Model S85D slow at supercharger

[gianfala]

For the past few months, my 2015 Model S85D is charging on average below 35 KWh at the superchargers. The local TESLA shop checked the battery and charging system and stated that all is working correctly. They also stated that maybe the battery needed to cool first. This issue continues to occur in spite of a short drive to the supercharger. Today I asked others at the Monterey supercharger about their speed. The newer S, X, and 3 were charging above 80 KW. One of the owners even moved his car so I could try that particular supercharger. Two other older model S that arrived later also charged very slowly. It appears that there is a degradation in the speed of charging with older models? I engage the navigation to the supercharger which supposedly prepares the battery. Any insights from other owners?
Thanks!

 

[pimp-boy]

Yes, they slowed alot of the older 85 kw cars. Mine barely exceeds 66 kw/hr with less than 20 rated miles. Now it takes 1 hour to supercharge. Used to charge to 110 kw/hr.

 

[gianfala]

A friend mentioned he heard that TESLA slows down the speed of charging to cars that frequently use a specific supercharger station.... Not sure if there is any truth to this.

 

[Fairchild]

Hey Gina,
Found this:
The issue came back into focus this week after a Tesla owner returned from a road trip where he used several different Superchargers and couldn’t get a charge rate above 90 kW even though the top charge rate is officially 120 kW.

He went to the Tesla Service Center and posted the technician’s conclusion to the Tesla Motors Club:

Supercharger General Diagnosis Conclusion: No Trouble Found. Review vehicle logs and verify charging is topping out a lower rate than observed on earlier DC charging sessions. According to Tesla engineers, once vehicle has been DC fast charged over a specified amount, the battery management system restricts DC charging to prevent degradation of the battery pack. According to Tesla engineers, this vehicle has seen significant DC fast charging and is now has permanently restricted DC charging speeds. Important to note, supercharging will always still be available to the vehicle and the battery pack has not yet experienced significant degradation due to the amount of DC fast charging performed on the pack up until this point in time. Vehicle is operating as designed.

The news that a limit has been placed on DC fast-charging has sparked some outrage among Tesla owners in the thread, but to be fair, this particular Tesla owner has been virtually only charging through DC fast-charging, which is not common amongst electric vehicle owners.

 

[Rocky_H]

A friend mentioned he heard that TESLA slows down the speed of charging to cars that frequently use a specific supercharger station.... Not sure if there is any truth to this.

Your friend is wrong or misunderstood something. That is not true.

 

[glide]

Same issue with my P85D. Won’t go above 60kwH as of late. This is on several superchargers with varying rates SOC.

I used to get 100kW+ and was hoping for up to 125 based on the recent claims from Elon.

Service said there are no issues with the car or the battery and that I am not being throttled.

Is Tesla just lying or can they really not diagnose the issue?

 

[Flyer1]

In Sweden we just got higher topspeed at superchargers. My 2014 S85 with 240.000km used to start at 118kW charge speed but now it starts at 128 but dropps very fast. (Preheated)
At 50% SOC i only get 58kW.

 

[Rocky_H]

Service said there are no issues with the car or the battery and that I am not being throttled.

Is Tesla just lying or can they really not diagnose the issue?

False dichotomy much?

You have only two possibilities twice:
(1) there are no issues with the car or the battery
Probably true
(2) and that I am not being throttled.
Also probably true, from a certain point of view. The word "throttled" has been used for a more specific action, where on some particular cars they had to cap the top end charging speed, because of a very high amount of DC fast charging. That is probably not what you are seeing.

And then the other two possibilities:
(1) Is Tesla just lying
Doesn't seem like it. I think we and they know the real reason.
(2) can they really not diagnose the issue?
They probably do know what is going on, but it's the new "normal", so there is nothing to diagnose.

