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Finally Got to Try a V3 SC...

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I stopped last night at the (relatively) new V3 SC at Wawa in Bensalem, PA. 2019 M3SR+ on 2020.20.12. I hit the supercharger after a roughly 60-mile drive, a brief stop (10 minutes tops), then navigated a couple of miles to the SC so that pre-conditioning started (I’m surprised that 60 miles with a/c on I-95 does not warm up the battery sufficiently - the last hour of the drive before the 10-minute break was at 65 - 70mph). Arrived at the charger with about 35% SoC. Got 61kW. I was the only car at the SC. After a few minutes on the charger it sped up to 62kW. I didn’t need that much charge to get home (just wanted some extra safety cushion for potential construction-related delays or re-routes - my total charging session was only 11 minutes), so it wasn’t worth disconnecting and trying another station.

That was disappointing. I know faster charging is more “stress” on my battery and I really didn’t need really fast charging, but I would have liked to see a big number roll up on the screen - a new personal high-water mark, if you will. Maybe next time.
 
I got to try one this past weekend. San Diego to Tacna, AZ. It was fun but short lived.
 

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@SageBrush: I acknowledge that is definitely not enough time, but 62 kW? I’ve gotten better charge rates very recently at V2 chargers that I visited on a lark with no pre-conditioning.

Arriving at 35% SoC is still pretty high (when it comes to supercharging) and if the battery wasn’t warmed up to temp then that’s all you’re gonna get. To get the full 250kW you have to have perfect conditions... And being a SR+ it maxes at like 170kW I think.



Read up in this section - Model 3: Battery & Charging
 
I’m not saying that I expected to get the max. I’m saying I expected to get a better charge rate than I get at V2 chargers under similar conditions. I’ve gotten at least 100kW with a similar pre-conditioning duration and a higher starting SoC at the V2 supercharger in Newark, DE. I expected V3 to be faster than V2 given equal or more favorable conditions.
 
I’m not saying that I expected to get the max. I’m saying I expected to get a better charge rate than I get at V2 chargers under similar conditions. I’ve gotten at least 100kW with a similar pre-conditioning duration and a higher starting SoC at the V2 supercharger in Newark, DE. I expected V3 to be faster than V2 given equal or more favorable conditions.

Unless you were watching the actual temp of the battery then you can't know the conditions. The charger could also have been having trouble if you want to go that way.

V3's can...push more power but that doesn't mean your car is up to take it every time.
 
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I would not assume every plug at a SC is V3 just because the app says something has V3. I stopped at the SpaceX HQ supercharger the other day and they only had 3 out of the 10 or so chargers were V3. The rest were all 72 kW city chargers.
 
I would not assume every plug at a SC is V3 just because the app says something has V3. I stopped at the SpaceX HQ supercharger the other day and they only had 3 out of the 10 or so chargers were V3. The rest were all 72 kW city chargers.

There are a few locations with mixed rates but most are one charge rate. If it’s a V3 it’ll say 250kW on the screen. You can also tel from the cable type (it’ll be thin) and on the inside of the charger in the red it’ll say 250kW
 
One thing I noticed about the Bensalem V3 SCs - the cables seemed very thick, not “thinner,” as some folks have described V3 charger cables. These cables seemed thicker and more unwieldy than those at V2 chargers I’ve used. The unwieldiness and stiffness of the cables could be because they are brand new. The SC is labeled 250kW on the web site, so I’m pretty sure it was at least supposed to be V3, but I was not looking for any special markings on the chargers themselves. I also did not see any numbers painted on the curbs or ground in front of the stalls, but it was starting to get dark and I may have simply not seen them, but no one else was charging there, so it didn’t matter and I didn’t look too hard.

As I said, I didn’t need much of a charge, just a bit of safety cushion, so I didn’t bother trying other stalls. I’ve heard that occasionally you just get a bad stall and that moving to another will often yield a more reasonable charge rate. We were roughly in the middle of the line of stalls. On an unrelated note there was an ICE backed into one of the end stalls despite the availability of many closer parking spaces at the sidewalk around the store.
 
My one and only real v3 charging session was this last weekend. I arrived at 37 miles (12%) and left 6 minutes later at 133 miles (43%) with more than enough juice to make it 75 miles to my home for an overnight charge. Typically, a 150 kW site takes me about 10 minutes for the "same" recharge session.
 
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My one and only real v3 charging session was this last weekend. I arrived at 37 miles (12%) and left 6 minutes later at 133 miles (43%) with more than enough juice to make it 75 miles to my home for an overnight charge. Typically, a 150 kW site takes me about 10 minutes for the "same" recharge session.
Perfect use of a Supercharger. I might have been tempted to shave a minute or even two but my more reasonable wife would have forced me out of the car from some exercise.

Let's see:
96 miles in 6 minutes = 16 miles a minute = 4 kWh a minute
= 240 kW average

Mistake in my arithmetic, or did you stay seven minutes ?
 
I was billed for 6 minutes, so it was something between 6:00 and 6:59. I didn’t use the stopwatch, just going off the billing history. A seven minute session would have put it at 205 kW average.
Yep.

Back in the day before real data, my calcs suggested that we might average 180 kW charging with ideally spaced, 150 miles between Superchargers so your experience certainly fits into the as expected category.

Amazing, wot ?
 
Got a chance to revisit the Bensalem SC last night, same trip I ran before except instead of 85 degrees it was only 71 degrees and this time I arrived with an SoC of 46% instead of 35%. Same deal: drove, stopped 10 minutes, drove 2 miles to the SC (with preconditioning, as before), used a different hose than before, and got an initial charge rate of 81 kW. Again, charge rate not that important to the trip - I was only adding some safety margin and stayed for about 10 or 15 minutes, finishing with a charge rate in the low 30 kW range.

While we were there, we saw a woman wander out of the Wawa. She appeared to be dressed normally, not shabby or dirty-looking. She stopped by the edge of the sidewalk and made some strange gestures, looked kind of loopy and unstable in her gait. We watched her as she made her way through the parking lot and she was clearly impaired. There was a Model S charging about 5 hoses down from us with the driver sitting in it. She walked up to it, followed the length of the car to the charging cable, put her face about 8 inches from the port, staring at the charging plug, then followed the charging cable back to the charger with her face (like she was riding the cable with her face), then leaned back, put her hands out wide, as if to say, “Wow!” Then she stumbled off into the night. They should have her at all super chargers.