Next gen Superchargers and updates to S and X this summer?

It's best to interpret "Major improvements all round" as applying to just the Superchargers and not the vehicles.

It's highly unlikely we'll ever see a CCS port on Tesla vehicles. Bigger batteries someday, for sure, though the majority of the new Tesla battery cell production is going to be dedicated to Tesla Energy and Model 3 for a while.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens in this field going forward. Sure they will unveil it, but when will they actually start building capacity for it? Will it be some new technology required or will older cars be up for a bit faster as well? Who knows?

 

The EPA filing on the 3 shows support for ~200KW charging. So do you think that they are going to unveil a new supercharger that has 200-250KW charging capability and NOT update their flagship vehicles to be able to use it? Would start to get REALLY hard to anti-sell the 3 if it charges at 2x the speed of an S.

Tesla aims to release more powerful Supercharger V3 for quicker charging this summer

 

I'm curious how faster superchargers would even work? the 75/60 batteries don't go over 100Kwh and can't take the full 120kw current superchargers output. So if SCs get upgraded, will half of Tesla vehicles be SOL in taking advantage of the new charging speed?

Also I agree you'll never see CCS on a Tesla for one simple reason: with the thousands of superchargers already using the Tesla plug, makes absolutely no sense for them to build new cars suddenly not-compatible with their current charging infrastructure. That being said, its possible they could make a Tesla -> CCS adapter like they did with CHADEMO, but I doubt that as well. They only did CHADEMO to help owners in the infancy of the supercharger network where it wasn't as widespread.

There is basically more supercharger options than chademo options now, rending the adapter relatively useless IMO.

 

My bet would be that your 100% correct on this. The existing vehicles/batteries would top out at whatever their cap is and the newer cars that can support the higher rate will get it. As noted above the Model 3 is highly likely to support the lower end of charge rate that they are talking about for the v3 supercharger at 200Kw. If I were to bet I would say that any refresh of the packs for S and X will have a higher cell count and therefore a higher charge capacity nearing the 250Kw mark. Whether this comes by way of 2170 cells or simply a change in the chemistry for the 18650 is anybodies guess but I would bet on 2170's and a release timing of Q1-Q2 2019.

 

FWIW, during summer months especially (and sometimes all around), we still see handle overheating issues on the current superchargers that prevent getting 110kW supercharging consistently.

Even if your car cannot take advantage of some new charging speed, IMO the improvements would still benefit you.

Also worth noting that it's almost unthinkable that new superchargers won't be backwards compatible with existing cars. It's hard enough to scale enough supercharger capacity, for existing cars to be unable to use certain charging stalls would generate so much mass confusion.

 

I would imagine maybe the following upgrades as part of V3.

1.) No more split power between stalls. Each individual stall will get full power capacity.

2.) Starting to build out solar rigs at supercharger stations.

3.) Much faster charging speed.

 

The chargers themselves would of course be backward compatible. It's just that the charge rate would be limited to the vehicles capabilities. Same way it is done today with 75Kwhr packs or the gen1 85Kwhr packs.

 

I'm not sure that's an "of course", I guess I'm more pessimistic. There's recurring rumblings about an external coolant system supplied by the cable so that you're not limited to the onboard cooling capacity….

I don't think that'll happen this time.

 

Faster Supercharging rates would benefit all Tesla owners, even those who could not use it on their own vehicles.

With faster Supercharging, capable vehicles would need to spend less in the stall. This would free up the current chargers and increase through-put. Congested areas could service more vehicles in the same amount of time.

Elon has been talking about plans to increase supercharger speeds for quite a while.

 

I am almost 100% certain that it will be since the external connection is not present on the Model 3. Not impossible but I don't think Tesla will do that since the rates being talked about are in the 200-250 range. Now when Elon was talking about 350Kw being "a child's play toy" then I think external cooling would be a requirement and likely one of the main reasons the higher charge rates were abandoned. For this version at least.

 

CCS is basically a combination of two plugs and one of them is type 2, which all EU Teslas already have. Just add the other plug to the SC and the only difference against native CCS would be the necessity to plug two plugs instead of just one big. Use just type 2 and you'll be backwards compatible with the existing supercharging. So from hw point of view a pretty simple solution...

