My car won't charge faster than 60kW

[davewill]

From the standpoint of someone who has available to others public HPWC's, I agree with WK057. I do catch squatters. Even another business owner who HAS his own HPWC, 1 /2 mile from ours, I've caught charging up regularly at ours when he things we're not around. He will plug in, and walk to his business, then walk back after it's full..... And He's a Millionaire... Locally, there are a number of Leaf Owners, that "squat" the free J1772's, and not because they are trying to get further. A few have publicly admitted they charge up once/week for free at those stations.

Exactly. There are those who will and those who won't. It doesn't much matter how expensive the car they bought was. I've seen the same arguments about free charging going on among LEAF owners, and it seemed to be about the same level of problem there as it is here...not too bad, but present. The difference here is the large amount of "free" DC charging. There were never more than a handful of free CHAdeMOs...but when it existed a handful of people squatted.

 

[FlasherZ]

What you say makes a lot of sense. But, this is unusual behavior at the Fremont location. I have hit 105 KW at low SOC levels. And usually I start charging at 70-80 KW when I am around 40%. But it tapers almost immediately. I have also seen where the car will charge at a lower rate then pop up to a higher rate after a bout 10 minutes.

Sorry, bad assumption on my part. I saw "A pack" and assumed 85 kWh.

 

[breser]

Given where this discussion has gone I'm surprised nobody has talked about a post I made a while back here:
My car won't charge faster than 60kW - Page 57

Specifically that in Amsterdam there are issues with Model S taxis in Amsterdam at the supercharger. A taxi service using the supercharger sure does change the dynamics that you're talking about. Charge anytime you can between fares (especially if you're centrally dispatched as opposed to just picking up street hails). It gives you a parking spot and free fuel.

Slowing charging might work to discourage taxis because if they are having to avoid taking fares in order to charge. Longer charging time means less time taking fares means it's not as economical to offset the costs of fuel. Dropping the charge to 60kW would be annoying but not really discourage someone traveling for long distances. But it might discourage a taxi service from using the super charger as their only charging.

Early super charger installations don't have much of an issue here because they're in fairly small towns or rural areas that don't really have a huge taxi fleet. But as they expand into suburban or even city centers this is going to become a big issue. As far as I'm aware there is nothing to disallow commercial usage with respect to the super charger.

It's possible that Tesla was testing an algorithm to try and detect these taxi vehicles and in the process had a bug that caught some innocent owners. Tesla might not want to talk about this because they don't want to advertise they're throttling anyone, nor do they want to explain how they're choosing to throttle these vehicles to avoid the vehicles gaming the system. Plus if they resolve the issue with innocent owners being inconvenienced there isn't a whole lot to say.

It's just a theory. I'm not overly attached to the idea that Tesla was deliberately throttling people. But I think this may be a plausible reason to do so.

 

[Andyw2100]

Specifically that in Amsterdam there are issues with Model S taxis in Amsterdam at the supercharger...

...Slowing charging might work to discourage taxis because if they are having to avoid taking fares in order to charge.

Not in any way disagreeing with anything you wrote.

But if Tesla was toying with the idea of how to discourage abuse by taxi fleets, I think I'd have to question the advisability of that.

If a fleet of Taxis wants to use Teslas, that's probably a lot of cars that simply would not have been sold otherwise. The more taxi fleets that choose to follow suit, the better.

And what could be better than a fleet of taxis for exposing people to Tesla? How many people get in and out of a typical taxi in a day? There's usually not much to talk about with the taxi driver. I can imagine a lot of people who have never been exposed to Tesla asking a lot of questions, and taxi drivers who like their Tesla or like getting tips or both trying their best to answer those questions.

If it really got to the point where there were so many taxis supercharging so much that regular owners were having trouble supercharging, build more superchargers, because those taxis are sure to be doing a lot of good for Tesla.

 

[breser]

Not in any way disagreeing with anything you wrote.

But if Tesla was toying with the idea of how to discourage abuse by taxi fleets, I think I'd have to question the advisability of that.

If a fleet of Taxis wants to use Teslas, that's probably a lot of cars that simply would not have been sold otherwise. The more taxi fleets that choose to follow suit, the better.

