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Older Teslas limited to 90kW Supercharging

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#302
Discoducky said:
I'd bet TM fixes it
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Sadly, I doubt it. They're building a bad track record on things like this.

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joefee said:
+5500$
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5050 or 3550

But he was talking about the higher reservation deposit, not the purchase price difference.

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DouglasR said:
For those of you unhappy with TM because of this issue, how much difference would it have made if, when first announcing the 120 kW upgrade, TM had included a disclaimer, e.g., "For technical reasons, some early versions of the Model S will not be able to take advantage of this upgrade."?
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A significant difference. It would represent a turning point in Tesla's communication quality.

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Kraken said:
Maybe tesla didnt realize this issue themselves until more recently
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I have zero confidence in this theory. Frankly it reminds me of some equivalently dubious political excuses.
 
#303
So I have VIN 02595 and it was produced in December 2012. I went down to the Springfield supercharger with a rated range of 30 miles. I was shocked when it ramped right up to 120 kW.

Pics or it didn't happen?
image.jpg


Also, a video. I apologize for the rambling; I was tired.
 
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#304
It wouldn't entirely surprise me if the availability of the original spec parts for early VIN's limited to 90kW charging ran short sporadically and they decided to throw in the 120kW capable parts "free of charge". Maybe they figured that given that no particular rate had been guaranteed that those with 120 kW capability would be happily surprised, and the rest wouldn't know any better. There were a lot of interesting variations making delivery early on in other regards, from what I've heard. hope this all gets sorted and all are happy in the end.
 
#307
brianman said:
How many Signature owners have reported getting updated fog lights? Didn't Elon say the v1 fog lights were "more bad than good"? Just one example.
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What are you talking about? I've read in at least one thread around here where owners were receiving free fog light retrofits. One owner updated a thread about exactly this topic yesterday over at TM forums.

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I'm referring to those who were promised fog lights in the tech package but did not receive them. Did Signature vehicles not ship with fog lights? If they did, you got your fog lights. The fact that the fog lights were changed to a better version later does not entitle you to new fog lights regardless of what the CEO thinks about them. If you have a Sig that was supposed to receive fog lights but didn't, then you can get them. If you were promised fog lights in your tech package but didn't receive them, then you can get them. If you were promised the prior version of fog lights and received them, then you can't get the new ones because you got what you ordered.
 
#308
My point was that they currently have more of a track record of not doing any hardware-related upgrades for free / included. Regardless of whether you have the service plan or not.

I'm talking specifically about upgrades, not fixes. 90 -> 120 supercharging would be an upgrade not "correcting a broken component".
 
#309
brianman said:
My point was that they currently have more of a track record of not doing any hardware-related upgrades for free / included. Regardless of whether you have the service plan or not.

I'm talking specifically about upgrades, not fixes. 90 -> 120 supercharging would be an upgrade not "correcting a broken component".
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We're dealing with a lot of gray areas regarding what is a hardware "upgrade" and what is a hardware "fix".

A) when I took car in for annual service, there WERE hardware upgrades done… lift gate trough trim upgrade, rear window regulator reinforcement clip, front bumper carrier bolt, rear axle nut washer. Maybe not the ones I wanted, but some "hardware upgrades" nonetheless. When I asked service manager about them, it was explained that they were improvements that were being retrofitted to earlier cars at service visits.

B) I'm not buying that 90 -> 120kw charging is an upgrade. To me, it is a "fix", correcting an out of spec component. Due to the potential cost if fix requires whole new battery pack, I expect Tesla will contend it is upgrade. But, until proven otherwise, I remain convinced that they fully intended 85kwh batteries to charge at 120kw, discovered a problem with charging at >90kw sometime during early production, fixed it going forward, leaving a bunch of us out of "designed" spec.
 
#310
We get 90 KW SuperCharging for free. It was promised with the car and is being delivered. Tesla ups it to 120 after we buy our cars (relying on the 90 KW number) and we are mad that our cars are not charging at 120 KW.

I'm still amazed that there is a company building out a 90+ KW charging infrastructure. Once I get over that, I'll get pissed about not getting the 120 KW (or 135 KW when they become available). I'm slow like that.
 
#312
I recently emailed a high level person at Tesla over a concerning issue of mine. Not this exact issue but a different one I prefer not to disclose (I want to give them a fair chance to respond first).

