Real-World Supercharger Performance

[lolachampcar]

We are starting to see our SuperChargers in Florida which has me curious about their actual utility as opposed to the marketing hype.


Can owners that (routinely) use the SC network comment on actual charge rates? Does the state of charge when you arrive affect the charge rate much? Have you seen any changes associated with "modified taper" charging?


I ask because "150 miles in 30 minutes" would seem to indicate a 300 miles of range per hour of charging and yet the best screen shots I have seen are just over 200.


Thanks,
Bill

 

[bonnie]

Mod note: Moved thread from Model S forum to here. The Supercharger is part of the overall infrastructure and while the Model S uses it, other vehicles will use it in the future.

 

[dennis]

Check out this thread for some stats. Here is the summary:

Summary
Stop 1 @ Harris Ranch: added 137 miles of range in 60 minutes
Stop 2 @ Tejon Ranch: added 121 miles of range in 45 minutes
Stop 3 @ SpaceX: added 75 miles of range in 36 minutes
Stop 4 @ Tejon Ranch: added 138 miles of range in 48 minutes
Stop 5 @ Harris Ranch: added 157 miles of range in 59 minutes
Stop 6 @ Gilroy: added 89 miles of range in 26 minutes

This was from 9 months ago, with 90kw chargers. I duplicated most of this trip in January with somewhat better results, averaging 160 ideal miles in 45 minutes charging a mostly empty battery. It should be even better now with 120kw chargers, but still shy of the "1/2 the battery capacity in about 20 minutes" marketing hype.

 

[lolachampcar]

Dennis,
Thanks for the info. That helps. To clarify, you are posting Ideal and NOT Rated miles? I've not paid any attention to Ideal using exclusively Rated. I routinely make full Rated range on trips.

Bonnie,
' wish you'd not moved it. I was looking for feedback from MS owners ONLY.

 

[dennis]

Dennis,
Thanks for the info. That helps. To clarify, you are posting Ideal and NOT Rated miles? I've not paid any attention to Ideal using exclusively Rated. I routinely make full Rated range on trips.

I used Ideal since the marketing claim of "150 miles in about 20 minutes" is based on Ideal miles.

 

[100thMonkey]

I don't think it's a matter of hype vs reality, it's more a matter of giving people a solid number when in reality it fluctuates based on a host of factors, just like predicting actual range. I was told at the Burlington SC ribbon cutting that the temp of the battery and the state of charge, as well as the number of cars charging and the rate that they are charging all effect your actual rate of charge. I've SC'ed about a dozen times, the rate seems to always be a little different, it even appears to be influenced by time of day. my best rate of charge on a 90kW SC was 280 mph at 1:30 AM in Fulsome, CA. maybe overall grid load is yet another factor? The entire EV industry is challenged to come up with solid number for consumers when in reality "it's all relative" when it comes to charging rates and range, and relativity is hard to brand. I can say one thing for sure, Tesla's Super Chargers are bar none, the fastest!

 

[bonnie]

Bonnie,
' wish you'd not moved it. I was looking for feedback from MS owners ONLY.

Right now, only MS owners CAN reply, since no one else can use the SC - but we will (I'm hoping!) have Model X owners here in a year or so. Same technology, different form factor.

 

[lolachampcar]

bonnie,
I just tried to edit the OP to see if I could remove "hype". I only think in Rated which is why I thought 150/30 was hype. Now that Dennis has set me straight, I'd like to get rid of the hype comment.

 

[Electroman]

This is no different from the 3G and 4G/LTE speeds and cable Internet speeds all these telecom vendors claim and the reality. Their claim is the best case maximum and then there are other factors !

 

[lolachampcar]

Bonnie,
Thanks for the edit.

mkj,
My interest is in planning and setting expectations when I or my wife takes a trip. If we are stopping for an hour and not 20 minutes it makes a difference. It sounds like a lot of leeway needs to be added at the beginning until all this settles out.

The battery swap starts to make more sense.... It depends on how you value your time and just how dead your battery is. $50 for an hour of my time would be cheap.

 

[bollar]

Two things:

First, nobody has reported that 120 kW has been enabled. At TESLIVE, Musk confirmed that the SCs are still at 90 kW. Once they are upgraded, then 0-100% is supposedly 75 minutes, like you noted.
Second, the other coming software improvement is supposedly that the charge taper will come later in the cycle, letting you get to 80% charge faster -- and not just because of the increase from 90 to 120 kW. This was discussed in the May Supercharger announcement.

So, maybe once these two improvements have been deployed, you will see much faster charging times than you do today.

I agree that battery swap will be more popular than many think.

 

[SFOTurtle]

Bonnie,
Thanks for the edit.

mkj,
My interest is in planning and setting expectations when I or my wife takes a trip. If we are stopping for an hour and not 20 minutes it makes a difference. It sounds like a lot of leeway needs to be added at the beginning until all this settles out.

The battery swap starts to make more sense.... It depends on how you value your time and just how dead your battery is. $50 for an hour of my time would be cheap.

I have used the Gilroy SC five times. I have a 60, and my highest charge rate was 226 when I had about 30% SOC to start. If you have 90 minutes budgeted for a stop, that should be plenty of time to get enough charge to get you going. Last weekend we added about 130 rated miles in about 45 minutes (I didn't time this), but I did a range charge and the last 10-15 rated miles were much slower. I was charging at over 220 miles an hour for the first 20 minutes or so and then tapered from there.

