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If anything, you don't have to worry about the battery level much arriving at a Supercharger. The new cells don't have a high peak and then ramp down significantly like the old ones. With my battery I have to drive the battery empty as much as possible to get the best charge rate. Definitely not ideal because it's risky. With the 90/100 it matters much less if you arrive a little higher or lower. I think that's great.
Also close but not quite...
When it was 92-93% (some debate which...) the names were "standard" and "range". The rename came with the percentage changes.
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Candleflame
Active Member
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
Exactly. The point is that the superchargers are being advertised as "designed to replenish over half a charge in 20 minutes." That's a big selling point, because needing to spend 20 minutes at a supercharger stop sounds a lot better to a prospective owner than needing to spend an hour.
If I arrive at a low SOC and get throttled down to 50 kW right away, as in @David99 's graph, then by definition it's going to take longer to get the energy I need to continue my trip, compared to when the supercharger could sustain a rate of ~100kW between 10% and 50%. Certainly it's going to be more than 20 minutes. Also, it's extra time that stall is unavailable for the next person to use.
Careful not to conflate these two instances of throttling. One appears to be driven by overheat protection of the connector handle, while the other is clearly related to degradation of the cells in the pack.
I can't tell what has caused my car to drop the charge rate to 50-60 kW, but I actually doubt it was the handle or connector overheating. The power reduction happened very soon after I plugged in so there was not enough time for heat to really build up. The handle wasn't warm when I touched it. That doesn't mean heat problem are never the cause.
@David99 - see my post here (349):
Some California Superchargers not providing maximum charging rates
Is what you are observing consistent with my observations or are you seeing something else?
Some California Superchargers not providing maximum charging rates
Is what you are observing consistent with my observations or are you seeing something else?
n2mb_racing
Active Member
Would tesla replace a battery just because of slow charging? From everything I've read it seems that Tesla fights hard not to give people new batteries under most circumstances. Maybe someone has a better idea than me. Tesla flat out refused to give me an answer 5 different times about how its battery warranty actually works, and they also refused to tell me on many occasions what a normal battery degredation rate is. The best I could get out of them was that they monitor battery logs and if they see anything abnormal they'll be proactive an contact the customer to let them know something is wrong. So, they have all the power, and with no information out there on what is abnormal, when you go to tell them you have 10% degredation and need a new battery, they can easily say "that's normal."
I had to resort to reading about owners doing self documentation to actually figure out what a normal battery looks like. Luckily tesla drivers have been pretty meticulous.
That's very true. Tesla has never clearly defined what the battery warranty covers. So far reduction of capacity or performance has not been grounds to replace a battery. We all know batteries age with time and use. Tesla doesn't give us a warranty that this doesn't happen, and i think that is reasonable. But without having defined what normal wear and tear is, what is the threshold? Tesloop had a car with 6% degradation after 200k miles and Tesla replaced the battery with one that also showed 6% loss.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
It's actually very clear what the battery warranty covers...It covers defects and failures for 8 years. It does not cover normal degradation.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default.../model_s_new_vehicle_limited_warranty_2.1.pdf
Page 3
Things that can void that warranty are in the owner's manual.
They replaced it because the BMS wasn't properly reporting the charge state, since the BMS code wasn't setup to handle the high mileage of the Tesloop car yet. (At least that is what they said.)
Thanks Jeff. It says...
Loss of Battery energy or power over time or due to or resulting from Battery usage, is NOT covered under this Battery Limited Warranty.
Since it is undefined what amout of energy or power loss is normal or not, Tesla can define any loss as not covered.
Loss of Battery energy or power over time or due to or resulting from Battery usage, is NOT covered under this Battery Limited Warranty.
Since it is undefined what amout of energy or power loss is normal or not, Tesla can define any loss as not covered.
Yep, I read that article and honestly it sounds fishy to me. If it was a software issue, they could update the software. Why replace the battery if it's fine?
JeffK
Well-Known Member
Battery loss will be different if they make tweaks to the chemistry. So far they've always been one of the best in the industry.
Loss simply isn't covered so it doesn't matter how much loss naturally occurs. There's no reason to define it. If there's something dramatic like it'll only hold a 25% charge then there's obviously some other kind of failure going on. If the cells are defective then they're defective, that's not normal loss so that'd be something that's covered.
If you need the warranty you'd know it, it'll be obvious. There's not a cut off were if you lose 11.2 % instead of 11.1% in 8 years they'll replace it or some such nonsense. Chevy has 60% capacity in 8 years. 8 year old Teslas are nowhere close to 60% capacity when they get out of warranty. Regardless, degradation is explicitly excluded so no need to worry about an exact number.
If you get a complete failure then it's covered. Either way, you'll be out of warranty long before any significant degradation unless there's a defect in cooling, BMS, etc, with which you'll probably get a warning.
There is a reasonable limit on what loss should be consider not OK. Nissan knows all about it. Battery manufacturers consider 20% loss of capacity the end of the life of a battery. The number of cycles they claim their battery can do is based on 80% of the original capacity. So there is an industry standard than all agree to.
Eventually every battery will lose capacity and it will drop to 80%. If that happens after 10 years I think we all would consider that reasonable. If it happens after 3 years, not so much. Tesla didn't know how the batteries would hold up after 10 years of use. In fact we still don't know until 2022/23. That's why they didn't make any statement on what amount of degradation is normal.
Eventually every battery will lose capacity and it will drop to 80%. If that happens after 10 years I think we all would consider that reasonable. If it happens after 3 years, not so much. Tesla didn't know how the batteries would hold up after 10 years of use. In fact we still don't know until 2022/23. That's why they didn't make any statement on what amount of degradation is normal.
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
Supercharged at Gilroy yesterday using stall 7B, which appears to be one of the newer ones across the aisle from the original stalls. (Had planned to charge at Seaside but it was full and one car was waiting. In the 10 minutes it took to get from Monterey to Seaside, we watched the onscreen display update from '4 of 6 stalls filled' to '6 of 6 stalls filled'. Ugh!)
Relevant to this thread, my charging rate initially ramped up to about 50kW and fluctuated for half a minute or so before dropping like a stone down to 6kW. Then it quickly ramped all the way back up to 106kW and sustained that rate past 50% SOC. We actually did get over half a charge in 20 minutes!
The charging handle was not the least bit warm to the touch when I unplugged.
Relevant to this thread, my charging rate initially ramped up to about 50kW and fluctuated for half a minute or so before dropping like a stone down to 6kW. Then it quickly ramped all the way back up to 106kW and sustained that rate past 50% SOC. We actually did get over half a charge in 20 minutes!
The charging handle was not the least bit warm to the touch when I unplugged.
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