I think the delay in both my concern and your concern is that they are trying to finish end-of-quarter stuff. I got a nice note back in reasonable time and was assured of a response when they had a chance to investigate. I emailed then on 12/18.
 
#313
tomas said:
But, until proven otherwise, I remain convinced that they fully intended 85kwh batteries to charge at 120kw, discovered a problem with charging at >90kw sometime during early production, fixed it going forward, leaving a bunch of us out of "designed" spec.
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Just to be a devil's advocate, all the early chargers were designed for 90kW, so I doubt Tesla had 120kW in mind at the start. And 90kW makes sense given 1C charging (90kW/85kWh = 1.06C) is the max charging rate for most 18650 cells.
 
#314
tomas said:
A) when I took car in for annual service, there WERE hardware upgrades done… lift gate trough trim upgrade, rear window regulator reinforcement clip, front bumper carrier bolt, rear axle nut washer. Maybe not the ones I wanted, but some "hardware upgrades" nonetheless. When I asked service manager about them, it was explained that they were improvements that were being retrofitted to earlier cars at service visits.

B) I'm not buying that 90 -> 120kw charging is an upgrade. To me, it is a "fix", correcting an out of spec component. Due to the potential cost if fix requires whole new battery pack, I expect Tesla will contend it is upgrade. But, until proven otherwise, I remain convinced that they fully intended 85kwh batteries to charge at 120kw, discovered a problem with charging at >90kw sometime during early production, fixed it going forward, leaving a bunch of us out of "designed" spec.
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The hardware upgrades referred to in A are TSBs covered under warranty. To date, service has NOT performed any hardware upgrades on my car that are covered under my service plan.

Yes, they had always intended to have 120 kw supercharging. Elon said so during the initial supercharger unveiling in September 2012. I agree that it is a fix rather than an upgrade.
 
#316
lolachampcar said:
We get 90 KW SuperCharging for free. It was promised with the car and is being delivered. Tesla ups it to 120 after we buy our cars (relying on the 90 KW number) and we are mad that our cars are not charging at 120 KW.

I'm still amazed that there is a company building out a 90+ KW charging infrastructure. Once I get over that, I'll get pissed about not getting the 120 KW (or 135 KW when they become available). I'm slow like that.
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Well said lola. All the fun I have had with my early P85 does not somehow disappear because I don't have 120kW charging. This goes well beyond the saying "first world problems". I feel like I have temporarily violated some laws of physics or something so it is hard to complain about the tiny insignificant things.

I don't really know when they figured out that whatever characteristic of the early cars would cause them to limit some of us to 90kW. It did come as a surprise to many of us given how they communicated it but I highly doubt it was as obvious as many people on these boards are thinking. I expect it is more like they steadily refined the design enhancing some circuit characteristic (inside the battery pack apparently) along the way to improve overall robustness. Then eventually they came to the conclusion that the early design probably wasn't robust enough to safely support 120kW (or more) charging.

I would certainly not have waited if I had magically known this from the beginning (maybe even before Tesla designers themselves knew it) and waited months for this amazing car. I almost think that is implicit in everyone's decision to buy a Sig or Founder version of the car. We all knew it was early days, we were part of history and the company was not standing still in their innovative process.

The engineer in me is looking forward to understanding this better. The ridiculous overkill part of me is also looking forward to finding out if there will be an upgrade path for those of us who don't have it. Meanwhile, I will just try to find a way to keep that Tesla grin on my face which hasn't worn off after more than 16 months of driving.
 
#320
brianman said:
Not free. Included / pre-paid.
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I don't have an opinion here on what Tesla should do, but it seems we're straying into revisionist history. So just a reminder: The supercharger announcement of 'free charging for life' was in Sept 2012 at the supercharger reveal event in Hawthorne AFTER many cars had been delivered. (Remember how many people were upset they hadn't opted for supercharger hardware...)

So to be fair, when people opted for the supercharger hardware for the early deliveries, they were not opting for free charging. That was a really great surprise. Yes, now it should be considered as something included with the hardware. But that wasn't what people originally thought the deal would be when they opted for the hardware. Most people thought there would be a fee/use. Or maybe free for Signatures. Or maybe free for a year. But no one ever thought 'free for life'. That was huge news at the time. Let's not forget that in our haste to condemn them now.

Again, to be clear, early buyers of the Model S never thought they were getting free charging with purchase of the supercharger hardware, because Tesla had not yet announced it would be free. We can argue all sorts of things, but that one is pretty clear.
 
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