Older Teslas limited to 90kW Supercharging

[mknox]

If this is all really true I think it would be a great opportunity for TM to make good on their 'hardware upgrades included' promise with paid service visits.

While I don't think this specific issue affects me, I couldn't agree more. I specifically paid for the 4 + 4 Annual Service plan primarily for this reason, and so far I don't believe I'm getting anything above and beyond what other folks without the Plan are getting when they take their cars in.

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More Sig Tax / early adopter "benefits" I'm afraid. I love my car, I love Tesla, but don't buy a Sig.

I think this might be an artifact of how Tesla constantly changes the Model S specs and features as opposed to traditional car makers who increment by model year. I remember when Cadillac added remote control features (via an OnStar app) to the 2010 models and my 2009 didn't have the feature nor could it be upgraded. I was disappointing, but knew I had an '09 and it was '10 and newer feature so just moved on.

With Supercharger limitations, Parking Sensors, Cold Climate Pkg. and so forth I believe you just have to think of it as having an "earlier model year" car. I think it's quite common for newer cars (or computers or smartphones for that matter) to just keep getting better.

 

[ckessel]

The early adopter tax could apply, but Tesla has already given precedence for addressing this sort of thing for relatively small sets of customers. They've offered free retrofits for all german cars that want the high speed kit. There's probably going to be fewer of those than there are folks stuck at 90kwh super charging.

90kwh is not fast. I waited almost exactly 1 hour to get from ~80-90 to 240. From Springfield to Grants Pass has significant elevation changes. At freeway speed, in the cold, through those mountains, you'll at 200 miles of range. From say 50 to 200 you're looking at 50 minutes or so of charge time at 90kwh. 120kwh would be a significant bump.

 

[jthompson]

I sent Tesla an email because I was only getting 90kwh out of the new Springfield, OR 120kwh chargers. I was told today that my car is older and doesn't support 120kwh. I'm rather steamed about that. Nowhere that I can find has Tesla ever said newer cars had different support than older cars. I asked about an upgrade. Doesn't know. Would an upgrade be part of the "hardware upgrades" mentioned in my prepaid service contract? Doesn't know.

If someone bought a used Tesla or activated SC on a 60kwh, would they know if it was 90 or 120 enabled? Doesn't know.

I'm not particularly happy about the 90kwh limit and particularly by the complete lack of information conveyed to anyone about the fact a difference existed or how to find out. This certainly dims the resale value of older Teslas.

He said he'd call me back when he found out more information, but I'm not pleased. I'm seriously regretting purchasing when I did rather than waiting another few months (VIN P02310).

I have VIN 2281 (P85), and I get 120kW (sometimes up to 125 kW) when I supercharge

 

[scaesare]

I wouldn't think that 135kw would come to the US at all. I think its a matter of the different in types of power and simple math. They have 3 phase power which added up equals 135kw, but we don't and under a similar config add it up and it reaches 120kw. I'm in my car now so can't lookup the details ATM but again I think its a difference of their 3phase vs ours... Not an expert on this though

I believe Elon referred to 135kW charging coming to the US in one of his speaking engagements... might have been in Germany.

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If true...

This, my friends, is a real tragedy. Talk about ruining a brand.

I hope someone from Tesla with the power to do something about it, is paying attention to the destruction of the Sig branding.

Based on the past though, I won't hold my breath.

I agree with Brian about this being unfortunate... especially as the Sigs should be statement cars.

I do suspect there may be opportunity to get Tesla to act, however. Specifically because the distinction regarding supercharging levels never had been, nor is currently being made except with regard to battery size. That is if the 135kW stations are being advertised to give 85kWh batteries an 80% charge in 30 mins, then it shouldn't matter what flavor of 85 you have.

You might be able to get Tesla to see this... especially for Sigs. We did it with foglights. I'd recommend a well-thought out and constructive letter to ownership pointing back to a thread here where folks can voice their support.