 

I wonder if Tesla will also unveil automated charging with the new superchargers this summer. I would think that Tesla would need to start rolling out the automated chargers soon to prepare for when FSD is released.

 

Well, I think it is not possible to just send more ampere trough the connector, because it is actually overloaded. So supercharger V3 must use either a different connector (CCS) or it could double the voltage. So basically they could use the same ampere with double the voltage and reuse the connectors. in other words: a model s75 could internally switch from 350V to 700V and double the charge rate from 100kw to 200kw and the s90 / s100 with 400V would come to 800V and double the charge rate from 120kw to 240 kw. that would be absolutely grate, because "old" model s / x could also benefit from the new superchargers... I hope so, otherwise my 1 month old model s is now outdated...

 

I am not going to repeat this again which has been written in man topics on this forum. The situation in Europe is different from the US. The current port on S/X can be made compatible with CCS without loosing SuperCharging.

So please, look at this from a wider perspective then just the USA.

That said, I doubt we will see a major improvement for S/X this summer.

 

What leads you to believe that the current connector is overloaded?

That's not quite the way the battery works. It's wired internally to either 350 or 400v. Only way to change that would be to rewire the entire pack. So thats not going to happen. Also even if it did you can just shove double the power down to the cells. At the pack level each cell has a max charge rate or C rating. This will have to change in order to charge the pack faster. New cells or chemistry will be needed to make the S and X take advantage of higher charge rates. Probably better pack cooling as well. Mine sounds like a jet when it's hot out and I am charging at peak rates.

 

Several observations from me regarding the superchargers:

1) I think the paired stalls that split power will remain. This saves costs for Tesla by not needing that many power supplies, which I assume are much more expensive than the units at each individual stall (which are just cables and holders for a cable). Shared power supplies make sense because most of the time, the superchargers are not at capacity, and having independent power for each stall is a waste in most cases. Even if both stalls in a pair are occupied, it is likely that one might not be charging at max rate (e.g. close to completion), which would leave excess capacity for the other stall. Perhaps Tesla can make this configurable, and for stations with high occupancy at important junctions, use independent power for each stall.

2) I do believe that it is possible for Tesla to use CCS, or some other type of new connector. It'll be inconvenient, and may be costly, but probably not overly so. In Europe, they may even be forced to do so if industry/government forces standardization on CCS. Why? This is exactly what Tesla has done in China over the past few months: Issued all existing owners adapters, converted ALL superchargers in the country to the GB plugs, and shipped new cars with new connectors only.

Those that argue that Tesla has no need for this because of how much larger the SC network is, is being very short-sighted. In the long run, a single network will never be able to exceed that of the rest of the industry combined. And Tesla would be doing its owners an injustice if Tesla forces its cars to be incompatible. Look at Android vs iOS market share, or look at the availability of charging stations in China. (I'm referring to quantity, not quality here.)

3) Tesla will almost certainly up the voltage in order to double the power. If just doubling the current, then resistance losses would quadruple, very inefficient.

4) Faster supercharging would most likely accompany the next generation of high capacity batteries (e.g. Roadster with 200kWh). Due to the larger batteries that need filling up, total charging time would not decrease. However, you can probably expect to need to charge less often with larger batteries. New cars almost certainly won't have free supercharging due to the higher costs involved in charging larger batteries.

5) Probably not much new for old cars. Charging speeds would not increase (except maybe greater power when both stalls in a pair are occupied due to more headroom available) and charging times would not decrease. Tesla will have to ensure compatibility for old cars somehow, either through the same connector, a second connector, or some kind of adapter.

 

What's the time required to charge a single Tesla cell? The Supercharger can't be any faster than that, even if it it has 1 MW available, without degrading the battery. It could give the cell extra cooling to increase the charge rate, if that helps (can't get too cool or it'll be slower). As far as I know, the Superchargers are already close to this single cell charge time. Any big charging speed increase probably requires a different cell chemistry/construction.

Of course you could always trade battery life for faster charging, as early 85's are experiencing. There is that trade-off to consider.

 

There's no need to compromise battery life. Faster supercharging only needs to work with larger battery packs. (Which may need diff chemistry/construction to fit inside the car, but not because of faster charge rates.)