Fairly recently there has been a trend where they have been reducing the overall charging speed for all of these older cars. They would not consider it "throttling", because they are not singling anyone out or triggering it by any kind of driving or charging behavior. They are just redefining what the new "normal" charging curves are, and they are lower speeds than they were before. The main purposes of this seem to be to keep the batteries cooler and safer to avoid any more issues like the couple of fires they saw in the past half year or so, and possibly to reduce instances of failure of very old batteries that could be warranty claims.

 

[glide]

False dichotomy much?

You have only two possibilities twice:
(1) there are no issues with the car or the battery
Probably true
(2) and that I am not being throttled.
Also probably true, from a certain point of view. The word "throttled" has been used for a more specific action, where on some particular cars they had to cap the top end charging speed, because of a very high amount of DC fast charging. That is probably not what you are seeing.

And then the other two possibilities:
(1) Is Tesla just lying
Doesn't seem like it. I think we and they know the real reason.
(2) can they really not diagnose the issue?
They probably do know what is going on, but it's the new "normal", so there is nothing to diagnose.

Fairly recently there has been a trend where they have been reducing the overall charging speed for all of these older cars. They would not consider it "throttling", because they are not singling anyone out or triggering it by any kind of driving or charging behavior. They are just redefining what the new "normal" charging curves are, and they are lower speeds than they were before. The main purposes of this seem to be to keep the batteries cooler and safer to avoid any more issues like the couple of fires they saw in the past half year or so, and possibly to reduce instances of failure of very old batteries that could be warranty claims.

I would take “throttled” to mean not pulling the same charge my battery was capable of last year.

If they are doing that by adjusting the charge curve based on specific packs or models, is that really any different than flagging based on behavior? I would say it’s almost worse.

 

[Rocky_H]

I would take “throttled” to mean not pulling the same charge my battery was capable of last year.

If they are doing that by adjusting the charge curve based on specific packs or models, is that really any different than flagging based on behavior? I would say it’s almost worse.

This is the part that is kind of borderline, and I said Ben Kenobi's famous "from a certain point of view" line. It is an overall reducing of the charging rates, and yeah, I'm not too thrilled with it either. But I have some grumbling recognition of the purpose in it. If there are going to be some couple of percent of cars that are going to have really bad failures from pushing that aggressive teetering edge of how fast they can charge the batteries, then I can accept them backing off from that bleeding edge so that the vast majority of these batteries reliably last a good 20 years.

I acknowledge that I did buy a pretty early type of product in 2014, and it does work well, but I was prepared to have some patience with some compromises, and knowing that much better performing versions would be coming along in later years that I would not have.

 

[glide]

This is the part that is kind of borderline, and I said Ben Kenobi's famous "from a certain point of view" line. It is an overall reducing of the charging rates, and yeah, I'm not too thrilled with it either. But I have some grumbling recognition of the purpose in it. If there are going to be some couple of percent of cars that are going to have really bad failures from pushing that aggressive teetering edge of how fast they can charge the batteries, then I can accept them backing off from that bleeding edge so that the vast majority of these batteries reliably last a good 20 years.

I acknowledge that I did buy a pretty early type of product in 2014, and it does work well, but I was prepared to have some patience with some compromises, and knowing that much better performing versions would be coming along in later years that I would not have.

I could understand Tesla’s decision to go this route (I obviously do not agree with it).

But why would certain 75/85/90 series vehicles be impacted while others are not? I would think something like this would be rolled out to the fleet.

 

[Rocky_H]

I could understand Tesla’s decision to go this route (I obviously do not agree with it).

But why would certain 75/85/90 series vehicles be impacted while others are not? I would think something like this would be rolled out to the fleet.

Well, I think you may be mixing together two separate issues.
The thing of the actual top end throttling that happened with the 75/90 batteries was because of a battery chemistry change. At first, they were making the 60 and 85 size. They were pretty solid and bullet proof and had really good longevity. Then, they tried a different chemistry that put a bit more silicon in there. It gave a little bit more energy storage in the same amount of cells. So they were able to offer slightly larger capacities as 75 and 90. But, they did have a drawback in faster degradation, and had this issue about having to cap off the top end speed if they did too much DC fast charging. That did not affect the 85 batteries.

