No electric at home base parking. Worried about Supercharging 1x per week (battery damage).

[ctn531]

I recently ordered a Tesla (100D) – expecting delivery in mid to late August. Unfortunately, I do not have power where I will be parking the car. Nearest 110V outlet is 250’ away. In a typical week I expect to drive 150-200 miles. There happens to be a supercharger about 1-mile from my house so I will likely be able to fill up 1x per week on the weekend, but I am worried about the long-term effect on the battery (high powered DC charging cycles). I plan on holding on to the car for the long term (10-15 years).

I am trying to decide whether it would be better to use the supercharger from a time convenience perspective, or if I would be better off paying for electricity at a not-quite-so-high-power independent charging station to prolong the life of my battery.

The consensus seems like the best option to prolong the life of the battery is daily charging at home using a HPWC – but that is not an option for me. I want to do what is necessary to make my battery last 10-15 years. I’m also worried about Tesla throttling the available power at superchargers after repeated supercharging sessions. Does anybody know how many supercharging sessions you need before they restrict power?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[cmaster]

When you get to the 8 year point (after unlimited mile warranty ends), loosing a mere 20-40 miles of range on the battery is no big deal.

This is the first reaction of new owners. I had it once too. Now, I just supercharged it whenever I'm at 60% or so. Never use the home charger. If it worries you that much, EVs are not the way to go.

I am expecting new solid state batteries to come out soon. By the time 8 years gone, there will be a number of third party battery refurbisher who can replace these batteries for less than what Tesla offers. Look at the PRIUS for example, dealership charges 1500$ whereas now, it's only 900$ through third party providers.

I recently ordered a Tesla (100D) – expecting delivery in mid to late August. Unfortunately, I do not have power where I will be parking the car. Nearest 110V outlet is 250’ away. In a typical week I expect to drive 150-200 miles. There happens to be a supercharger about 1-mile from my house so I will likely be able to fill up 1x per week on the weekend, but I am worried about the long-term effect on the battery (high powered DC charging cycles). I plan on holding on to the car for the long term (10-15 years).

I am trying to decide whether it would be better to use the supercharger from a time convenience perspective, or if I would be better off paying for electricity at a not-quite-so-high-power independent charging station to prolong the life of my battery.

The consensus seems like the best option to prolong the life of the battery is daily charging at home using a HPWC – but that is not an option for me. I want to do what is necessary to make my battery last 10-15 years. I’m also worried about Tesla throttling the available power at superchargers after repeated supercharging sessions. Does anybody know how many supercharging sessions you need before they restrict power?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ctn531]

When you get to the 8 year point (after unlimited mile warranty ends), loosing a mere 20-40 miles of range on the battery is no big deal.

This is the first reaction of new owners. I had it once too. Now, I just supercharged it whenever I'm at 60% or so. Never use the home charger. If it worries you that much, EVs are not the way to go.

I am expecting new solid state batteries to come out soon. By the time 8 years gone, there will be a number of third party battery refurbisher who can replace these batteries for less than what Tesla offers. Look at the PRIUS for example, dealership charges 1500$ whereas now, it's only 900$ through third party providers.

This is my first reply - so my apologies if I am not doing this right ...

Thank you for the reply cmaster. If I head down the supercharging route, my thought was to exercise the battery between 20%-80% (keeping the charge equally below and above 50%). I'm probably overthinking this, but I do that to everything - my poor wife.

Just had another thought (haven't had time to research it yet). If you get a 4-year extended warranty, would that cover the battery for a total of 10-years (6 regular warranty + 4 extended)?

Thanks again!

 

[CyberShy]

It's hard to know if a particular charging strategy today is going to affect your total lifetime battery capacity 10 years from now. There are people putting 100,000 miles on their Model Ss in 5 years with little to some degradation. They're getting their money's worth by consuming the battery capacity now. Age alone might hurt you more in 10 years than SCing more often now.