Of course they could come out and just put a disclaimer on the Supercharger page that says that some older models may not be able to take advantage of newer upgraded functionality... and there's some validity to that.... but it just seems that as folks who paid a premium there's probably a reasonable expectation of some exception being made...

 

[Bound466]

I have VIN 2281 (P85), and I get 120kW (sometimes up to 125 kW) when I supercharge

I have a 60, vin 3719 with 5.8. I did the I-5 superchargers to SF (Tejon, Harris R, Gilroy) over Thanksgiving. I maxed out at 90.

The vin cutoff isn't making sense. Any 60's out there supercharging higher than 90?

 

[heems]

I do agree that Tesla is terrible at communication when it comes to upcoming changes (hardware or software). They simply change without notice and spring it on customers.

However, I think the expectation that older cars should perform just like brand new ones is unfair. If tomorrow they build 150kwh stations and cars with appropriate hardware to handle it, then the old owner will complain that their cars' wires meltdown and catch fire! This is like complaining about a computer after one year of purchase as to why faster CPUs are out. Time to get real. Your car is as good as the day you buy it - period. Anything else is gravy. Please don't make sigs/early tax/rank/etc an issue. Sorry if this is harsh. It's reality.

 

[ckessel]

I have VIN 2281 (P85), and I get 120kW (sometimes up to 125 kW) when I supercharge

That's before my VIN, so it would really suck if it's a hardware issue since it sounds like our batches ran at about the same time (got my car 12/30/2012), but we didn't get the same SC hardware.

FYI, I got an official "service receipt" email from Tesla this morning with the no charge investigation to my question stating the same thing the guy said in the phone call, that my car is working correctly and only gets 90kwh.

I'm not really sure where to take things at this point. He said he'd ask more sources, but I didn't get any real hard commitment to a followup. Aside from feeling a bit screwed on getting one of what looks like the very last batches of old hardware, I'm in limbo about what the options are to update it. I'll wait until at least next week, but I do want to hear some hard answers at some point.

At a minimum, this is something that needs to be very explicitly called out for each car because it has an impact on folks buying used and/or activating 60kwh batteries for SC.

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This is like complaining about a computer after one year of purchase as to why faster CPUs are out. ...
Sorry if this is harsh. It's reality.

No, it's not, and it's not even close. Sorry if that's harsh, it's reality. Cars are not like computers, they do not have the same lifecycles nor remotely even close to the same financial committment for that lifespan. You also explicitly know when an new computer outperforms an old computer by the various specs and you almost always have a good idea what sort of updates are coming in the relatively near future.

It appears I paid the exact same price as people getting the car within the same VIN batch as me (see ttimjtim's VIN which is before mine, but has 120kwh), but I got a car with lesser SC capabilities.

It's like there was a shelf of iPhone5's sitting there, all the same price, but secretly some had smaller, wimpier processors and I picked the wrong one on the left rather than the on on the right stocked that morning.

Tesla has touted 120kwh heavily. Tesla has also said all the cars delivered can be SC enabled even if they didn't have SC at first. Do you think all of those earlier non-enabled owners have any idea they can't really get 120kwh if they activated supercharging?

What if early owners also aren't capable of the battery swapping and no one knows? Seems unlikely, but until yesterday it seemed unlikely SC hardware varied by car.

If Tesla has new features that only newer cars support, that's great, moving progress forward is good. Spell out the change, when it kicks in, and spell out upgrade options for older customers.

 

[ElSupreme]

No, it's not, and it's not even close. Sorry if that's harsh, it's reality.

No it is. I have a 10/100 router. When 1000 (gigabit) came out I didn't get a free upgrade. I paid for 10/100 and was happy with it.

You have a 2012 vehicle the people reporting 120kW charging are 2013 vehicles. There IS a difference between the models. They were improved. Besides Tesla has stated publically that they continually improve models, they won't wait for a model year increase, so yes at any given time waiting one Model S could get you a better (or worse, if you think about foglights) car.

Now if you were promised 120kW charging when you bought the car then you have a legitimate complaint with Tesla. But baring that you can just complain that your car isn't as nice as cars delivered a full year later.

