Exclusive 50kw charging - battery damage

[NewTangerine]

Hi everyone

Does anyone have any personal experience or other information on the long term impact of using almost exclusively 50Kw charging on a MIC model 3?

I have a cheap 50kw charger outside my house, and cheap 7kw charging near the office.

Personally I’d rather use the 50kw charger so (i) I don’t have to get up early to guarantee a spot and (ii) I don’t hog a charging space all day if I don’t really need to.

However, I’m worried if this will leave me worse off in the long term. Less so about slightly faster rate of battery degradation, but more that that heavy DC usage (even if below 1C) will cause ‘throttling’ as some older cars with heavy supercharge usage have seen.

Thanks!

 

[Durzel]

What is your anticipated period of ownership of the car?

Is it bought outright, or leased/PCP?

It is almost impossible to say with any certainty to what degree of battery degradation you'd see by exclusively DC 50kW charging. I'd imagine you'd see some, relative to 7kW AC charging, but you might find that whatever impact it has isn't realised in a practical lifetime (e.g. several years).

 

[Rice&Curry]

DC to DC fast chargers will probably degrade the battery more compared to regular home charging. However it depends on the frequency of charging daily/weekly/occasionally and the period of car ownership and use in years.

 

[Irata]

I think there are many people who would be very happy to have this dilemma, it's good to hear of someone with a surplus of charging.

I am not sure there is anything more than opinion out there to be honest. Much regarding degradation has come from a respected dedicated few in the public domain who spend time looking at charts and reading publications.

I can say... Tesla are happy for you to charge either way and the warranty will still stand.

Over a very long term, degradation has been shown to even out across the fleet (ignoring the edge cases). For example, those with higher early degradation have less later on.

I've seen some publications that say LFP and NCA/NMC aren't that different over the long term, or that encouraging high degradation early on may even "coat" the battery to preserve it long term. There is a M3 battery forum on this site with lots of information and pointers to some of these publications.

So over a "long term", you may actually have less to worry about than if someone is worried over say three years when most degradation occurs. Even if you were higher degradation than most to start with, others will catch you up eventually.

 

[Scottish mod3]

In my opinion, LFP battery is very understated, studies has shown the chemistry much more resilient than the typical NCA /NMC, ie little impact from high SOC and indeed less affected by DC charging..also its much safer.. its superior to the other battery chemistries, only downside is that its heavier hence only available for Sr+... for now at least. ( previously cold weather impact was called out but had been addressed via software update)

Some lengthy and the study also can be found here. Post in thread 'MASTER THREAD: Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery ... MASTER THREAD: Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

 

[Adopado]

In my opinion, LFP battery is very understated, studies has shown the chemistry much more resilient than the typical NCA /NMC, ie little impact from high SOC and indeed less affected by DC charging..also its much safer.. its superior to the other battery chemistries, only downside is that its heavier hence only available for Sr+... for now at least.

For clarity on model designation the SR+ no longer exists as a car that can be ordered new on Tesla's website. The car is now simply known as "Model 3" and that will be the one with the LFP battery with 305 mile WLTP range and a slightly slower 0-60mph (5.8sec).

 

[Llama.]

I think you may notice a marginal difference in battery degradation over 100k miles with mostly 50kW charging compared to 7kw home charging .

But like others have said this may not really be that noticeable or even impact how you use the car. Also your battery warranty isn’t affected by the way you charge.

I can’t remember if you mention what battery your M3 would have but It sounds like any Tesla battery configuration (NMC or LFP) is fairly durable and isn’t going to cause you issues with significant battery degradation.

It’s great you have these charging options. I’d just go for it and enjoy!

 

[NewbieT]

I wouldn’t worry about 45kW it’s not like it’s 250kW. If you only DC charge the car may give you warning or eventually force you to AC charge for a time, presumably to balance the cells.

 

[MrBadger]

Doesn’t Tesla monitor the amount of DC charging (not specifically Supercharging) and used this knobble charge rates of some earlier vehicles? #batterygate

I’m sure I have seen this still being recorded on newer cars but it’s probably too early to know if Tesla may do similar. Iirc they got into a bit of trouble over #batterygate

 

[dakaix]

Doesn’t Tesla monitor the amount of DC charging (not specifically Supercharging) and used this knobble charge rates of some earlier vehicles? #batterygate

I’m sure I have seen this still being recorded on newer cars but it’s probably too early to know if Tesla may do similar. Iirc they got into a bit of trouble over #batterygate

Yes, there's only two charging counters in the BMS (at least exposed on CANBUS) - AC and DC.

So the speed of charging is in effect immaterial, since the nerf/limit on supercharging speed will be applied from that DC counter. However it's far too early to make any predictions, there aren't enough old Model 3's with LFP packs to judge when/if any limit will happen.

@NewTangerine: Take a look at some of Bjorn Nyland's videos on long-term reviews, he's done a number of charging tests with older Model S/3.