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Destination charger spec

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I live in Australia and am the proud owner of a Model S. It is a great vehicle but one of my problems is that when charging at a destination charger rated at 22Kw it only charges at 11Kw max. When purchasing the car I was shown all the maps displaying Superchargers and Destination chargers and was made to understand that I was getting free charging for life but no mention was made that Destination chargers although rated at 22Kw would only charge at 11Kw unless the car was a pre 2016 model. I am now advised that I could get a software upgrade to make it charge at 17.5Kw at a cost of $3000.00.
No mention was made of this shortcoming or the Upgrade at the time of purchase. This upgrade should be free.

What do you think.
 
I think you're posting in the wrong thread... and that you need to read the specifications of the car you're actually ordering. They've had various standard and upgrade built-in charger options since the beginning. The first version was available with either 40A or 80A. Later 48A and 72A.
 
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Moderator note: I moved the first two messages of this thread from the "The Rules of Model S Road Tripping" thread...the top post in particular certainly didn't belong there. Creating a new thread here seemed more appropriate.

Bruce
(Model S / Model X forum moderator)
 
I live in Australia and am the proud owner of a Model S. It is a great vehicle but one of my problems is that when charging at a destination charger rated at 22Kw it only charges at 11Kw max. When purchasing the car I was shown all the maps displaying Superchargers and Destination chargers and was made to understand that I was getting free charging for life but no mention was made that Destination chargers although rated at 22Kw would only charge at 11Kw unless the car was a pre 2016 model. I am now advised that I could get a software upgrade to make it charge at 17.5Kw at a cost of $3000.00.
No mention was made of this shortcoming or the Upgrade at the time of purchase. This upgrade should be free.

What do you think.
Some cars need a physical replacement of the charger, and some cars (like yours and mine) can be unlocked by software only.
When I bought my car the unlocking was an option I chose not to buy, so I can't really complain.

It would be nice for them to enable this on the software-locked cars, but then it might make the owners of non-unlockable cars annoyed.
 
I live in Australia and am the proud owner of a Model S. It is a great vehicle but one of my problems is that when charging at a destination charger rated at 22Kw it only charges at 11Kw max. When purchasing the car I was shown all the maps displaying Superchargers and Destination chargers and was made to understand that I was getting free charging for life but no mention was made that Destination chargers although rated at 22Kw would only charge at 11Kw unless the car was a pre 2016 model. I am now advised that I could get a software upgrade to make it charge at 17.5Kw at a cost of $3000.00.
No mention was made of this shortcoming or the Upgrade at the time of purchase. This upgrade should be free.

What do you think.
The standard charger on the model S has always been 11kW. With the early (pre-facelift) cars you could option dual chargers which gave 22kW. With the facelift model the charger was changed and the upgraded charger option became a software option and was limited to 17kW. Free charging related to supercharging, not destination charging, and supercharging is completely independent of the 11kW charger.

Tesla used to do a better job of communicating this, with the dual charger option in the configurator, not sure why they don't let you select the option at ordering time now. The upside for you is that it you'd optioned it with the car in the first place then you would also have been charged 33% luxury car tax and then 5% stamp duty on top again. Ordering as an upgrade later you only have to pay the GST.
 
I live in Australia and am the proud owner of a Model S. It is a great vehicle but one of my problems is that when charging at a destination charger rated at 22Kw it only charges at 11Kw max. When purchasing the car I was shown all the maps displaying Superchargers and Destination chargers and was made to understand that I was getting free charging for life but no mention was made that Destination chargers although rated at 22Kw would only charge at 11Kw unless the car was a pre 2016 model. I am now advised that I could get a software upgrade to make it charge at 17.5Kw at a cost of $3000.00.
No mention was made of this shortcoming or the Upgrade at the time of purchase. This upgrade should be free.

What do you think.
I think that unless Tesla told you that you'd be able to charge at 22kW (which I highly doubt they did) then you should not have assumed that the "up to 22kW" rating shown for (some) destination chargers would apply to your car. More than 11kW charging has always been a paid upgrade. The information on available options makes that pretty clear (or at least it used to).
 
