Older Teslas limited to 90kW Supercharging

[yobigd20]

I think you are missing my point. The OP has hypothesized that there are two sets of hardware. One that can charge at 90KWH, another that can charge at 120KWH. That is a simple yes/no answer. Tesla should already know whether or not this is the case.

If Tesla has know about this for a long time and just refused to communicate it, that is bad. Even worse for not acknowledging it when inquired.

If Tesla didn't know about this, and does not know what is causing this, I find that to be extremely disturbing.

 

[ckessel]

Most likely because Tesla has to have known about this issue for 9+ months and failed to communicate it to the owners of the affected cars or formulated a plan to address it during that time.

Tesla has known for at least 12-15 months, since I got my car on Dec 30th last year and it appears to be have been in a mixed batch of hardware given VINs ahead and behind me have 120kwh while I don't. And Tesla certainly knew at least a couple months before that to get the 120kwh hardware designed and built.

90kwh hardware was basically known to be old generation before the first Superchargers debuted.

Though, to be fair, the first Superchargers were obsolete too as those were 90khw, though Tesla is retrofitting them over time.

 

[tomas]

Here's the imaginary "most likely" 3 act drama playing out in my head...

Act 1: Late 2012. Sigs shipping. Engineers enter HQ stage left: "bad news, we're finding the batteries splizz out when we try to charge them at 120". EM: "Can you fix it?" Engineers: "sure, but not the ones already shipped or produced." EM: "well, what works for those?" Engineers: "90 should be OK" EM:"OK, update to the new spec going forward, we'll figure something out for the customers we've shipped. It'll be 6 months (ed: 1 year in real time) before software and superchargers are at 120. We'll figure something out. Put that on the list of service issues." Customer Service: "Shall we tell them?" EM: "Hmm, they'll just get riled up when it makes no difference now anyway. We'll figure out something for them. Hold off."

Act 2: Late 2013. Cut to forum. Poster 1: "must of known", Poster 2: "maybe ignorant", Poster 3: "they're screwing us", Poster 4: "i'm ticked off!". Cut to HQ: "I guess we didn't figure that one out, what are our options?"

Act 3: Yet to be written.

Less malice than trying to roll with the punches and taking one occasionally. I hope it's a comedy and not a tragedy.

 

[scaesare]

Nicely put.

Tesla is moving at a pretty furious pace... I hope we can error on the side of giving them the benefit of the doubt and being constructive until we know for sure there's intent other than to do right by us...

 

[apacheguy]

@ tomas - I think the scenarios in your play are completely accurate. The trouble is that TM had several months (quite possibly a year) to figure out a solution to the issue. By the time 120 was unveiled, they should have had an answer. However, they did not, and they still don't. I'm pretty certain this is what most of us are concerned about.

 

[Ditpixs]

i'm 74 spots before you (1741) and sent an email to [email protected] this morning. Will post the reply when received.

What is your recent range charge rated miles? I was getting 270 miles early on, but now struggle to get 260, more like 250-255.

I've also sent a note to my service rep in Fremont to have the SC question added to my service list - I'm scheduled to go in on Monday to have the recurring right-rear motor hum evaluated (on drive unit #2 already) as well as a few other things (buzzing ambient lights have a fix yet for us early folks?). My P85 is #1698 - 12/7/12 delivery.

@NapaBill: My standard charge with 5.8 is about 222 miles and range charge seems to be right around what you are seeing - 250-255. I have approx 27k miles on the car and used to get 265-268 with a range charge. With all of the firmware changes, it is hard to figure what is real battery loss and what is just a change in how it is calculated. If these numbers are accurate, wondering what my range will be at 100k miles...

 

[PhilBa]

Here's the imaginary "most likely" 3 act drama playing out in my head...

Act 1: Late 2012. Sigs shipping. Engineers enter HQ stage left: "bad news, we're finding the batteries splizz out when we try to charge them at 120". EM: "Can you fix it?" Engineers: "sure, but not the ones already shipped or produced." EM: "well, what works for those?" Engineers: "90 should be OK" EM:"OK, update to the new spec going forward, we'll figure something out for the customers we've shipped. It'll be 6 months (ed: 1 year in real time) before software and superchargers are at 120. We'll figure something out. Put that on the list of service issues." Customer Service: "Shall we tell them?" EM: "Hmm, they'll just get riled up when it makes no difference now anyway. We'll figure out something for them. Hold off."

Act 2: Late 2013. Cut to forum. Poster 1: "must of known", Poster 2: "maybe ignorant", Poster 3: "they're screwing us", Poster 4: "i'm ticked off!". Cut to HQ: "I guess we didn't figure that one out, what are our options?"

Act 3: Yet to be written.

Less malice than trying to roll with the punches and taking one occasionally. I hope it's a comedy and not a tragedy.

Having worked in rapidly growing companies with "resource constraints" (i.e. too much work, not enough people), I see this as very plausible. Keeping the line going is priority and this sort of thing falls below that. Given that Tesla can be undisciplined and has fairly poor internal communications, it rings true. Ultimately, they will do the right thing.

 

[rlcordeiro]

I took a trip to Las Vegas earlier this year and decided that we own enough ICE vehicles to not use "Pa's fancy golf cart"(that's my son's description) for long distance travel yet. I have taken many trips to San Diego and back but am not willing to risk ICE'ing of SC spots or waiting in line when there are more Tesla's than SC slots. The difference between 265-268 EPA rated miles and 250-255 EPA rated miles on a range charge really doesn't make a difference in this situation.

