100kW sharp and hold that until 50% before it tapers. I guess this is the car max if M3 can do 115kW from the same charger and they both have 350V voltage?

 

[xyeahtony]

There is a theory that the 100kwh batteries are currently limited to 120kw not be design but by supercharger limit. The C rate for a 75kwh battery is about 1.3 at 98kw while a 100kwh battery is at 1.18 at 118kw. So potentially the 100kwh batteries could see a charge rate increase to ~130kwh. We know the 75/100 battery packs have the same chemistry, just different pack size. So no reason why the 100kwh can't charge at a similar c-rate to the 75.

 

[_jmk]

Sure, but the packs hold up well and there is no degradation due to supercharging as far as I can tell. Maybe they could pump up the c-rate?

 

[bob_p]

Until Tesla makes an announcement, we're all guessing.

The Model 3 packs are completely different than the S/X packs. They use different batteries, have a different cooling implementation, and likely have a different charging implementation. So it's possible the 3 packs can handle faster charging than the S/X.

However... When the 100 packs are introduced, there were rumors Tesla was on the verge of also deploying V3 supercharging - but that didn't happen - and now it looks like the V3 supercharging won't be announced late this year or early next year.

We don't know if V3 supercharging will allow current vehicles (S/3/X) to charge significantly faster, or if it will require a new generation of batter packs.

Another possibility is that the V3 supercharging could also include automatic charging plug/unplug. A prototype was demonstrated several years ago with a "snake" that would look for the charging outlet and automatically plug in. Tesla has been planning a coast-to-coast, full self driving (and full self charging) demonstration, that was supposed to be last year, then this summer, and now late this year or early next year - about the same time frame as the expected V3 supercharging announcement.

Especially with other manufacturers working to establish an alternative long distance charging network, will be interesting to see what Tesla does for their next generation superchargers...

 

[_jmk]

During the call when this was asked, he did say that the 12 model car would not be able to charge any faster and answered 'depends when the car was bought'. Silicon anode perhaps? That would certainly help.

 

[bob_p]

The battery packs in some of the early Model S cars can't handle the full charging rate of the current Superchargers - so they won't get much benefit from V3 (unless V3 is able to provide more power when both A/B stalls are being used).