And what could be better than a fleet of taxis for exposing people to Tesla? How many people get in and out of a typical taxi in a day? There's usually not much to talk about with the taxi driver. I can imagine a lot of people who have never been exposed to Tesla asking a lot of questions, and taxi drivers who like their Tesla or like getting tips or both trying their best to answer those questions.

If it really got to the point where there were so many taxis supercharging so much that regular owners were having trouble supercharging, build more superchargers, because those taxis are sure to be doing a lot of good for Tesla.

Yup I had thought about that and for whatever reason didn't mention it in my post, but there certainly is some value in the taxis being out there for Tesla. Many people view the supercharger as a marketing effort and not a product. So it's easy to view the taxis using the superchargers as just more marketing.

Sure those taxis represent additional vehicles sold, but if they use up more power from a supercharger than the supercharger set aside and the profit on the cars then they have a high opportunity cost. How to balance that is really hard to figure out being an outsider since Tesla doesn't really publish sufficient information to understand their demand or their supercharger use/costs.

However, whatever marketing value those cars have is ultimately diminished by the Tesla taxis becoming common. Let's call this the Ford Crown Victoria effect. Not many people want to drive a Police Car or Taxi. Crown Victoria's became extremely popular for these two uses (granted many taxis were retired police cars). But you don't see many of these cars as private cars (again with the exception of people wanting cheap cars that buy used police vehicles). As long as the Tesla taxis are a curiosity and rare I think they have a lot of marketing value.

However, if the economics for the taxi companies work out well enough with the free charging they won't stay that way. So then you have a negative brand drain and a opportunity cost of selling a car to a taxi company that will use large amounts of energy from the supercharger on Tesla's dime. As an investor I'd be extremely disappointed if Tesla wasn't thinking about this problem.

Obviously though they must be very careful because right now the taxis are very much a marketing bonus. Taking direct and public action against them would hurt the brand too.

 

[wk057]

While I see no simple way to solve problems with existing cars already sold, I think from now on if Tesla added some legalese to put some type of restrictions on supercharger use, at Tesla's discretion, this would solve the taxi problem. "Oh, you're using the Model S as a taxi? 10kW supercharging for you."

As it stands now I don't see how Tesla could actually limit superchargers without some backlash... and it's a strong argument towards a technical glitch/update and against them actually doing any throttling. I haven't seen any posts from taxi drivers complaining about throttling...

 

[breser]

While I see no simple way to solve problems with existing cars already sold, I think from now on if Tesla added some legalese to put some type of restrictions on supercharger use, at Tesla's discretion, this would solve the taxi problem. "Oh, you're using the Model S as a taxi? 10kW supercharging for you."

As it stands now I don't see how Tesla could actually limit superchargers without some backlash... and it's a strong argument towards a technical glitch/update and against them actually doing any throttling. I haven't seen any posts from taxi drivers complaining about throttling...

Sure but how do they know you're a taxi to limit you to 10kW supercharging? They can't just do it based on what they know when you buy the car. People would use straw buyers. Or lie about how they're using the car. Or buy cars off the used market. As has been pointed out in this thread there's nothing promising how fast the super charger is. Just that it's free charging.

If this theory is accurate, I suspect they haven't actually rolled this out for sure. I'd guess they might have been experimenting with an algorithm and accidentally made it active. People started complaining they realized the mistake and fixed it. Problem disappears. Tesla says nothing.

Then again, I admit there are plenty of equally compelling theories. Like hardware problems or software problems unrelated to this. I've got no proof, just an idea.

 

[Andyw2100]

Sure but how do they know you're a taxi to limit you to 10kW supercharging? They can't just do it based on what they know when you buy the car. People would use straw buyers. Or lie about how they're using the car. Or buy cars off the used market. As has been pointed out in this thread there's nothing promising how fast the super charger is. Just that it's free charging.

I'm not sure how privacy concerns, rights, etc. factor in, but for argument's sake, let's assume Tesla could use all the data available about us and our cars to determine "taxi / not a taxi." I don't think it would be that difficult. They'd start by looking at the cars that use the superchargers --A LOT--. Then look at the travel patterns for those cars. Are they going to places taxis go to a lot, like airports, train stations, and hotels? I imagine if they need to they could even look at trunk and frunk openings, (I've read that at least the frunk openings are logged--true or not, I don't know), weight changes in the cars (which might have to be inferred from changes in efficiency, etc.) If you're talking about a car driving around a city and making stops, it shouldn't be hard to tell if people are getting in and out constantly or not.

