Model X has single 72A charger

[ohmman]

And if you max charge 2x on a Model S, the next time you get in the car it alerts you of the same. I would think that's more than sufficient. I can't see them engineering a roadblock just to stop faster charging.

I'm coming up short trying to think of a good analogy to ICE vehicles, but if indeed it is related to battery health (a claim I strongly question at its root), I suppose it would be similar to electronically capping the redline levels on transmissions. There are things those manufacturers do in order to keep you from damaging the vehicle. Again, a loose analogy at best, but I couldn't think of anything better.

 

[mknox]

On-board chargers are rated in kW not amps.

They're rated in kW but operate in Amps. I can only control the input amps on my car. I can't, for example, say "give me 10 kW" and let the car adjust the amps up or down to match whatever voltage I'm getting. So it's reasonable to say you have 40 amps or 80 amps of on-board charging from that perspective.

 

[FlasherZ]

Maybe this is a new mobile adapter for a NEMA 14-60 giving us 48 amp charging. That would be an improvement over the current Model S max 14-50 which maxes at 40 amp.

It wouldn't really be a smart move. 14-60's are hard to find - I have to order them from my electrical supply house and they're found almost nowhere. They'd be better off just selling a wall connector for people at home and sticking with 14-50 for campground and other installs.

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Perhaps there is another reason for not offering the dual chargers. There has been a suspicion for a while that rapid supercharging could hurt battery lifetime. For a good report on this, see

Life With Tesla Model S: Does Supercharging Cut Battery Capacity?

There's a thread on this already, but this particular article is full of problems.

For what it's worth, my car has been supercharged a reasonable amount, it gets charged at 80A every single day, and after 39,000 miles on the current battery pack it still charges to 267 miles (it lost one mile in the last couple of weeks, it seems).

 

[andrewket]

Today, I received information from a Tesla source that there will be a single charger offered on the X, and that it will be a 60A charger instead of 40A. I was told that this was in part due to the fact that getting a charger in the back of the vehicle was difficult due to the 3rd row seating. I'm assuming it is also a nice compromise between 40A and 80A.

Just a rumor, but I have reason to believe this is valid information.

A fairly reasonable tradeoff, imho. I charge at 65A all the time, but 60A would satisfy most of my needs. Only occasionally do I need 80A to finish within my charging window.

 

[FlasherZ]

Perhaps the HPWC will be upgraded to supply 120A. If this occurs, we shouldn't be too surprised if it comes with a water-cooled cable that has a "hum" rather like a water pump in a tropical fishtank The current HPWC has a design issue that causes the handle to get very hot sometimes - too hot to touch. Perhaps there will be a two-tier HPWC product range.

For what it's worth, my wires hum at 80A charging already, until they warm up...

If anything it would most likely be an upgrade to 100A charging, which would require a 125A breaker (next trade size is 125A after 100A). The problem with that is you begin to run into issues at this current... some equipment and/or jurisdictions require special bolt-in breakers above 100A, and it will create load calculation headaches for many more.

 

[ohmman]

It would be cool if there was a plan to have Powerwalls incorporate some sort of DC-to-DC charging ability, making at home fast charging possible, and reducing the need for bigger onboard chargers.

 

[vandacca]

It would be cool if there was a plan to have Powerwalls incorporate some sort of DC-to-DC charging ability, making at home fast charging possible, and reducing the need for bigger onboard chargers.

+1 Yes! I can see that happening, and it would be awesome. Tesla Powerwall direct-charging a Tesla vehicle.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Well let's put together what we know. There are new U.S. Code requirements coming out that would seem to make the current UMC illegal to sell going forward. The current hpwc has overheating problems when used in hot environments. Replacing the UMC and hpwc with a 60a wall mounted evse would address both issues. As far as degraded capabilities goes, well, so what? Tesla will sell tons of model X regardless of what a few of us on the forums say.

Um, what is this third row magic carpet all about?

 

[Paul Carter]

It wouldn't really be a smart move. 14-60's are hard to find - I have to order them from my electrical supply house and they're found almost nowhere. They'd be better off just selling a wall connector for people at home and sticking with 14-50 for campground and other installs.

It seems to me that it would be very good progress regardless of its popularity in the wild (thinking for home use installs). And I wonder if this might still be doable for more home owners. Example in my case is that it would be tough for me to go with a HPWC with upgrading my service. But I think I could squeeze another 10 amps and retire that 2nd fridge I don't use much.

I'm sure if they do release that, it'll come with the 14-50 adapter option too since that's widely popular as we know.

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...Um, what is this third row magic carpet all about?

Certainly nothing to do with this, but you just reminded me of this video and I think we can all use a good laugh...

 

[NigelM]

But it may actually be a boost for the vast majority of owners (if the vast majority never buy the dual charger option).

I find that logic a bit twisted. It'll make no difference to existing S owners but for new X customers coming in it will always be slower than those Ss with dual chargers. Plus, if your house/garage is set-up with a 50A service already then you'll get no boost or benefit. To run a full 60A would sensibly mean a 75A circuit; I was at Home Depot today so checked and they have no 75A breakers, so that would mean over-spec'ing an installation and not being able to fully utilize it....I'm not an electrical engineer but that makes no sense to me.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Um, what is this third row magic carpet all about?

