Some "extreme coupon" practitioners spend nearly 40 hours a week collecting and organizing coupons and an additional 4 hours beyond "normal" dealing with checkout limitations in the store, all to save about $300 a week. We're not talking about putting food on the table, we're talking about people who buy 140 tubes of toothpaste and store them in the garage, despite the fact they'll simply never use that many in decades! There's something about "free" that drives irrational behavior.
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My car won't charge faster than 60kW
- Thread starter David99
- Start date
Some "extreme coupon" practitioners spend nearly 40 hours a week collecting and organizing coupons and an additional 4 hours beyond "normal" dealing with checkout limitations in the store, all to save about $300 a week. We're not talking about putting food on the table, we're talking about people who buy 140 tubes of toothpaste and store them in the garage, despite the fact they'll simply never use that many in decades! There's something about "free" that drives irrational behavior.
On a few occasions I've kind of abused being local to a supercharger for some free juice in Hamilton, NJ last year when I was living in NJ. I drove around for a couple of days without plugging in at home knowing I'd be near the supercharger sometime later that week, then topped off while grabbing lunch there while I was in the area. No one there when I was there anyway (middle of the day on a week day), so wasn't hogging a spot for a traveler. For lunch I stopped at Chick-fil-A on the way into the shopping center where the charger is, and I ate in my car at the charger... so I'd have moved if somehow six other Model S showed up in the ~30 minute window I was there eating and going through emails.
I've also hit up a local supercharger on a day I had a lot of local driving to do, where my HPWC wouldn't have gotten me back on the road fast enough. I actually wish Tesla would sell a mini-supercharger for home or business installs. I personally will have 76kW of grid power unused (after EV continuous load calcs) once I get my solar setup going, and I wouldn't mind a 60kW home charger for the times when I could use it (couple times a year) and for anyone else who would like to stop in.
Personally, I have no problem with locals using the superchargers. I'd have a problem if they wouldn't move for someone on a trip, though, if there were no spots available. Fortunately, I haven't run into this on the east coast yet. I've only ever waited for a stall once, in Newark, DE (only 4 stalls)... for ~5 minutes, and before both Hamilton, NJ and Woodbridge, VA were online. I've never seen more than 1 other car there since those came online.
Overall, I think Tesla is going to expand where expansion is needed, regardless of if it is supporting locals or travelers.
I've also hit up a local supercharger on a day I had a lot of local driving to do, where my HPWC wouldn't have gotten me back on the road fast enough. I actually wish Tesla would sell a mini-supercharger for home or business installs. I personally will have 76kW of grid power unused (after EV continuous load calcs) once I get my solar setup going, and I wouldn't mind a 60kW home charger for the times when I could use it (couple times a year) and for anyone else who would like to stop in.
Personally, I have no problem with locals using the superchargers. I'd have a problem if they wouldn't move for someone on a trip, though, if there were no spots available. Fortunately, I haven't run into this on the east coast yet. I've only ever waited for a stall once, in Newark, DE (only 4 stalls)... for ~5 minutes, and before both Hamilton, NJ and Woodbridge, VA were online. I've never seen more than 1 other car there since those came online.
Overall, I think Tesla is going to expand where expansion is needed, regardless of if it is supporting locals or travelers.
dirkhh
Middle-aged Member
No, I think the definition qwk uses is the one where if I drive up to a supercharger there is no charge (hehe... this will get me landed in the bad puns thread...)
Unfortunately that definition makes it worse.
If you've paid for something explicitly, it has even more perceived value than if it's bundled.I may or may not pay for Supercharging, because I just won't use it enough to justify the $2500. (3 x in ownership given my last 10 years driving history)
If one cropped up at my local Supermarket, where I go once a week minimum, I'd buy it because I'd be close to break even by not using my home charger... Does that make me a hogger, and a bad person?
It definitely makes it worse. It's just like going to the all you can eat buffet. Most people will try to get their money's worth. You cannot fight human nature.Unfortunately that definition makes it worse.
I may or may not pay for Supercharging, because I just won't use it enough to justify the $2500. (3 x in ownership given my last 10 years driving history)
If one cropped up at my local Supermarket, where I go once a week minimum, I'd buy it because I'd be close to break even by not using my home charger... Does that make me a hogger, and a bad person?
Thanks.
It should be noted that I have reported two occasions with owners living close to Superchargers with version 6.1 (2.2.115) not reporting any throttling while redi, with the same version, reporting throttling.
This tells us that this issue is not confined to just the most recent versions of the car's firmware.
Since this is a new 135 kW Supercharger perhaps it has something to do with the version of the firmware associated with the Supercharger Station.
Larry
Whenever I charge up at Oxnard, most people (including me) aren't just sitting in their cars but grabbing a meal, grocery shopping, etc. They build charging into their routine or add to their routine. Either way, the result is them spending their money on supporting the local economy. Don't see anything wrong with that - especially since it shows demand for growing the SC network and is an important selling point to businesses to allow TM to build SC at their location.