 

[ckessel]

Now if you were promised 120kW charging when you bought the car then you have a legitimate complaint with Tesla. But baring that you can just complain that your car isn't as nice as cars delivered a full year later.

When I configured the car, I don't think SC rates were even publicly known yet. By your logic, I should be happy with 10khw supercharging even if cars built the next week were getting 120kwh.

 

[Kraken]

Someone recently did the math and proved that 120 saved a maximum five minutes. Not sure where it was, but we all agreed on his math at the time.

 

[Zythryn]

No it is. I have a 10/100 router. When 1000 (gigabit) came out I didn't get a free upgrade. I paid for 10/100 and was happy with it.
...

I disagree.
If the supercharging speed were listed as part of the car or even that statistic was listed in the features of the car I would agree with you.
Every time Tesla talked about the capabilities of the superchargers it has been exactly that. The capability of the superchargers has gone from 90 kW to 120 kW not the capability of the cars.

If the cabling in the cars will not support the 120 kW supercharger rate that's fine just let us know. It would seem very odd though that there was no mention of this reliance on the car feature list.

 

[Vger]

I am another case; supercharged at Burlington, WA last Saturday, and was limited to 90 kW at very low SOC. Despite a number of problems with my car in its first year, this the first time I have been really disappointed with Tesla. The P+ upgrade was also disappointing, but a true extra-cost upgrade, so more understandable.

I also agree that this virtually destroys the value of the Signature brand. This feels like old-style planned obsolescence. :cursing:

 

[ElSupreme]

When I configured the car, I don't think SC rates were even publicly known yet. By your logic, I should be happy with 10khw supercharging even if cars built the next week were getting 120kwh.

Well they did have the often quoted 150 miles of charge in 45 minutes. So you would expect a minimum of ~55kW of charging. Plus they claimed high speed DC charging, which already had a standard with CHAdeMO, which was currently running at 50kW but are specified to run up to 62kW. Those would have been legitimate expectations, so not 10kW, but 60-65kW is what I was expecting. I also think Tesla was saying 'fastest' so I was expecting marginally faster than existing CHAdeMO (50kW), and probably nominally faster than the CHAdeMO spec (62kW).

And you didn't buy your car and then the next week there were cars running 120kW. It took about 9 months for the 120kW chargers to come online. So it wasn't the 'next week' as you describe. And there HAS to be a breakpoint where the cars are upgraded. There will ALWAYS be the last car without the upgrade.

 

[ckessel]

Someone recently did the math and proved that 120 saved a maximum five minutes. Not sure where it was, but we all agreed on his math at the time.

That'd be nice to see. It'd certainly put some perspective on the impact.

 

[ElSupreme]

I disagree.
If the supercharging speed were listed as part of the car or even that statistic was listed in the features of the car I would agree with you.
Every time Tesla talked about the capabilities of the superchargers it has been exactly that. The capability of the superchargers has gone from 90 kW to 120 kW not the capability of the cars.

If the cabling in the cars will not support the 120 kW supercharger rate that's fine just let us know. It would seem very odd though that there was no mention of this reliance on the car feature list.

But they did offer charging speeds. It was 150 miles in 45 minutes. Quick math gives you ~55kW. When they announced 90kW it was WAY faster than almost everyone anticipated.

And the whole thread was started because Tesla let ckessel know that his car wasn't capable of charging at 90kW. They did exactly what you suggest.

 

[ckessel]

So it wasn't the 'next week' as you describe. .

It sure looks like it was within the next week. tjimtjim has a VIN less than mine and he has 120kwh capability. So while 120kwh super chargers didn't roll out until later, it looks like it was the "next week" where the hardware was changed on the cars.

When I configured my car Telsa knew that some cars in roughly the same batch would be paying the same $, but be getting lesser SC hardware. That part really bugs me. With the router/computer analogy, if I were buying a computer, iPhone, etc, from a batch it's not like I'd unknowingly be randomly getting a better or worse version. Such things are explicitly labeled and advertised.

