Is Unlimited Supercharging Speed Limited?

[seanmoto]

Has anybody ever noticed that your supercharging speed is limited when you have unlimited supercharging?

I just purchased a 2016 Model X from a third party dealer and before the car was put into my Tesla account I supercharged at charging station near my house that is a 150kw charger and I was getting charging speeds of about 450mph+. My car was then added to my Tesla account a couple of days ago and I went back to the same charging station and the speed was cut in half. I do have unlimited charging that came with the car.

Sorry if this topic has been disussed already. Thanks

 

[Les236]

Yes. It is nothing to do with whether or not you have unlimited charging or not. It was originally discussed in a Model S thread. There are several things that affect your charging speeds. Do you know about the "sharing"? If you pull up to pedestal 1A and someone is at 1B, you are sharing the 150kwh. Always select a non-paired pedestal if possible. Also, battery temperature can matter, but being in LA I doubt that is an issue. The state of charge also matters. If you start at 10-15% all the way to 60-70% charge you will get the maximum charge rate and somewhere between 60-70% the charge rate starts ramping down.

There is also "limited supercharging" if there have been too many DC charges. I don't recall the number.

Basically once you cross a certain number of DC charging, they start limiting the speed, according to Tesla, to protect the battery and prolong the lifespan. I hit 150kwh a few times last summer before I crossed the line. I travel predominately on trips, so the majority of my charging was at SuC and not at any homes. Starting in I think this past March, I started hitting a maximum of 109Kwh. That is from 5-48% charge. Starting between 48-50% it starts tapering down and by 60% charge you are down to 75kwh, by 70% to 65kwh, 80% to 50% or so.

 

[seanmoto]

Yes. It is nothing to do with whether or not you have unlimited charging or not. It was originally discussed in a Model S thread. There are several things that affect your charging speeds. Do you know about the "sharing"? If you pull up to pedestal 1A and someone is at 1B, you are sharing the 150kwh. Always select a non-paired pedestal if possible. Also, battery temperature can matter, but being in LA I doubt that is an issue. The state of charge also matters. If you start at 10-15% all the way to 60-70% charge you will get the maximum charge rate and somewhere between 60-70% the charge rate starts ramping down.

There is also "limited supercharging" if there have been too many DC charges. I don't recall the number.

Basically once you cross a certain number of DC charging, they start limiting the speed, according to Tesla, to protect the battery and prolong the lifespan. I hit 150kwh a few times last summer before I crossed the line. I travel predominately on trips, so the majority of my charging was at SuC and not at any homes. Starting in I think this past March, I started hitting a maximum of 109Kwh. That is from 5-48% charge. Starting between 48-50% it starts tapering down and by 60% charge you are down to 75kwh, by 70% to 65kwh, 80% to 50% or so.

That's very interesting. Thanks for clarifying. That's curious about the DC charging. Thanks for taking the time!

 

[Rockster]

Yeah, it’s really frustrating on trips, now that charging can take 25 to 40% longer. What’s especially annoying is we got a “new” battery right before they started throttling our charging rate. While the battery was almost certainly a rebuilt pack, it had restored our range to factory new. Even if their contention that they need to protect older batteries from repeated fast charging then they should have reset our fast charging count when we got a rebuilt battery.

 

[glide]

Has anybody ever noticed that your supercharging speed is limited when you have unlimited supercharging?

I just purchased a 2016 Model X from a third party dealer and before the car was put into my Tesla account I supercharged at charging station near my house that is a 150kw charger and I was getting charging speeds of about 450mph+. My car was then added to my Tesla account a couple of days ago and I went back to the same charging station and the speed was cut in half. I do have unlimited charging that came with the car.

Sorry if this topic has been disussed already. Thanks

Depending on your battery, Tesla is likely throttling your supercharging speeds.

Hope you weren’t planning on any out of town driving. It basically makes road trips impossible. There is a 600+ page thread in the Model S battery forum.

 

[dannycamps]

Another point of note is that the charging speed will taper down and slow as the battery fills. For example, if you plug in with 20% state of charge, you may see 140-150kW but that will drop to under 120kW by 50% and gradually drop to a trickle as it gets above 80%.

 

[P85_DA]

OP I assume u have a 90 batt as well those were some problematic batteries and if I recall if u had a V1,2 of the 90 batt those no longer could charge more than 100kwh anymore

 

[animorph]

The "MPH" number is also an average across the entire charging session. It will decline as you charge.

 

[RedXowner]

Another point of note is that the charging speed will taper down and slow as the battery fills. For example, if you plug in with 20% state of charge, you may see 140-150kW but that will drop to under 120kW by 50% and gradually drop to a trickle as it gets above 80%.

I have the Oct 2016 MX, and this is exactly my experience. I try to run the battery down to about 12-20% so that when I pull into a SuCh, I get the fastest charge rate initially. Seems 138kW is the best I can get at a 150kW SuCh. It slowly tapers down from 138 to about 130 at 40% and continues tapering to about 120kW at 50%, then the tapering rate increases with % fill. By the time I get to 70%, I'm down to about 80kW or maybe less. So as soon as I see my estimated % fill at my next scheduled SuCh hit 5%, I'm out of there. That 5% always climbs as I drive. By the time I get to that next scheduled SuCh station, I normally arrive with another 20% still in the battery.

 

[MP3Mike]

The "MPH" number is also an average across the entire charging session. It will decline as you charge.