I hadn't seen that reference before either. If it isn't a joke, my first impression was a "floating" third row (not unlike Model X prototype second row?) which would leave empty loading space under the seats, thus depriving that space from chargers.

Frankly, I thought Model X would have no problems with space given its raised floor so this thread is the first time I've thought about this. Who knows if there is anything to it.

 

[NigelM]

Um, what is this third row magic carpet all about?

I'm guessing it's second row. There were some comments (IIRC from Elon) a while back regarding the middle row and flexibility in configuring different options. Sounds like Tesla may have some ideas to surprise us.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I'm guessing it's second row. There were some comments (IIRC from Elon) a while back regarding the middle row and flexibility in configuring different options. Sounds like Tesla may have some ideas to surprise us.

Good point. Model S has chargers under the second row, not third row of course. Though already Model X prototype had an open-from-below second row - I wonder what chargers it had.

 

[Lyon]

Lyon... all destination chargers would still work, they would supply 40A, 60A, 80A or 120A depending on what your car draws from it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the HPWC wouldn't work with a 60A onboard charger, just that it would increase charge time v. 80A. After all, the initial assumption in this thread is that the Model X will only get a 60A charger and not have an option for a second.

Hopefully we'll know more soon.

 

[scaesare]

Perhaps there is another reason for not offering the dual chargers. There has been a suspicion for a while that rapid supercharging could hurt battery lifetime. For a good report on this, see

Life With Tesla Model S: Does Supercharging Cut Battery Capacity?

It occurs to me that Tesla might be trying to limit extremely rapid charging to maintain lifetime of their batteries. This even occurred to me when Elon came out and said that they might limit people who were using superchargers for local charging. Tesla can't really come out and say that this hurts battery lifetime, as they have denied it for so long, but perhaps they will try to discourage it except when necessary.

60 amps charging would definitely preserve battery lifetime over 80+ amp charging.

Ron
SigX #1015

You have to define these terms from the perspective of the battery chemistry. For many batteries, and Li-Ion in specific, charging at a 1C rate (the rating of the pack in KWh) is considered "normal". Many are capable of 2C and above.

So from the perspective of an 85-90KWh pack, even Superchargers operating at 120-135KW are operating at a "standard" rate... not really rapid or extremely rapid. It only "feels" that way to us when compared to the power many other cars/chargers are capable of.

Therefore, charging at even at the highest power the twin onboard chargers are capable of (80A @250V = 20KW) is actually quite slow, operating at less than a 0.25C rate. Dropping that down a vew one-hundreths of a C by limiting the on board chargers to 15KW makes zero difference...

 

[ohmman]

Um, what is this third row magic carpet all about?

I'm just repeating the phrase I heard. I had the same reaction but didn't want to push, since I felt like I was getting some interesting information. I think it could have been a term used to describe hideaway seats (thinking of my Odyssey here), where you fold them into the floor and pull the mat over them. Perhaps just generic terminology that we're not familiar with.. or something else.

 

[Matteo]

Perhaps there is another reason for not offering the dual chargers. There has been a suspicion for a while that rapid supercharging could hurt battery lifetime. For a good report on this, see

That is anything but a good report. It is based on just one owner's experience. On this battery survey 112 owners have entered their data and it shows that supercharging is good for the battery. The more you supercharge, the less your degradation is. This is consistent with Prof Dahn's explanation in this video. He explains that the duration the battery is subject to high temperatures is what matters. If the duration is shorter (if the battery charges faster) then that's better for the battery. According to the stats we have people who supercharge weekly have 0.5-1% higher capacity than people who never supercharge or supercharge only once or twice a year. For example if somebody supercharges weekly and their battery capacity is 96%, then somebody else who has the same mileage but doesn't supercharge will have 95-95.5% capacity on average.

112 is not number of entries. There are 240 entries from 112 unique users. When somebody submits multiple entries only their last entry counts to improve stats. That is a much larger group than just 1 owner. Degradation can increase for a number of reason. For example running the battery to almost empty is bad. Leaving the battery fully charger is bad too. Daily charging to 100 or 90% is worse than 80% or 70%. There are lots of variables. Just because somebody guesses supercharging might be the reason does not make it the actual reason. The data collected from a much larger groups shows the opposite.

 

[AnOutsider]

Matteo, can't give positive rep while mobile, but kudos for that post

 

[ronmerkord]

That is anything but a good report. It is based on just one owner's experience. On this battery survey 112 owners have entered their data and it shows that supercharging is good for the battery.

Matteo, thanks for the great report. My own quick analysis shows that clearly, there is a lot going on with charging versus battery capacity. Great link. I'll ignore the GreenCar Reports story.

 

[FlasherZ]

Well let's put together what we know. There are new U.S. Code requirements coming out that would seem to make the current UMC illegal to sell going forward.

Just a quick nit on that: not illegal to sell. Illegal to install without it being "fastened in place", which could be accomplished by providing a bracket that it snaps into on the wall, or even just a simple hook that supports it.