charging slow at Superchargers

[donauker]

Any reason you chose the top of the handle? In my experience it is the ground facing side of the handle that is the hottest (and where the temp sensor is located, I believe)?

Only that it worked best with what I had to work with and it felt that the top of the handle was the hottest. Also cold air sinks and with the cold pack molded somewhat to the handle and in contact with the metal plate seemed to get the best thermal transfer.
Part of the heat issue seemed to be due to extreme high temperature and blazing hot sun. The top of the handle was too hot to touch!

 

[apacheguy]

What temperatures were you seeing just prior to and during charging?

Please refer to my post from a while back for further details:

The limiting/throttling/USPR is absolutely not related to pack temperature. As you can see, my battery temp was consistently increasing throughout the charge session, yet I was able to restore normal charging amperage by cooling the connector and cable. Also, note that no other Tesla connected to any stall at the site for the duration of the data collection.

Additionally, I noticed that in lieu of cooling the cable you can simply switch stalls from A to B (on the same cabinet) and this will restore a normal charge rate. So, it has nothing to do with the car, it has nothing to do with the cabinet overheating, and it has everything to do with the temperature of the cable/connector from the pedestal.

View attachment 206716

Bottom line: Yeah, this sucks. I mean, SpC used to be a set and forget experience. Plug the cable into an unpaired stall and walk away. Now, it appears that Tesla Engineering has tightened the thermal limits and aggressively tapers the charge rate if they see the connector getting too warm. While I appreciate the reasons for this, it significantly degrades the user experience and I urge Tesla to come up with another solution. (What happened to liquid cooled cables???)

Unfortunately, the workaround for this means that you must stay with your car the entire time and be ready to act in case the rate begins to decline at a rapid rate. I witnessed this behavior ~50% of the time. Sometimes supercharging works great, but in others not so well.

I had this happen at the BRAND NEW supercharger at Anderson's Split Pea. So even new equipment is no guarantee that this will not occur.

 

[gavine]

Read this thread this morning, so it was on my mind when I stopped after a 10 mile drive in 100 degree temp. Sat in the car a bit working, it definitely got louder. Went out and both louvers were opened and fan and compressor going like crazy. Wasn't charging or anything.

That was probably for the air conditioner. The same system that cools the battery also cools the cabin.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

how about this one. I was at Corning a few weeks ago and went to the Mexican restaurant that is near by. Started at a high charge rate but when I was ordering food I looked at the app and was at 15% and a 53 kW charge. I stopped charging from the app to see if it would jump up a tad after restarting but it would not restart charging from the app!. I ran back to my car (on a 12 hr trip to Bishop and this was the first stop so minimal charge time is very important) and there was a red charge ring. I unplugged and replugged the charge cable and the car gave me a 12V low car wont charge error. freaked me out. now it wouldn't even plug in or go into drive. I closed the doors and let every thing turn off & contactors open and then when I reopened the door I was able to move to a different charger and it worked. still had a bit of an 'odd' after a few minutes.

Got to Truckee at 2% and the charger would ramp to 10kW then drop to 0 and then restart and bump a bit higher ~20kW, stop and restart charging. over and over and over. moved stalls and it was completely fine.

Topaz lake ...1st charger red ring. other chargers completely fine (known issue from what a local traveler told me) and zero cell reception so no logs of that 'black hole' charger.
Mammoth lakes was perfectly fine and charged faaast.

I have noticed that at Superchargers there is an initial charge step up to maybe 10 kW and then a drop to 0 before ramping all the way up, like a quick resistance test or something? I do not remember seeing this in past years, not sure when it started but it kind of seems to line up with when I started seeing any problems at superchargers. Of course no one will tell you what as changed with firmware (most techs probably don't completely know anyway). I have a feeling that something was done to minimize the chance of any fires after they had a couple of potential charge related 'events'. dunno

 

[abasile]

Mammoth lakes was perfectly fine and charged faaast.

That was our experience as well. Of all of the Superchargers along US-395 that we've used this summer, Mammoth was by far the fastest. I think it's no coincidence that it's by far the coolest location. It probably also helps that, outside of peak ski season, the utilization rate per stall isn't so high there. (There are 8 stalls at Mammoth, more than any other site along 395.)

EDIT: As for zero cell reception at Topaz, we were able to pick up wifi from the nearby lodge.

 

[sorka]

Dropped of car in Dublin this morning. Within five minutes, while they were checking me out for the loaner, they had already found the cause.

The passenger side condenser fan had failed. This doesn't mean there isn't a problem with one or both louvers either but this is what they'd found within the first few minutes.

A failed condenser fan doesn't throw and alert apparently.

This is in stark contrast to the head Fremont diagnostician telling me that nothing could be wrong since there were no errors being displayed.

 

[brkaus]

Dropped of car in Dublin this morning. Within five minutes, while they were checking me out for the loaner, they had already found the cause.

The passenger side condenser fan had failed. This doesn't mean there isn't a problem with one or both louvers either but this is what they'd found within the first few minutes.

A failed condenser fan doesn't throw and alert apparently.

This is in stark contrast to the head Fremont diagnostician telling me that nothing could be wrong since there were no errors being displayed.