Not anymore. It is now represents what you are currently getting.

 

[KentuckyX]

So as soon as I see my estimated % fill at my next scheduled SuCh hit 5%, I'm out of there. That 5% always climbs as I drive. By the time I get to that next scheduled SuCh station, I normally arrive with another 20% still in the battery.

Do you find that to be the case even during cool/cold weather? This is my first winter with an X and I have a trip coming up next week and temps will be fairly low.

 

[Bigriver]

Basically once you cross a certain number of DC charging, they start limiting the speed, according to Tesla, to protect the battery and prolong the lifespan. I hit 150kwh a few times last summer before I crossed the line. I travel predominately on trips, so the majority of my charging was at SuC and not at any homes. Starting in I think this past March, I started hitting a maximum of 109Kwh.

I also have a MX 100D, about 6 months older than yours, about the same number of miles, and primarily charged with superchargers. I’ve hit no limits. I agree with @RedXowner that 138 kW is the peak I see at 150 kW SCs. My taper usually is faster than he reports. I don’t think I’m ever above 100 kW at 50% SOC.

 

[dannycamps]

Do you find that to be the case even during cool/cold weather? This is my first winter with an X and I have a trip coming up next week and temps will be fairly low.

It tends to be (although not as extreme of a gain in colder temps). That is because when first leaving a location, your kWh used is very high and then levels off as you drive. This causes initial range estimates to be lower than they are. Worst case I have seen is getting pretty much exactly what it said I would. Obviously speed, terrain, etc... play into this as well.

I always plan for a little buffer space. Being no stranger to an EV (coming up on two years with a Tesla and three prior with a Volt), I know the impact of colder temps on range so I always factor that in.

I am also the kind of person that gets nervous when the fuel guage gets to around 1/4 tank though so YMMV. Bottom line, if I am planning to drive 100 miles, I always try to make sure I have at least 200 miles of range.

 

[tommytuna]

on my 2017 100 D i ran battery down to 27% and got 145 KW at the start and it slowly tapered off as i got to 75% where it ended at 65ish. Overall quite happy to see the quick speed on front end.

 

[RedXowner]

Do you find that to be the case even during cool/cold weather? This is my first winter with an X and I have a trip coming up next week and temps will be fairly low.

I guess the answer would depend on how cold. I haven't taken a long trip in my X in February, but last trip was end of November. Highs were around 55ish. Driving the car warms the battery, so I wouldn't think cold would have much effect unless driving in "very" cold temps that wouldn't allow the batteries to warm up sufficiently with normal driving. If the batteries had to use energy to warm the batteries, you'd obviously lose range with the extra power used to keep the batteries warm. Sorry, I don't know the temp range at which this happens. I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Stin121]

on my 2017 100 D i ran battery down to 27% and got 145 KW at the start and it slowly tapered off as i got to 75% where it ended at 65ish. Overall quite happy to see the quick speed on front end.

I just did this yesterday, although a bit lower. I arrived at the SC with 3% slowly started at 45kW and when I hit 17% I was at 132kW, and I maxed out at 148kW at 25% SOC. from there I tapered off. My battery was warm, I had driven for about an hour +/- to get to the SC. Exterior temp was 31F.

I have a 17' 90D MX. Not sure if it makes too much of a difference, but I was at a V3 SC. I have in the past gotten 157kW at peak charging, although it was warmer out when this happened.

 

[Les236]

I had been limited to no more than 108 kwh charging for some time, with a rate of around 60 kwh once over 50% and dropping fast. I have over 15,000 kwh of DC charging since most of my usage is traveling. On 12/26/2020 I updated to 2020.48.26 software and immediately noticed 155 kwh charging again as well as higher rates above 50% than I have seen in a while. I didn't know if this was a fluke or not, but I continued on my trip from MA to FL a few days later and noticed high speed charging along the way. Still receiving this today. Hopefully Telsa has revisited the charging rate limitations or the effects to the batteries and this stays the same. I don't know if I should reject future updates until I find out if others have had this experience, and to make sure future updates don't restrict it again.

Has anyone else with limited supercharging noticed this?

 

[Big Earl]

I had been limited to no more than 108 kwh charging for some time, with a rate of around 60 kwh once over 50% and dropping fast. I have over 15,000 kwh of DC charging since most of my usage is traveling. On 12/26/2020 I updated to 2020.48.26 software and immediately noticed 155 kwh charging again as well as higher rates above 50% than I have seen in a while. I didn't know if this was a fluke or not, but I continued on my trip from MA to FL a few days later and noticed high speed charging along the way. Still receiving this today. Hopefully Telsa has revisited the charging rate limitations or the effects to the batteries and this stays the same. I don't know if I should reject future updates until I find out if others have had this experience, and to make sure future updates don't restrict it again.

Has anyone else with limited supercharging noticed this?

Just a quick note about units. You are capped at 108 kW, not 108 kWh.

Charging at a rate of 108 kW for 30 minutes will result in 54 kWh of energy being delivered. Sorry for the pedantic sidebar, but units are important. Happy new year.

 

[Les236]

Thanks for clarification. My point though is my limit has been lifted after several months of limiting and now charging at 155kw to start and the taper still starts around 50% but more like 70-80 kw instead of 55-60%.

 

[Jillmark99]

Based on the above i’m looking forward to receiving 2020.48.26 in my vehicles if supercharging speeds are speeding up. My current supercharger speeds are similar, actually a bit lower, the OP before the update.