Do they sometimes limit supercharger speed?

[Reality Studio]

Quick question, does anyone know if superchargers sometimes limit charging speed? My wife took her Model X to a 150kw supercharger in Westlake Village, CA and was surprised how it capped at 56kw so I decided to try my Model 3 performance at the same location to see if it was an issue with her car. I went on three occasions including once at 2am when I was the only car there and saw the same thing, it would race up to 56kw then abruptly stop and go no faster. I've only used superchargers a handful of times but I have definitely seen my car charge significantly faster than that so I was curious, is this normal? Do superchargers sometimes just cap their speed at certain times of the year?

 

[UncleCreepy]

The only cap I can think of is the shared power between two stalls that have the same number, e.g. 2A and 2B.

Other than that, the temperature and the state of charge will have an effect on the charging speed. But that's car related and has nothing to do with the supercharger.

 

[lUtriaNt]

in addition, could have been broken stalls. i rely on SC since i cant charge at my flat, and for me (model 3 driver) i dont experience or have not experienced throttling.

ive charged the car 5 times since ive had it and the charge the SC is supposed to output has always been what i expect. i charge typically in Glendale and sometimes burbank on 3rd street. glendale is cool because its inside and with the mall closed its no one around, save other tesal users who come through..

 

[SSedan]

My first question was weather, if the pack is below about 50f Regen is limited. Then I looked at the weather there and that seems to not have been a factor.

Might be a hardware issue at the supercharger.

Fact of the matter is Tesla has played a lot of games. Older cars often 85kwh S have been seeing supercharging speeds cut, charge cap reduced without real explanation. Think this can affect earlier Xs but we haven't seen it in 3s yet.

I say yet because without explanation we don't know what is going on and right up till it happened everyone was happy as could be with the lack of degradation and good charging speeds be of the older cars.

 

[Saghost]

Times of year, no. But there are a bunch of factors in how much power you get at a given moment - battery temperature and state of charge, connector temperature/resistance, load sharing, etc.

If you get a low maximum when your pack is warm and the site isn’t busy, try a different stall with a different charger cabinet number. There can be degraded plugs or cabinets that are functional but won’t give the car everything the car could take.

 

[glide]

Short answer is “yes”.

Try a different stall. Otherwise the factors could be localized at your vehicle(s)

 

[Reality Studio]

Hmm interesting. We've tried 7 stalls with her Model X and 3 stalls with my Model 3, and I've tried with mine both with prepping the battery for supercharging and not prepping it but always the same thing, it races in about a second to 56kw then stops. Plus we both get faster supercharging speeds at a nearby in theory slower 72kw supercharger, so I'm going to assume the 150kw supercharger at Westlake Village is either broken, or they have purposely restricted it for some reason. We'll ignore that one and stick to the 72kw one in Thousand Oaks that seems to oddly charge faster. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[ptronus31]

Charge speed is also dependent upon your battery's state of charge (SoC). From about 10-50% you should see full speed on a normal Supercharger. Above 50% it will drop off and around 90-95% it will drop to near Level 2 charger speeds.

 

[Saghost]

Hmm interesting. We've tried 7 stalls with her Model X and 3 stalls with my Model 3, and I've tried with mine both with prepping the battery for supercharging and not prepping it but always the same thing, it races in about a second to 56kw then stops. Plus we both get faster supercharging speeds at a nearby in theory slower 72kw supercharger, so I'm going to assume the 150kw supercharger at Westlake Village is either broken, or they have purposely restricted it for some reason. We'll ignore that one and stick to the 72kw one in Thousand Oaks that seems to oddly charge faster. Thanks for the help everyone.

What was the weather like?
How far did you drive to the site?
What was the car’s state of charge when you plugged in?
Do you know what the battery temperature was?

For some combinations of answers to the above, that can be normal behavior, or it might mean there’s an issue with the site.

 

[Reality Studio]

What was the weather like?
How far did you drive to the site?
What was the car’s state of charge when you plugged in?
Do you know what the battery temperature was?

For some combinations of answers to the above, that can be normal behavior, or it might mean there’s an issue with the site.

