Can you slow down super chargers?

[Mrklaw]

Dropped son off at Uni today and I was expecting to get back home with 7% battery. Was needing to stop for a wee and grab some food so I stopped at Membury.

plugged in and went to the loo, grabbed a kfc and Starbucks and straight back to the car. It had already put in 50% charge and was about to stop at 80% (high use charger)

I wasn’t long but if id taken 5-10 mins more would it have hit me with overstay charges? Also I didn’t need that much charge so would prefer not to pay 30p/kWh when I’m paying 5p at home.

is there a way to slow down the charge or do I just have to sit with the car if I only need a 10 min charge then unplug?

(As an aside the chargers at membury are after the car park so what do you do if you need to park after charging?)

 

[Adopado]

Dropped son off at Uni today and I was expecting to get back home with 7% battery. Was needing to stop for a wee and grab some food so I stopped at Membury.

plugged in and went to the loo, grabbed a kfc and Starbucks and straight back to the car. It had already put in 50% charge and was about to stop at 80% (high use charger)

I wasn’t long but if id taken 5-10 mins more would it have hit me with overstay charges? Also I didn’t need that much charge so would prefer not to pay 30p/kWh when I’m paying 5p at home.

is there a way to slow down the charge or do I just have to sit with the car if I only need a 10 min charge then unplug?

(As an aside the chargers at membury are after the car park so what do you do if you need to park after charging?)

Charge longer or move on! (not just unplug) The idea is to spend the minimum time using a charger so that it's available to the other cars that may turn up a couple of minutes later. I'm pretty sure you can't slow them down.

 

[MrBadger]

is there a way to slow down the charge or do I just have to sit with the car if I only need a 10 min charge then unplug?

You cannot slow down DC charging once its started, but what you can do if you don't know how long you will be staying for, and applies equally if you have arrived second on a shared v2 stall, it use the app to notify you when charging is due to finish (it gives you around a iirc 10 minute warning if you have app connectivity - not always a given) then either go and move the car or just tweak the charge limit to give you a few minutes longer.

I found this useful when I was second onto a v2 stall and went to get some food based upon the estimated completion time, only to have the first car move and cut significant amount of time of our charge that we were half way through a burger. Upping the limit by a few % avoided a mad dash back to the car.

Even on 80% high use chargers, you can always tweak the limit higher.

 

[GRiLLA]

You can increase beyond the 80% if you need to, it's just set to that by default at a high use SuperCharger, and there is 5mins before the overstay kicks in. I think your problem is that you didn't need to charge anyway, so best not to, you can stop at services like a normal car still.

It's the Tesla diet, enough time to get a coffee, not enough to eat junk.

 

[Jason71]

You realise the problem with what you are asking right?
I'm afraid the only acceptable answer to your question really is "Please don't even try"
if there was a way and everyone did the same you would have had plenty of time to get your food, while waiting in the queue to use the charger because all the stalls would have been in use.

 

[Fursty Ferret]

You realise the problem with what you are asking right?

I thought this too.

 

[adsheff]

This goes to my point I've made elsewhere about motorway services having slower chargers as an option. Sometimes families might spend an hour at the services, so a 50Kw charger would be sufficient. Or often on medium-length trips, you only need a few % extra, so having 7 or 11 Kw chargers in the 'normal' parking spaces would be a great idea for that.

 

[GRiLLA]

This goes to my point I've made elsewhere about motorway services having slower chargers as an option. Sometimes families might spend an hour at the services, so a 50Kw charger would be sufficient. Or often on medium-length trips, you only need a few % extra, so having 7 or 11 Kw chargers in the 'normal' parking spaces would be a great idea for that.

It seems a pretty mild problem, after 40 mins a parent goes back to move the car to a charger for 20 mins. As charging gets faster that will become a shorter time, that new Ionic 5 will charge on Ionity at 224KW at 58%, 117KW at 72%.

 

[phil4]

As the OP says, EB Membury's layout means you've driven past the services when you plug in to charge. "Moving the car" isn't really an option then.

So OP, what I'd suggest in that instance is park in the normal services and do what you need. Then as you leave you can decide to put a few % in if you want. But yes, you pretty much need to do it in that order.

 

[Tinca]

It's the Tesla diet, enough time to get a coffee, not enough to eat junk.

So I'm not the only one to notice this! I'm sure it's purely coincidental, but I've lost weight whilst I've had a Tesla. I've put it down to avoiding petrol stations and not hanging around motorway services for too long.

Maybe we're onto something.....