I think if Tesla's goal was to identify cars being used as taxis, it wouldn't be hard to do.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

On the other hand, I can't imagine that having 5 SuperChargers in downtown London (and a 6th under construction), is in the spirit of facilitating long-distance travel...


Everybody so far has been using anecdotal evidence akin to "I met a local at a SuperCharger once, therefore locals all over are SuperCharging, and it will mean the end of Supercharging, and the demise of TSLA! It is getting so bad, I almost had to wait in line to charge. Outrageous!"

But in reality, we don't know if this is even remotely a problem. Or if it is a problem, if it's up there with other problems. I've never met a local, but I have met a Tesla Employee at a SuperCharger once. So obviously we need to ban Employees from charging, post haste! SuperChargers are for customers.


Tesla is the only one with access to the information here. Let them resolve it like they see fit. Let's say there is indeed a 5% problem - it will likely be much easier for Tesla to just build 5% more SuperChargers, using a process they already have figured out, than trying to solve yet another issue.

Yes. Exactly. The solution to too much utilization of any given Supercharger is to build more Superchargers.

People seem to overlook the fact that each new car sold contributes $2000 to the Supercharger fund. Every time Tesla sells 100 cars in a given area, that's another Supercharger installation (at roughly $200k for a 10 stall, non-solar station).

100 cars sharing a Supercharger location, even if they're all locals charging up frequently, isn't terribly oversubscribed.

Many rural Superchargers can probably do just fine at 200 cars-per, which allows for denser, urban locations to be built at a 50 cars-per.

 

[breser]

I'm not sure how privacy concerns, rights, etc. factor in, but for argument's sake, let's assume Tesla could use all the data available about us and our cars to determine "taxi / not a taxi." I don't think it would be that difficult. They'd start by looking at the cars that use the superchargers --A LOT--. Then look at the travel patterns for those cars. Are they going to places taxis go to a lot, like airports, train stations, and hotels? I imagine if they need to they could even look at trunk and frunk openings, (I've read that at least the frunk openings are logged--true or not, I don't know), weight changes in the cars (which might have to be inferred from changes in efficiency, etc.) If you're talking about a car driving around a city and making stops, it shouldn't be hard to tell if people are getting in and out constantly or not.

I think if Tesla's goal was to identify cars being used as taxis, it wouldn't be hard to do.

I guess I wasn't very clear in what I was trying to point out there. I tend to view an anti-taxi clause as attached to a more direct identification of taxis than an algorithmic one. Their goal might be to target taxis, but if you make a taxi specific clause then people who aren't taxis will complain about throttling and then they'll be making exceptions. Instead I view a position of "this is our criteria to throttling no exceptions," as much easier to deal with. If they get too many complaints for vehicles that in a "know your customer" sense don't appear to be taxis then they will adjust the algorithm to fix it. This just seems to fit how I view Tesla as dealing with things (e.g. avoiding making price adjustments for specific customers).

So absolutely, I agree they could detect taxis in that manner.

 

[trils0n]

It would be interesting to see what the usage patterns of the Superchargers are these days. In the early days (when there were a total of 6 Superchargers in CA) Tesla said that usage had two peaks, Friday Afternoon as travelers set out for their weekend trips, and Sunday Afternoon when they returned. The rest of the time Superchargers were essentially idle.

A few years ago, I was thinking that since the Superchargers were essentially idle most of their life, and that Tesla was going to start installing battery packs and solar, was that Superchargers could be used to perform the role of peaker powerplants and do other grid stabilizing things. The size of a Supercharger/battery pack network needed to support Model 3 volumes of cars would have a tremendous amount of distributed energy storage (necessary to help with demand charges for supercharger usage), which during the week was mostly idle for car charging purposes. Since peaker plant generated energy is much more expensive than baseload electricity, the Superchargers could take over that role at a price cheaper than traditional peak generation (and batteries would match load quicker than spinning up turbines). Electricity usage has known peaks, where electricity is expensive, and Tesla would have idle storage. That was how the Supercharger network would scale -- by providing electricity in non-car-charging electrical grid/utility/peaker-plant type role. Provide free electricity (for car charging) and still make money selling to utilities.