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"When purchasing the car I was shown all the maps displaying Superchargers and Destination chargers and was made to understand that I was getting free charging for life"

Yes, Supercharging is free as thats a Tesla installation with Tesla funded electricity, as for destination chargers they are supplied by Tesla but the power is supplied by the location, on some occasions the cost of charging may be free but that is tied in with supporting the establishments business by staying overnight, having a meal/drink or even donating some cash to the staff tip jar, some locations will refuse payment for charging so it's important to thank them for installing a charging outlet when many others are unwilling to be part of the EV revolution.

As for the onboard charger- unless you are driving many miles of regional roads in the next 2 years an 11kw charger will suffice, it won't be long before the more often used regional areas will have DC fast chargers so the onboard charger will only be used at home or overnight stays.
 
Having had to plan a Tasmanian road trip on the Tesla website recently I think “Up to 22Kw” means Tesla do not know the supply the destination charger is connected to. As the property owner supplies the power many destination chargers are connected at much lower power rates than the wall connector is capable of, some as low as 6Kw. So if you are planning a trip solely using Destination chargers it’s going to be a slow trip regardless of the capacity of your vehicle’s charger.
So the potential opportunities to charge at 22Kw or even 17.5Kw are limited and when charging overnight the difference is moot. I agree that Tesla could highlight the standard charger spec better but it would be unusual for anyone to be greatly disadvantaged by the difference.
Concentrate road trip planning with the Supercharger network which are well described on the website.
 
Hi @T & A , a lot of us Tesla drivers here are business people and we generally don't tolerate being led down the garden path.

However as a Tesla owner you need to learn a new skill !

Speaking from experience, Tesla is an honourable and technically competent company. However they are often disorganised, and beset by delays and poor communications.

Once you are on this roller coaster, you just need to go with it. They are not trying to rip you off. You are not going to take them to court. You can't take your business elsewhere and still have your lovely car.

So just smile and decide whether the upgrade is worth the $.

There's a (not yet listed) Tesla Owners Club trip to Alice Springs Aug 18/19 for the Henley on Todd (Sat) and link in to AGM (Sun). I would definitely suggest the upgrade if you're on for that !
 
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I have eventually sorted out this issue.
One needs to bear in mind thar I signed for this vehicle in late 2016 (Novenber I think) when Tesla were short of buyers for the Model S in Australia, so they pushed the point that buyers got free charging for life with no conditions attaced. They also proudly showed the customer a map of all the available charging points, Destination & Superchargers, indicating the ratings of these chargers as shown on the the Tesla maps.
They later notified me that I would have to pay a further $3500.00 to make it possible to charge at 17.5Kw at destination chargers when they are all rated at 22Kw.
I complained about this and had the 17.5Kw software update at no extra cost which is still short of 22Kw.
 
I have eventually sorted out this issue.
One needs to bear in mind thar I signed for this vehicle in late 2016 (Novenber I think) when Tesla were short of buyers for the Model S in Australia, so they pushed the point that buyers got free charging for life with no conditions attaced. They also proudly showed the customer a map of all the available charging points, Destination & Superchargers, indicating the ratings of these chargers as shown on the the Tesla maps.
They later notified me that I would have to pay a further $3500.00 to make it possible to charge at 17.5Kw at destination chargers when they are all rated at 22Kw.
I complained about this and had the 17.5Kw software update at no extra cost which is still short of 22Kw.
What build date was your car? (or at least, when did you take delivery?)
It's worth asking if the Sydney service centre would unlock my charger if it's just a software switch.
 
I complained about this and had the 17.5Kw software update at no extra cost which is still short of 22Kw.
Welcome to the forum and glad you got the outcome that you were after. It's actually the first time I've heard of someone getting that for free so you must have had a reasonable argument.

I'm not rally value adding here to the topic, but I noticed that your profile summary, next to each post, is showing your exact address publicly. You might want to edit your profile settings to maybe just show suburb.
 
Welcome to the forum and glad you got the outcome that you were after. It's actually the first time I've heard of someone getting that for free so you must have had a reasonable argument.

I'm not rally value adding here to the topic, but I noticed that your profile summary, next to each post, is showing your exact address publicly. You might want to edit your profile settings to maybe just show suburb.
Or at least get more than 8 solar panels on your roof (thanks Google Maps).
 
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