There's too many unknowns and not enough data for anyone to back it up.

My 2 cents: charge twice as often for half as long and keep the battery from 33-66%. It will heat up less from a shorter session. Take copius notes and report back in 10 years.

 

[dreamwave6]

I recently ordered a Tesla (100D) – expecting delivery in mid to late August. Unfortunately, I do not have power where I will be parking the car. Nearest 110V outlet is 250’ away. In a typical week I expect to drive 150-200 miles. There happens to be a supercharger about 1-mile from my house so I will likely be able to fill up 1x per week on the weekend, but I am worried about the long-term effect on the battery (high powered DC charging cycles). I plan on holding on to the car for the long term (10-15 years).

I am trying to decide whether it would be better to use the supercharger from a time convenience perspective, or if I would be better off paying for electricity at a not-quite-so-high-power independent charging station to prolong the life of my battery.

The consensus seems like the best option to prolong the life of the battery is daily charging at home using a HPWC – but that is not an option for me. I want to do what is necessary to make my battery last 10-15 years. I’m also worried about Tesla throttling the available power at superchargers after repeated supercharging sessions. Does anybody know how many supercharging sessions you need before they restrict power?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh noobs...LOL!

I’ve been Supercharging my Model X on a daily basis for over a year now...no issues.

Just charge your car and drive...don’t worry!

Andrew

 

[boaterva]

20-80 is great. The only thing that is really bad is the bottom and top (storing it there). You can always charge to 100% for a trip, and go. Do that all the time.

Yeah, don’t waste time and energy (lol) overthinking it *too* much.

Only people that drive thousands and thousands of miles a week and supercharge dozens of times a week will ever even have the possibility of a problem (like Bjorn).

 

[bob_p]

Not having overnight charging negates one of the benefits of owning an EV - never having to spend time "refueling" your EV for normal driving.

Based on the OP's weekly driving, even if the OP could find a 110 outlet for charging during the day, that could help reduce the frequency of trips to the superchargers.

Doing weekly supercharger visits may get old after a while - especially if that supercharger gets busy and there's a wait to get a charger.

 

[Helmuth]

I charge overnight at home (to 90%) and 1-2 times a day at a Supercharger (to 90% also), drove 46,000 miles in less than 7 months and have ZERO degradation.
The same 266 miles rated range at 90% I had when I took delivery!
Maybe I got lucky with our battery...
I usually arrive at the SC with about 40% which keeps the high power charging at a “minimum”, it starts to slow down (below 100kW) at around 66% SoC.
No issueven with the Florida heat which challenges the battery cooling sometimes...
That’s my experience so far.

 

[cmaster]

I don't have any experience with the extended warranty as I have not bought it. But, on the Tesla site, it tells you what it includes. If you are really curious, just call the SC.

 

[ctn531]

Wow - you guys (gals) have been a lot of help - thank you very much.

Has Tesla ever advertised their formula at which point they throttle back max supercharging power? I wonder if it is an absolute number of supercharging sessions (say, 300'ish) ... or if Tesla has smart monitoring which takes into account charge points (staying away from lower & upper extremes of battery), and also temperature monitoring ...

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

(1) Use that 120V outlet when possible. It's 250'. away, not 25000'.
(2) Using the Supercharger: once per week isn't _lots_ of Supercharging. And the limit on the 90s isn't _crippling_, just noticeably lower peak.
(3) Look into getting more convenient home charging. If you need to ask for permission it doesn't hurt to make people aware of the interest.
(4) If relevant, look into getting workplace charging. It doesn't hurt to make people aware of the interest.

 

[Tummy]

The software might limit the max charge rate to around 90 kW to help preserve battery longevity with repeated supercharging. We're talking a LOT of supercharging though, so you will probably be fine with once a week.

Tesla explains why it limits Supercharging speed after high numbers of DC charges

 

[nexusone]

LOL.

I supercharge on average 5x per week. Sometimes more, and sometimes more than once in a day.