It all depends on the Superchargers being idle during peak afternoon electricity usage hours during the week though, and how they would work with the utilities to deliver stored power at peak demand times. If current usage patterns are much different, ie lots of during the week, day/afternoon charging, or future usage changers, it potentially falls apart.

 

[JRP3]

Yes. Exactly. The solution to too much utilization of any given Supercharger is to build more Superchargers.

People seem to overlook the fact that each new car sold contributes $2000 to the Supercharger fund. Every time Tesla sells 100 cars in a given area, that's another Supercharger installation (at roughly $200k for a 10 stall, non-solar station).

But with a quickly growing fleet of cars that model means SC construction will always lag sales, which could lead to constant SC congestion.

 

[RiverBrick]

... There were never more than a handful of free CHAdeMOs...but when it existed a handful of people squatted.

There are still a surprisingly large number of free CHAdeMOs. 10/15 that I visited during a X-Country trip were free for everyone. Additionally, two were part of Nissan's "No Charge to Charge" program, so free for new LEAF buyers, leaving only 3/15 as requiring payment from everyone. Most were in areas with less EVs than San Diego, so the inevitable squatting is probably not yet a huge problem.

 

[davewill]

But with a quickly growing fleet of cars that model means SC construction will always lag sales, which could lead to constant SC congestion.

Seems unavoidable. Hell, Highway construction lags growth and causes congestion around here.

There are still a surprisingly large number of free CHAdeMOs. 10/15 that I visited during a X-Country trip were free for everyone. Additionally, two were part of Nissan's "No Charge to Charge" program, so free for new LEAF buyers, leaving only 3/15 as requiring payment from everyone. Most were in areas with less EVs than San Diego, so the inevitable squatting is probably not yet a huge problem.

I meant in comparison to the number of "free" Superchargers, but I agree it never became a significant problem. There was a small group of people who would do it, the rest either had more consideration, or valued their time more. I expect that to hold true for Model 3 owners as well.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

JB Straubel said during an energy symposium last month that free supercharging works for up to 1 million vehicles. Beyond that, he said, they would have to look at monetizing the usage.

 

[robby]

JB Straubel said during an energy symposium last month that free supercharging works for up to 1 million vehicles. Beyond that, he said, they would have to look at monetizing the usage.

Did he explain the rationale?

 

[bxr140]

What's interesting is the wild variation you have in the green (101/I-5/SoCal) dots < 40% SOC. Any chance you can break that out by specific location to see if natural lines come out?

Its sort of a mess balancing the data vs. something that's half readable, but here's a shot.

Throw out the three red Harris lines (red, pink, maroon-ish) and the Buellton line (purple) and the variations are well within +/-10% (and closer to +/-5%), which actually doesn't give me too much cause for concern. I'd just as soon dismiss that as typical variance.

Note that the maroon harris line (the one that starts near 90kw) is a bit misleading--those first two data points are from the initial spike that I get when the power ramps up. I understand other people see this too...? In any case, the other trendlines don't include these initial points, so mentally delete them for an apples-to-apples. The red harris line is an obvious pairing event--the slight incline in the plateaus is a result of the voltage increasing as the amps stay constant (86A at the first plateau just under 30k, then 173A when it ramps up to just under 60kw). Looking at the data closer the third pink harris trend is also clipping from a paired charger, but just at 173A and not the lower power. I don't always see that constant amperage trend for all of my pairing situations, so I don't know if the harris events were just coincidence or a result of some known set of factors.

Just to wrap up the analysis, the Buellton line trends very closely to most of the data I have for Fremont and Gilroy.

- - - Updated - - -

How can you say that.

Errr...because its an accurate statement? You definitely lost track of the discussion flow.

As far as your data points you would need to show that people living elsewhere got different charge rates at the same locations to be meaningful. Otherwise you are just showing that some chargers are faster than others, and the two SF Bay Area chargers are a bit slower (the originally reported 60kW clipping did contain confirmation that other people at the same charger didn't experience the clipping for some reason).

You've seriously misunderstood the intent of my data. I'm not implying any conclusions or cause or link to anyone else's low charging rate (other than a simple "me too!"), I'm just representing an obvious and consistent discrepancy in charging speed for my car at certain chargers.