Field smarts always helps! Some smart folks back in the office don't always appreciate that. Can't trigger errors on everything or you need monitors on the monitors or monitors for the sake of monitoring.

Hope they resolve your issues!

 

[DarkMatter]

Tesla has the telemetry on Supercharging. For the best customer experience they really should track VIN against site, and alert on people who are getting consistently poor rates. It would allow them to reach out and really improve things for people with cooling problems.

 

[sorka]

Tesla has the telemetry on Supercharging. For the best customer experience they really should track VIN against site, and alert on people who are getting consistently poor rates. It would allow them to reach out and really improve things for people with cooling problems.

Just as importantly, it would improve the lines and waiting for others at high traffic SCs. What if half of all the cars out there aren't getting optimal charge levels due to cooling problems? fixing those would improve car throughput by 33% (i.e. half the cars charge fine but half the cars take twice as long as normal).

 

[Sparky]

Please refer to my post from a while back for further details:

I wonder the odds that Tesla is addressing this with the SC expansion.
Yesterday, I was at Harris Ranch. I had just driven across HWY198 from US101 and hit temps of 107F. Arrived with about 40 mi of range and found all but a coupe of stalls occupied. More than once here, on hot days, I get the hot-handle, low charge rate problem.
It was about 103F, I got lucky since the shared SC had just finished.
Got full charging rate ~110kW and it stayed strong the whole time and the handle never got more than "very warm". I was in one of the recently added stalls way out on the end. Maybe they've fixed it?

 

[WutHappened]

I was at Harris Ranch yesterday as well at 4pm. I didn't get the 110kW rate but I did get the usual 45kW average. The only time a supercharger handle was really hot was at Tejon Ranch a few days earlier. It was charging at 52kW and nobody was charging next to me when I first started.

 

[EVCarGUy]

Topaz lake ... zero cell reception so no logs of that 'black hole' charger.

The last time I was there, I could get the car to join free wifi of the nearby casino

 

[Stangography]

This was Dublin this morning around 1am... empty lot... a model x came in I asked him what his rate was he was about the same... I was on the new ones closer to the building he plugged in on the older ones...

 

[sorka]

View attachment 237782 This was Dublin this morning around 1am... empty lot... a model x came in I asked him what his rate was he was about the same... I was on the new ones closer to the building he plugged in on the older ones...

I was there yesterday charging my loaner 90D and got 116KW.

 

[Stangography]

how long did you get that for? as some are stating that it drops down within like 5 min or so.

 

[sorka]

Just got the call to pickup the car today. They never disabled app access. Even though they diagnosed the problem on Monday, it sat until this afternoon when they finally moved it into the shop to fix it(app access on the entire time). They then supercharged it which I did't see until the end otherwise I would have logged it.

So it turns out that it was the right side louver after all. The first guy who told me the found the issue within a few minutes of me pulling up misunderstood and it was actually the active louver. So it turns out it was my original guess all along.

There was an alert when they checked for it which is why they found it immediately. The diagnostician in Fremont the week before didn't even check and insisted that since there were no errors on the dash there was no problem. Complete fail which also completely matched his flippant attitude. He also told me that after packs are charged a certain amount that the charge is reduced to protect the battery. I told him I only knew about the charging counter on the 90 packs and his response was "well I guess you must know more about it than me" in a condescending tone.

Apparently these things fail quite often so those that are having slow charging issues should check to see if you're louvers are opening when the condenser fans are screaming.

Of course I won't know if this actually fixes the problem until I pull in warm with a low SOC and start charging. It could very well be that hot handles or other issues still cause slow charging. I plan to bring an ice chest wet frozen towels the next time I charge and slap one on the handle if charging slows dramatically below the taper to see if that makes any difference.

 

[McManX]

I've been having slow supercharging (model X) recently both in hot and cool weather. Can someone post photos of what these louvers are supposed to look like?

 

[xbox4me62]

That happened to me in san mateo. Plugged in around 11pm w/~30% SOC on a saturday after waiting in line. Charge would jump to 90kW for ~20 seconds then plummet to 10kW. Unplugged an replugged in, same problem. Called roadside assistance and they did not see anything wrong on their side. Charger handle wasn't even hot IIRC. Went downstairs and chademo'd 15 mins to pick up enough charge to get home!

Only time i've charged with a sustained over 60kW rate on my P85+ was on a over cast and rainy day in Napa, which reinforces my hypothesis that a major driver of slow SC speeds being talked about is the temperature of the plug/handle/connector.

 

[CuriousG]

I've been having slow supercharging (model X) recently both in hot and cool weather. Can someone post photos of what these louvers are supposed to look like?

 

[DarkMatter]

Only time i've charged with a sustained over 60kW rate on my P85+ was on a over cast and rainy day in Napa, which reinforces my hypothesis that a major driver of slow SC speeds being talked about is the temperature of the plug/handle/connector.

During my last P85 charge in Springfield, OR the temperature was well over 90. It was the hottest SC I've had so far, what with the Northwest usually being rather cool. The rate was 89 kW by 44%. A charge in nearby Woodburn in slightly cooler sunny weather (80s) was 110 kW at 25%. I didn't log the rate later in that charge, but the estimate was accurate so I assume it was good. You should see high rates at least some of the time. 65 kW at mid charge is the worst rate I've seen in my limited Supercharging experience.