To answer your original question, these chargers are for real and definitely make road tripping possible, and we would even say much more enjoyable. There are reports of folks charging at the Barstow SC that have reported slower speeds when another car was charging, but that seems to be the anomaly. We have taken two day trips down to Monterey, about 75 miles from our house, because of how easy and fast the SCs are. I'm really looking forward to the roll out more of these in Gilroy and other spots. And also looking forward to the even higher charging rates once 120 kW charging is enabled.

 

[Larry Chanin]

We are starting to see our SuperChargers in Florida which has me curious about their actual utility as opposed to the marketing hype.


Can owners that (routinely) use the SC network comment on actual charge rates? Does the state of charge when you arrive affect the charge rate much? Have you seen any changes associated with "modified taper" charging?


I ask because "150 miles in 30 minutes" would seem to indicate a 300 miles of range per hour of charging and yet the best screen shots I have seen are just over 200.


Thanks,
Bill

Hi Bill,

It was good seeing you briefly at the Port Saint Lucie ribbon cutting ceremony.

There is a first come first served algorithm: if you get there first, you get up to 90 KW If you need it. If you don't the next car may get up 30 or 60 KW based on his SOC. increments are 30 KW each. A firmware upgrade on our cars later this year is all that is needed to enable 120 kW.

Larry

 

[wraithnot]

We are starting to see our SuperChargers in Florida which has me curious about their actual utility as opposed to the marketing hype.


Can owners that (routinely) use the SC network comment on actual charge rates? Does the state of charge when you arrive affect the charge rate much? Have you seen any changes associated with "modified taper" charging?


I ask because "150 miles in 30 minutes" would seem to indicate a 300 miles of range per hour of charging and yet the best screen shots I have seen are just over 200.


Thanks,
Bill

My best charging rate is 290 rated miles per hour (I got this on Thursday at Tejon Ranch).

I posted the data from my recent trip to Las Vegas here: 1,100 mile road trip to Las Vegas and back with a REST datalogger There is a plot comparing the six superchargers I visited and a link to download all the raw data if you want to perform a more sophisticated analysis.

If you want to drive with the flow if traffic and don't want cut it so close that you arrive with less than 10 miles of range then you should plan for ~45 minute charging stops with an 85 kWh battery and no one else plugged into the charging bay that shares a supercharger stack with the bay you are using. 60 kWh cars seem to charge more slowly and being the second one to plug into a pair of charging bays REALLY slows things down.

 

[fiksegts]

much different, distance to towers and different devices effect speed... if they say 200 miles in 20 minutes, it should be VERY close to that....

This is no different from the 3G and 4G/LTE speeds and cable Internet speeds all these telecom vendors claim and the reality. Their claim is the best case maximum and then there are other factors !

 

[wraithnot]

One more thing I should add- I really enjoy taking road trips in the model S. Planning things out, monitoring the energy usage, and monitoring the nav system keeps me engaged. Other than Hawethorn after 6 pm, there are at least some sort of amenities within easy walking distance. A standard bathroom break plus starbucks run usually takes 15 or 20 minutes so there isn't really that much downtime waiting for a charge to finish. Eating a meal or visiting the outlet malls at Barstow or Gilroy often takes longer than the minimum charge time required to get to the next charger. This means the next stop only has to be 25 or 30 minutes.

Of course this all breaks down when the superchargers get crowded. Then things can kind of suck.

 

[brianman]

Have you seen any changes associated with "modified taper" charging?

We won't see changes to the tapering algorithm or sustained rates over 100 kW at a SuperCharger until the new car firmware is installed. Was made clear at Teslive.

- - - Updated - - -

My best charging rate is 290 rated miles per hour (I got this on Thursday at Tejon Ranch).

For OP since it seems he's not reading all the threads...

Highest pictured rate on the forums so far is 292 mph rated. IIRC.

 

[lolachampcar]

I got the impression that modified tapering and 120KW were two separate efforts thus the possibility that tapering has been released or is in testing.

as for not reading all the threads, yes, I am lazy but this approach elicits the time, taper and utilization comments I was looking for to flush out the SC experience. It is best to properly set the family's expectations when it comes to road trip stops.

 

[Greg G]

I just finished up a DC-Boston road trip. Top rate was 283 mph (rated). I didn't time the charges precisely and here's why: we had enough miles to get to the next stop before we finished our meal, and that's just what I needed.

At one stop, we did wait some extra time to get a full (100%) charge, and that was painfully slow near the end. It's wasn't worth it to get the extra range that we really didn't need.

The bottom line is that the supercharges made the roadtrip effortless. And, that's exactly what I was looking for them to do.

 

[deonb]

I got the impression that modified tapering and 120KW were two separate efforts thus the possibility that tapering has been released or is in testing.

as for not reading all the threads, yes, I am lazy but this approach elicits the time, taper and utilization comments I was looking for to flush out the SC experience. It is best to properly set the family's expectations when it comes to road trip stops.

I ran into one of the SuperCharger Engineers for the West coast a week ago (Hank). The tapering change has not been released anywhere yet, and the plan is to do this at the same time as the 120kW rollout.

And the plan for 120kW is at the end of this month in CA, and end of next month in WA. (Don't hold him to it - he's an Engineer talking about when a project can be done... as an Engineer myself, we're the last people in the world who should ever be predicting a schedule...).