 

[DCGOO]

Wow - you guys (gals) have been a lot of help - thank you very much.

Has Tesla ever advertised their formula at which point they throttle back max supercharging power? I wonder if it is an absolute number of supercharging sessions (say, 300'ish) ... or if Tesla has smart monitoring which takes into account charge points (staying away from lower & upper extremes of battery), and also temperature monitoring ...

The only limit I know of is 1.2 x the battery capacity. If you have a 75, the maximum charge rate you will see is ~90 KW, with a 90kwh battery, around 108. If you have a 100, the max will be roughly 120. This why battery size matters, big batteries can/will speed up your charge time.

 

[ewoodrick]

I recently ordered a Tesla (100D) – expecting delivery in mid to late August. Unfortunately, I do not have power where I will be parking the car. Nearest 110V outlet is 250’ away. In a typical week I expect to drive 150-200 miles. There happens to be a supercharger about 1-mile from my house so I will likely be able to fill up 1x per week on the weekend, but I am worried about the long-term effect on the battery (high powered DC charging cycles). I plan on holding on to the car for the long term (10-15 years).

I am trying to decide whether it would be better to use the supercharger from a time convenience perspective, or if I would be better off paying for electricity at a not-quite-so-high-power independent charging station to prolong the life of my battery.

The consensus seems like the best option to prolong the life of the battery is daily charging at home using a HPWC – but that is not an option for me. I want to do what is necessary to make my battery last 10-15 years. I’m also worried about Tesla throttling the available power at superchargers after repeated supercharging sessions. Does anybody know how many supercharging sessions you need before they restrict power?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Sure, you can Supercharge, and if your only option is to Supercharge, then it is your only option. It may not be the greatest thing to optimize your batter though.

Look closer for some options. Is there no way to get at lease a 120V connection closer to the car? What about at work? Lots of parking lots have a 120V plus laying around somewhere. What about even talking the work into installing a charger? Lots of companies are doing it.

Don't just look at the Tesla map, also take a look at PlugShare. There looks to be 5 J-1772 chargers in the downtown Superior (as shown on your profile) area. And honestly, between N Denver and Boulder, way too many to count.
But since you indicated that you are only a mile from a Supercharger, I'm going to guess that you are near Boulder. There looks to be 8 J-1772 chargers within a mile of the Boulder Supercharger

It is real easy for non or new EV owners to keep the eyes close as to the option possible, but get the PlugShare app and go driving around this weekend and find the locations near you. All of the sudden you will start to see a new dimension that you never could see before..

 

[ctn531]

Sure, you can Supercharge, and if your only option is to Supercharge, then it is your only option. It may not be the greatest thing to optimize your batter though.

Look closer for some options. Is there no way to get at lease a 120V connection closer to the car? What about at work? Lots of parking lots have a 120V plus laying around somewhere. What about even talking the work into installing a charger? Lots of companies are doing it.

Don't just look at the Tesla map, also take a look at PlugShare. There looks to be 5 J-1772 chargers in the downtown Superior (as shown on your profile) area. And honestly, between N Denver and Boulder, way too many to count.
But since you indicated that you are only a mile from a Supercharger, I'm going to guess that you are near Boulder. There looks to be 8 J-1772 chargers within a mile of the Boulder Supercharger

It is real easy for non or new EV owners to keep the eyes close as to the option possible, but get the PlugShare app and go driving around this weekend and find the locations near you. All of the sudden you will start to see a new dimension that you never could see before..

Technically, it is my work which is 1-mile from the Boulder supercharger. Yes, I live in Superior & Tesla has announced that they are opening a showroom & service center here next year - so hopefully I will have a supercharger 1-mile from my home also - tough life, huh?

I haven't looked into PlugShare yet, but it's obvious from this newbie that a lot of you guys use it as an effective means to find a place to charge. My Wife & I ordered our MX 2 weeks ago. Got our VIN last Saturday & delivery estimate is mid to late August. I'm telling myself to be patient, but I want it NOW ...