But then this more recent thing is something that is being rolled out to the fleet. It came in a software update (don't remember the version number), and it is a lowering of the entire charging curve to reduce heat, not just capping off the top end. The 100 packs are built differently with different (better) internal cooling, so they are not as affected by this, and of course the Model 3 has an entirely different cell and pack architecture, so also not affected.

 

[Jinko]

I got the same freakin problem.. They just limit the charge speed they confirmed by phone today.. There must be option to fix this..me and other people don't drive Tesla with slow. Charge

 

[Babaron]

So it looks like the next step is to learn exactly which update limits the super charging speed. My 2014 model S 85 has not been updated in months as it has been in storage. With this information, I feel it’s probably best not to do any updates for the life of the car. It is currently on version 2019.20.4.2. Does anybody know which update is the culprit?

 

[ElliotF]

I've noticed a decline in Supercharging recently on my 2017 MS75D. I have been frequently visiting a very busy supercharger station with 16 stalls. First of all, there is always 1 or 2 that are not working. Second, I learned very quickly to not go at the 12pm lunch hour because there will be 4-5 cars in line waiting. Today I saw 8 cars at 11:30am! Third, the last few times I've gone...I am not kidding, I was getting 30 miles/hour. That's what I get at home. I can't complain too much b/c I get free supercharging but it is frustrating. I researched how the superchargers work and even with both stalls (A&B) occupied, there should be a MINIMUM charge rate...and I certainly have not been getting that. Reading this thread is the first I've thought about being limited. I have been using the same supercharging station 2x/week for the last 6-8 weeks. Prior to that, it was very infrequent, maybe 2x/month. So perhaps there is something to be said based on these posts?

 

[meomyo]

I've noticed a decline in Supercharging recently on my 2017 MS75D. I have been frequently visiting a very busy supercharger station with 16 stalls. First of all, there is always 1 or 2 that are not working. Second, I learned very quickly to not go at the 12pm lunch hour because there will be 4-5 cars in line waiting. Today I saw 8 cars at 11:30am! Third, the last few times I've gone...I am not kidding, I was getting 30 miles/hour. That's what I get at home. I can't complain too much b/c I get free supercharging but it is frustrating. I researched how the superchargers work and even with both stalls (A&B) occupied, there should be a MINIMUM charge rate...and I certainly have not been getting that. Reading this thread is the first I've thought about being limited. I have been using the same supercharging station 2x/week for the last 6-8 weeks. Prior to that, it was very infrequent, maybe 2x/month. So perhaps there is something to be said based on these posts?

Wow why are people charging so much at lunchtime???do they not charge at home enough for the whole day???

 

[ElliotF]

The main reason I've been charging at lunch at the mall is it's free. I can grab lunch at the mall while I charge for 45 minutes. It's convenient to my new office location. I do this to reduce charging at home, which costs money. I dont have solar panels. I have noticed that the last few times I've gone to this same supercharging station, my charge rates have been VERY slow, as low as 30 miles/hr. This caused me to look online and now I'm reading about potentially throttling or reduced speeds.

 

[glide]

Sounds like Tesla may have known about the issue. If this is true I’m going to be pissed.

NHTSA reviews claims Tesla should have recalled 2,000 cars

 

[cucubits]

I was just reading about this... wonder how hard will Tesla work to sweep this under the rug. If there isn't just a bad batch of batteries, for which a recall would be the best option, what can they do? If it's a design flaw and all S/X batteries can be randomly affected?

This... and the control arm failure mess should really raise some huge flags, but somehow I still find myself back on ev-cpo looking for a used S

 

[Babaron]

Control arm failure?? What control arm failure? Tell me more...

I had front an expensive front suspension issue a few years ago...