Home Supercharger v Dual Chargers

[ZTrekus]

As I understand it, the home charger does not directly charge the car. It provides AC energy to the onboard charger which then regulates how the charging occurs in the best interests of the long-term life of the battery.

The trouble is that the onboard charger can 'bottleneck' at currents above 40A and so they give the buyer the option of purchasing the "Dual Charger" option which allows a greater current through to the battery.

The Tesla Superchargers are different. As I understand it, they provide DC directly to the battery (bypassing the onboard charger) and thereby bypassing the 'bottleneck'.

Thing is though: Rather than give the purchaser one option at purchase time only - ie, Factory Fitted Dual Charger - why not give the owner of purchasing his or her own supercharger for home. I mean at the time of purchase, one may only have single phase, no plans for extreme use of the car etc... But then circumstances may change. One may get three phase, and want to supercharge the battery from the comfort of their garage.

So, why not home superchargers?

 

[cynix]

I heard the cost of a Supercharger is estimated at around $150,000 — a bit too much for home use I'd say.

Home charging is designed to happen overnight while you're asleep, so speed shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Dborn]

Do you have 200 amps and nearly 400 volts available just to feed the supercharger? That is what they put out, albeit in DC.
A 3 phase wall connector ( due out "soon" - that is, Tesla "soon" which has a whole different definition), will give you 22Kw of power. Since with dual chargers, you can use all of that (on 3 phase), your car will charge from empty in about 3 -4 hours!!. No need for a home supercharger.

 

[Gabz]

So, why not home superchargers?

Superchargers are max power at 120kW so would require at least 150amps on the AC side 3 phase, which is a lot of power. at most supercharging sites they would have a dedicated transformer for just that site. in the newest areas house are given a standard connection to the grid of 63amps 3phase and sometimes as high as 100amps. anything higher is price on application.

then there is the cost superchargers would cost tesla at least 30-50k at a reasonable guess since they don't sell them its hard to know how much they would cost. so the biggest problem for you is Tesla don't sell them to anyone.

the closest you can get is a CHAdeMO adapter and a 50kW CHAdeMO compatible charger which would set you back $500ish for the adapter and $30-60k for the chademo charger. NOTE: a 50kW chademo still needs around 80amps 3phase

dual chargers gets you to 20kW of charging capacity for the lowest cost compared to above. you can pick up a 3 phase EVSE for $1600AUD.

 

[JOH]

I heard the cost of a Supercharger is estimated at around $150,000 — a bit too much for home use I'd say.

Home charging is designed to happen overnight while you're asleep, so speed shouldn't be an issue.

In addition to the costs, I understand that superchargers deliver up to 120Kw per hour....which I believe would require the home to effectively have a 500 amp supply. I know that they require locations for supercharger to have a 500KvA supply available. It's unlikely any homes would have been provided this such supply.

 

[gizmonty]

I think we can file this in the same drawer as 'why don't they just put a solar panel on the roof of the car?'.

 

[gregincal]

I have a slightly different take on it. There's no reason that a supercharger has to be that high powered. You could have supercharger with a lower max power if you wanted. However, there's nothing magic about a supercharger either, it's the same charger (which just converts AC->DC) that's in the car moved to a separate box. Tesla offers the option of 1 or 2 on board chargers, but they stack like 10 chargers into a supercharger. However, even 2 chargers pretty much maxes out what you want to draw at home, and it's definitely more flexible to have the chargers in the car where you can use them anywhere rather than buying the same chargers and having them permanently fixed in the garage.