Thanks again for the help and advice!

Have a great day ...

 

[posity]

The Danish long term S/X battery degradation study is one of the largest owner-generated databases of long term battery degradation on both the Models S & X that I've found (please suggest other studies if you know of them). There is a lot of good news in that study: the degradation curve levels out after the initial degradation which indicates that our long term degradation appears to be very favorable (don't freak out if degradation is not perfect the first couple years). As an engineer that deals with the mathematics of naturally occurring chemical processes (like the chemistry of batteries), many of those processes have a natural logarithmic curve - which looks very much like the Danish plots.

One of the more interesting aspects of that Danish study is the trend for vehicles that heavily use Superchargers: those vehicles had LESS degradation than vehicles that minimally used superchargers! This is consistent with Tesla's company line that supercharging is not bad for the batteries - and indeed supercharging appears to actually (statistically) be good for the batteries.

So I believe the bottom line here is not to overthink or over-worry the charging details. Tesla appears to have done a superb job of designing the battery system for lots of scenarios. Avoid charging the batteries to 100% unless you are going to use the vehicle soon, and avoid letting the batteries get below 10% unless you are going to recharge soon. And if you try to keep between 20 and 80% all the time, you are really gold - but it's no big deal if you occasionally go outside those ranges, and especially if you do so for only a short time.

For the OP, I would definitely consider supercharging to be a viable regular charging scenario. There are good reasons to believe supercharging could actually be one of the best things you can do for your batteries (based on the owner statistics from the Danish study). Some folks believe that may be related to the fact that supercharging occurs over a shorter period of time, so the batteries are at elevated temperatures (from the charging) for less time.

 

[TexasEV]

Just enjoy the car and don’t think about it. Even if the battery loses a few more miles of capacity (which it probably won’t), so what? If a difference of a few miles of range after many years is meaningful to you, then perhaps this car isn’t for you.

 

[mxnym]

The software might limit the max charge rate to around 90 kW to help preserve battery longevity with repeated supercharging. We're talking a LOT of supercharging though, so you will probably be fine with once a week.

Tesla explains why it limits Supercharging speed after high numbers of DC charges

I thought I read a post somewhere on this forum the other day that indicated that the DC fast charging limit only applied to one or more older generations of batteries and not current batteries in new Teslas. That may not be the case, but the limit for too many supercharges discussed in this article wouldn't apply to newer vehicles if it's true.

 

[d21mike]

Technically, it is my work which is 1-mile from the Boulder supercharger. Yes, I live in Superior & Tesla has announced that they are opening a showroom & service center here next year - so hopefully I will have a supercharger 1-mile from my home also - tough life, huh?

I haven't looked into PlugShare yet, but it's obvious from this newbie that a lot of you guys use it as an effective means to find a place to charge. My Wife & I ordered our MX 2 weeks ago. Got our VIN last Saturday & delivery estimate is mid to late August. I'm telling myself to be patient, but I want it NOW ...

Thanks again for the help and advice!

Have a great day ...

FYI... I do 99% of my charging overnight at my house. But, when planning trips I spent some time reviewing PlugShare and it is a good source. Also, I got a Charge Point Account (and tiny card) just in case I need it. I have not even tested out the Charge Point. Also, the McDonalds next to my house has 2 Free J-1772 Chargers. For fun I tested it once and I think the rate was about 14 mph charging. My 14-50 at home is about 28 mph charging. I also live near the Del Amo Mall in Torrance. One of the parking structures (ground floor) they have a bunch of Free J-1772 Chargers which I tested once. I tested there once. They even have a few outside near the Macys entrance. I only found out about the Del Amo ones on PlugShare. I was surprised at all of the FREE chargers available. But, once I found the chargers I decided that under ground location is a nice place for me to park (many open spaces), however, even though I do not use the chargers they seem pretty busy.