Better to supercharge slow and cold, or fast and hot?

[Donuts]

Is it better to arrive not preconditioned and let’s say it limits to 80kw, or allow to heat up and reach the full 150 or 250?

 

[ucmndd]

Fast and hot, always.

High charging current with a cold battery is one of the more damaging things you can do. This is why charge rate is throttled when the battery is cold, why regenerative braking is limited, and why the battery won’t charge at all when it gets very cold.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Warmer temperatures are always ideal for charging. With colder temperatures you risk lithium plating, which permanently damages the cells in your battery.

Choices you didn't present like "moderate and hot" or "moderate and warm" probably are even more ideal choices.

 

[AAKEE]

Is it better to arrive not preconditioned and let’s say it limits to 80kw, or allow to heat up and reach the full 150 or 250?

As per the earlier answers with the add on that it won’t reduce the chargivg speed to 80kW without preheating.

It will charge much faster than that.

I did have to charge once without preconditioning. Long trip, after christmas 2021 with the new screen layout with the christmas update 2021.
Did not find the supercharger list and due to getting much colder (-30C) the car started warning about max speed to be able to reach home.
I connected the car with 10% or so, and cell temperature about 12C. It was a SuC v2, and the charging reached 135 kW more or less asap So I only charged very little to be able to safely arrive home.

I know Tesla takes care of the most things automatically so the user should not need to worry, but I guess there is some kind of compromise needed between fast charging and low degradation from high charging currents.

 

[Supcom]

Is it better to arrive not preconditioned and let’s say it limits to 80kw, or allow to heat up and reach the full 150 or 250?

I assume that, by 'better, you mean least impact on battery life.

First off, unless you arrive at the SC with a very low SoC, you will likely not charge at the full rate. Even then, max speed charging occurs only for a short time before the car starts backing off the power. But, those few minutes can make a big difference in how long you sit at the SC.

By preheating prior to arrival, assuming that you are traveling significant distance to the SC, the car will have enough time to bring the entire battery up to the needed temperature for full speed charging. I often see my car starting preconditioning many miles in advance. This should also allow the car to maximize the use of waste heat for most of the preconditioning so that the impact on range is minimized.

There was a recent post here of a long-term study that showed that supercharging was no worse than slow charging on battery health. Tesla seems to have done a good job with battery management. It's likely best to let the car manage the charging for you.

But, even if you don't believe the results of that study, assuming that you are like most people and charge the car primarily at L2 rates, using SCs at full rate for the occasional trip should have minimal impact on battery life.

 

[AAKEE]

There was a recent post here of a long-term study that showed that supercharging was no worse than slow charging on battery health. Tesla seems to have done a good job with battery management. It's likely best to let the car manage the charging for you.

We know from research studies that fadt charging is hard on the batteries.
Lithium plating is bad.

There might be a good idea to look into how this research was done.
Also, it might be that the supercharging might not immediately show clear degradation but the lithium plating still is there, and eventually the battery goes bad despite not looking to bad before.

From research its clear that the number one thing against lithium plating is the heat the battery before fast charging it, so I always do if possible.

Tesla is clear in the manual that supercharging wears on the battery and that it should be used when needed, not everyday in general.
That article might do some real harm, fooling people to supercharge more than they should.

 

[Supcom]

This is the post with the link to the study:

New Study Shows No Adverse Effects From Supercharging

New study released today show no statistically significant difference between Supercharging 10% of the time and 90% of the time. https://electrek.co/2023/08/29/tesla-battery-longevity-not-affected-frequent-supercharging-study/

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