And there HAS to be a breakpoint where the cars are upgraded. There will ALWAYS be the last car without the upgrade

Uh, yea, that's why I said this in my post:
"If Tesla has new features that only newer cars support, that's great, moving progress forward is good. Spell out the change, when it kicks in, and spell out upgrade options for older customers."

 

[Andrew]

I think this might be an artifact of how Tesla constantly changes the Model S specs and features as opposed to traditional car makers who increment by model year. . . .

With Supercharger limitations, Parking Sensors, Cold Climate Pkg. and so forth I believe you just have to think of it as having an "earlier model year" car. I think it's quite common for newer cars (or computers or smartphones for that matter) to just keep getting better.

^^^ This.

I've been increasingly put off by the number of "my car doesn't have XYZ but the new ones do!" complaints here at TMC. While I understand (and oftentimes agree with the complaint), it's gotten so frequent that I was just about to start a thread on this very topic. (Mods please break this post out to a new thread if you'd like!)

Tesla's continual product evolution, rather than the traditional "model year" changes, definitely makes it harder not to feel cheated when someone gets something better, at the same price, just a few weeks or months after you got yours. Then again, it isn't really the same price: If I purchased our Model S now with comparable options, it would cost about $9,000 more than we paid back in March.

 

[ElSupreme]

Uh, yea, that's why I said this in my post:
"If Tesla has new features that only newer cars support, that's great, moving progress forward is good. Spell out the change, when it kicks in, and spell out upgrade options for older customers."

Let's use 4G as an example. If you want you can also use nG (where n>3) it works equally well.

It was known that the Model S was coming with 3G ATT mobile data. I expect that Tesla will eventually offer 4G mobile data in the Model S. They will change their website to say "4G LTE mobile data" for the Model S. This doesn't mean your Model S will then get 4G LTE mobile data. Tesla shouldn't feel obligated to tell you that your car doesn't have 4G mobile data.

What happens when they start offering AWD? Should they tell you that your car doesn't have AWD. And that you can't upgrade to AWD?

There will always be a break point. You got caught right before the break point. I am not saying it doesn't suck to be that person. But you didn't get mislead. Even if Tesla notified you, what about the people that bought their car the day before the notification? They end up in you shoes. My point is you didn't get slighted by Tesla, you got unlucky.

 

[apacheguy]

While this doesn't impact me, does anyone know what the charge time difference would be given the power taper that takes place? For example, if it tapers to 90kW after a 30kWh charge then the differential is approx 5 minutes in charge time (depending on the taper curve--that assumes a linear decline which I'm pretty sure it's not).

Not saying it is 5 minutes, just an example.

The taper curve has not been adjusted for me in 5.8. My car still ramps down to 70 kw at 80 rated miles. I can assure everyone the difference is much more than 5 minutes.

Also, Tesla made a commitment to keep my car current with hardware upgrades in my service contract. I have every intention of holding them to their word.

 

[ckessel]

I've been increasingly put off by the number of "my car doesn't have XYZ but the new ones do!" complaints here at TMC. While I understand (and oftentimes agree with the complaint), it's gotten so frequent that I was just about to start a thread on this very topic. (Mods please break this post out to a new thread if you'd like!)

I do agree to a large extent, but supercharging is a cornerstone of Tesla's product and viral marketing. When parking sensors, the P+, and such came out it's unfortunate I couldn't get them, but those are ala-carte luxury add on items. Clearly it's a subjective line, but supercharging capability (whether activated or not) feels like different beast.

If Tesla changes the battery all of a sudden so some cars in a batch got 90kwh and some had 85kwh, I certainly don't think that'd be an under the covers "oh, it's just continual improvement, tough/good luck you got the wrong/right one of the batch".

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What happens when they start offering AWD? Should they tell you that your car doesn't have AWD.

Not apples to apples. Tesla doesn't magically have a month where some owners magically got bonus AWD and some didn't.

Two Model S roll off the line on the same day, one has 120kwh SC hardware and one has 90kwh SC hardware. They are the same price. Which do you feel is worth more?