- - - Updated - - -

Neither does 90 vs 120KW

 

[ckessel]

So....you came into a supercharging thread to tell us all how much you don't care about supercharging?

Uh, thanks for the input, I guess.

 

[Kraken]

So....you came into a supercharging thread to tell us all how much you don't care about supercharging?

Uh, thanks for the input, I guess.

I think he meant to post this in the decreasing rated range thread... The moment he realized the mistake is clearly defined by when he edited it to add the last part.

 

[Matt_D]

I'll jump in here -- my VIN is in the 2200's and my vehicle is limited to 90 kWh.

 

[wycolo]

To answer the question: Will a recently manufactured replacement battery pack enable 120kw charging in a 2012 MS 85?? Here is the raw data plots. The KW scale is a VxA result plot. I was going to redraw the chart but it probably would have come out worse. No other Teslas there until one parked 2 spaces away, but he did not change my charging rate. Still @4.5(1.33.61). I had to restart @46 min thus the odd point. Ended @220 miles (not 200).

So this chart is non linear with respect to TIME, obviously. Didn't bring a stopwatch, thankfully.
--

 

[tomas]

To answer the question: Will a recently manufactured replacement battery pack enable 120kw charging in a 2012 MS 85?? Here is the raw data plots. The KW scale is a VxA result plot. I was going to redraw the chart but it probably would have come out worse. No other Teslas there until one parked 2 spaces away, but he did not change my charging rate. Still @4.5(1.33.61). I had to restart @46 min thus the odd point. Ended @220 miles (not 200).

--

wycolo - I thought from 120kwh thread that you need 5.X to get above 90. Love the graph, but if that is true, then this does not demonstrate your new pack can't get above 90. If I've missed something in these threads and it should work with 4.5, please let me know.

 

[apacheguy]

To answer the question: Will a recently manufactured replacement battery pack enable 120kw charging in a 2012 MS 85?? Here is the raw data plots. The KW scale is a VxA result plot. I was going to redraw the chart but it probably would have come out worse. No other Teslas there until one parked 2 spaces away, but he did not change my charging rate. Still @4.5(1.33.61). I had to restart @46 min thus the odd point. Ended @220 miles (not 200).

Indeed, you will need 5.x in order to take advantage of 120. However, I can tell you that your taper curve looks better than mine does on 5.8. At ~100 miles you were peaking at 90 kw. By that time, my car seems to drop down to 70 kw. I'm leaving for a road trip this weekend and will be hitting up quite a few SCs along the way. I plan to post some data when I return.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Firmware 4.5 does not allow for 120 kW supercharging.

 

[wycolo]

Firmware 4.5 does not allow for 120 kW supercharging.

I wanted to get a dataset first with NO changes, other than the new battery in August. Now if I finally cave and allow the firmware upgrade (TM is bugging me daily over WiFi: "Come ON, just click it!!") I can then redo and see if 120 KW would then be enabled. Only one step at a time. I might be the 'last of the MS low riders' holding out as I have.

The fun here for me was just trying to assemble the data onto a graph that would show something (anything). Since the VOLTS is essentially linear, its is interesting how the AMPs and KWs approximately mirror each other. Cottonwood's chart is plotted against time which makes much more sense. I should remove the VOLTS function and replace with TIME.
--

 

[Cottonwood]

I wanted to get a dataset first with NO changes, other than the new battery in August. Now if I finally cave and allow the firmware upgrade (TM is bugging me daily over WiFi: "Come ON, just click it!!") I can then redo and see if 120 KW would then be enabled. Only one step at a time. I might be the 'last of the MS low riders' holding out as I have.

The fun here for me was just trying to assemble the data onto a graph that would show something (anything). Since the VOLTS is essentially linear, its is interesting how the AMPs and KWs approximately mirror each other. Cottonwood's chart is plotted against time which makes much more sense. I should remove the VOLTS function and replace with TIME.
--

I caved last week after I got the 70-Amp J1772 running in Salida, CO, and was willing to give up the little bit of Hypermile advantage. BTW, it looks like the upgrades are sequential, so you may get an upgrade to 5.6 on your way to 5.8 that will give you fast charging and still be a low rider. Check the version for each upgrade.

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BTW, I know that this is being pedantic of me, but would someone with the power, please edit the title to this thread and change kwh to kW.

Charging rate is power, measured here in kW or kiloWatts; we are discussing 90 or 120 kW charge rate. kWh or kiloWatt-hours is a unit of energy; for example the MS batteries come in storage capacities of 60 and 85 kWh. Finally, Watts are named after James Watt, and out of respect to him, Watts should always be capitalized.

 

[bonnie]

BTW, I know that this is being pedantic of me, but would someone with the power, please edit the title to this thread and change kwh to kW.

Merry Christmas!

 

[Cottonwood]

Merry Christmas!

Thank you very much from a pedantic grinch who celebrates Chanukah! :wink:

 

[bonnie]

Thanks for recognizing the good intent and not going all ballistic on me. I just go with 'thank you, you too!' whether I'm wished Happy Holidays, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, or ... whatever. (And you're welcome!)