We've tried all types of situations, battery anywhere between 25% to 75% charge, cool 50 degrees to hot 90 degrees temperature, preconditioned battery and non preconditioned battery, next to other cars, not next to other cars, being the only car at the entire supercharger, multiple stalls, short drive to it, long drive to it, etc, nothing matters on either of our cars, they will both cap at 56kw at that particular supercharger every time.

I'm fairly convinced it's either broken or purposely limited because even though we don't supercharge much, pretty much every other supercharger we've used is faster than this one. That includes the smaller looking 72kw superchargers, even those charge faster than this particular location. Maybe I should report this to Tesla? Is there any way to do that?

 

[Saghost]

Maybe I should report this to Tesla? Is there any way to do that?

There should be a phone number on a sticker on the pedestal that will connect you with Tesla help.

I’ve never come across a case like you’re describing. If you’ve tried all those variations and various stalls it doesn’t sound like it is related to your cars or a specific cable or cabinet, but there shouldn’t be a global power limit.

If nothing else, it might be educational to see what the help line says is happening.

 

[lUtriaNt]

im going to guess they may have been broken or some issue related to the infrastructure . i went to glendale today and got ~70kw (started with a 28% soc) and it was full to the brim (these are urban chargers) with cars from the X to the S to the 3. charged to 90% in 45 minutes.

 

[Reality Studio]

Yeah it's probably infrastructure related. I went again today and same limitation, I attached two pics. I was in slot 12b, no one was in slot 12a, same issue. Not the end of the world, I'll just avoid this supercharger station.

 

[toolman335]

I've seen this by me in New Hampshire. I have a brand new SC in my town, and another that has been around for years that's 30 minutes away. The new one is much slower compared to the old one. It's not even close.
That being said, I'm very happy to have one in town and it's at a supermarket. I'll never complain that it's too slow, but it consistently takes twice as long to charge there(a solid hour to go from 15%-85%). I'm never in a hurry though. I like chilling out in the car after getting groceries and unwinding.
The old SC goes from 15-85 before I can get my coffee inside the Panera that's near it lol. It's too fast!

 

[Scrannel]

I thought... that if one has free super charging, and then rely solely or almost solely on a nearby charger, Tesla could throttle you.

 

[MXLRplus]

Nevermind. Plugshare has no reports of slow charging.

 

[toolman335]

I thought... that if one has free super charging, and then rely solely or almost solely on a nearby charger, Tesla could throttle you.

I've heard something along those lines too lol.
That being said, it's rural New Hampshire and I've never seen more than one car there at a time(even when I check the app there are always at least 6/8 available). I assume Tesla would care less about my case because there's no demand?
Also, by your definition of throttle I assume you mean they could get mad at me. I highly doubt they'd slow down my charging speed in my hometown, correct?

 

[Reality Studio]

My wife's Model X does have unlimited free supercharging, but my Model 3 Performance does not. I'm only using the free 1000 miles that I got with mine, but both my car and hers still get the same slow rate only at that particular supercharger. Other thing is I have gotten significantly faster supercharging at other locations, maybe around 600+ miles per hour or in that ballpark but I don't remember the exact kW number. Hence I figure it can't be the car since it does charge fast elsewhere, and it can't be throttling because I don't have unlimited free supercharger miles, I don't actually use superchargers much, and because I even went once to that particular supercharger at 2am when I was the only car there and had the same issue. It's gotta be something related to that particular location, maybe a maintenance issue.

 

[Scrannel]

Of note: https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-speed-number-charges/

And... Tesla Sends Out Supercharger Abuse Emails - Many Model S Owners Not Impressed

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

Quick question, does anyone know if superchargers sometimes limit charging speed? My wife took her Model X to a 150kw supercharger in Westlake Village, CA and was surprised how it capped at 56kw so I decided to try my Model 3 performance at the same location to see if it was an issue with her car. I went on three occasions including once at 2am when I was the only car there and saw the same thing, it would race up to 56kw then abruptly stop and go no faster. I've only used superchargers a handful of times but I have definitely seen my car charge significantly faster than that so I was curious, is this normal? Do superchargers sometimes just cap their speed at certain times of the year?

Not for Model 3.

Could have been a problem with the Supercharger.