Yes, with regard to version 6.1 (2.2.115) of the firmware we can be fairly certain that that version of the car's firmware is not to blame since we have recorded occurances of cars with that version both being throttled and not being throttled.
So, that points to something to do with the individual Supercharger Stations being the variable. It could be a bug in the Supercharger firmware or deliberate based on the most current version of the Supercharger firmware.
As you correctly point out nothing has been confirmed that this is deliberate on the part of Tesla.
Larry
cpa
Active Member
I am planning a road trip from California to Milwaukee and back in early May. I am just now in the route planning stage for our overnight stays and driving distances per day. I also want to take different routes going and coming. After this thread appeared, I decided to send an email to Tesla concerning this phenomenon. I stated that I had a pretty good idea of Supercharging times from a few previous trips that I have made, and was using my historical data to approximate charging times which ultimately would factor into my destination each day. I asked if I should be concerned with this lower charging rate and factor in longer charge times thereby reducing the miles traveled each day.
I sent off the email on Monday the 16th. Still no response.
I sent off the email on Monday the 16th. Still no response.
I guess I'm not sure what's bothering you about this. Someone prepays for a service, then decides to use it to get the best return on his/her investment.
It doesn't bother me, but unless s/he doesn't have a way to charge at home, I question how much s/he values his/her time... but then again, who am I to judge?
Statistically speaking, I doubt this is an issue for the SpC P&L, and I speak as a heavy contributor to the P! :wink:
Merrill
Merrill
Ok, I feel kind of stupid but with everyone complaining of being local and only getting 60kW when supercharging I plugged in today at the local SC and looked on my iPhone Tesla app for the kW which showed on another posters app to the left at the bottom and what I have from left to right is miles per hour, voltage and amps. Where do I find the kW?
Go to Controls>Settings>Units & Format>Energy & Charging and select Energy.
Larry
- - - Updated - - -
Here are the results of our third club member. He lives 10 miles from the Brandon Supercharger Station
So we are three for three with still no throttling when living nearby Superchargers.
He is also on v6.1(2.2.115) of the firmware.
Larry
Last edited:
Merrill
Merrill
paulkva
part of the supercharge.info dev team
In addition to changing the setting, you can also simply multiply: Volts x Amps = Watts. Then divide by 1000 to get kW.
I think someone else mentioned this as a possibility upthread, but I have to wonder if Tesla is simply testing throttled supercharging at a select few locations. Even taking the posted service paperwork at face value, where it states the throttling is intentional, it does not explicitly state WHY the throttling happened. Maybe they're playing with some parameters (e.g. in a beta version of supercharger firmware) that determine when to throttle, and a few people here have simply been caught up in the experiment. While it's possible distance from home is one parameter, there could be any number of others, including temperature, peak demand, other internal diagnostics...
Intentionally throttling someone's supercharging rate just because they're local doesn't make sense to me from any perspective - business/finance (despite the hard numbers), managing congestion, or (most of all) publicity. While nobody has ruled it out yet (nor have we ruled out anything as far as I can tell), I expect the probability of that being the reason is quite low.
I say this as someone who (similar to AmpedRealtor) has needed local supercharging at least once; in fact I might need it again in a couple months to drive from DC up to Gettysburg, back home just long enough to unload/load the car, and then down to Charlottesville.
Another data point. 13 celcius, SOC 70%, power was only 53kW at Grand Hyatt Tokyo. I forgot whether this is normal or not... Is there a Supercharger kW table to see how much kW to expect in a certain SOC?
Cottonwood
Roadster#433, Model S#S37
If you like watching miles, you can still get kW from the Volts and Amps without changing modes. Watts = Volts * Amps, so kW = V*A/1000.
To get kW charging power, just take Volts times Amps and divide by 1,000.
techMology
Member
What's the typical kW rate for a car at 40%? (as typical as it can get - I realize there are multiple factors)
Prompted by this thread, I went to my local SuperCharger (Toronto). I'm 5 miles away. I plugged into two different stalls and saw no higher than 50kW (42kW would be the average, I'd say). Only one other person charging at the time. I wasn't plugged into his paired charger.
It makes little sense to limit, unless it's to discourage use by locals. In my industry (wireless), you want people to use the resource as quickly as possible so it's free for others to consume. It's a balance between getting the consumer to pay for the faster data rate and freeing up the network. I don't understand why Tesla would want to slow things down for any other reason than to prolong the life of the battery, or because of some electrical fault.
Prompted by this thread, I went to my local SuperCharger (Toronto). I'm 5 miles away. I plugged into two different stalls and saw no higher than 50kW (42kW would be the average, I'd say). Only one other person charging at the time. I wasn't plugged into his paired charger.
It makes little sense to limit, unless it's to discourage use by locals. In my industry (wireless), you want people to use the resource as quickly as possible so it's free for others to consume. It's a balance between getting the consumer to pay for the faster data rate and freeing up the network. I don't understand why Tesla would want to slow things down for any other reason than to prolong the life of the battery, or because of some electrical fault.
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