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Slow supercharge speeds
- Thread starter Cowpring
- Start date
It is mentioned on the Tesla website under the Supercharger section in Support:
I am not Supercharging as quickly as I expected. What could be happening?
Your vehicle and the Superchargers communicate to select the appropriate charging rate for your car. Supercharging rate may vary due to battery charge level, current use of the Supercharger station and extreme climate conditions. Your vehicle charges faster when the battery is at a lower state of charge and charging slows down as it fills up. Depending on your destination, charging to completely full is often not necessary.
Re the Model X that was plugged in at the Tower Bridge SuC, as others have suggested, once the car locks the light goes out so it will have been charging.
No I mean it's annoying that the SR+ actually physically charges slower becuase that's the spec Tesla have decided for that car...but they don't mention the SR+ charges slower than the LR or P when you order it.
A bit of a moot point with the update to 170kw I guess...
Jason71
Well-Known Member
I assume some of the reason is due to the smaller battery. There is only so much you can push into each cell at once so all things being equal the more cells the faster the charge rate. That does not account for the now lifted 100kw limit on the SR+ but I assume there will always be a lower limit for the SR+ than the others just due to this.
doghousePVD
My grandfather’s car
Don’t get too excited about a software charging improvement. The are serious physics issues about putting too much power into a given battery that no software can remedy.
Software may be able to detect perfect optimum conditions and allow increase charging in some, relatively rare situations. Once those parameters become less than perfect the car will charge slower so it does not catch on fire.
Beside battery temp and SOC, temperatures of cabling and connections, functioning of battery coolant system, and other data can impact charging speeds.
Software may be able to detect perfect optimum conditions and allow increase charging in some, relatively rare situations. Once those parameters become less than perfect the car will charge slower so it does not catch on fire.
Beside battery temp and SOC, temperatures of cabling and connections, functioning of battery coolant system, and other data can impact charging speeds.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Historically all Tesla's have Supercharged fairly linearly based on the kWh capacity. It used to be the case that is was 10% per 5 minutes (from 10% to 70%). At that time an MS 100 would pull about 120kW max, so on that basis assuming that SR+ is circa 50kWh (I'm guessing ...) that would charge at max 60kW ...
Nothing new there, as such, and will be better than that with the recent changes, but I agree the Spec could be cleaer
MrBadger
Badger out
All things being equal, a larger battery will charge faster than a smaller battery - C rating. Battery C Rating Explained and Demystified
However seems like not everything is equal, but not been a problem up to now as supercharger speed was much less than LR variants could cope with so the artificial cap, SR wasn't at a disadvantage that physics could not explain. However, faster charge facilities are now exposing this potential artificial cap. I say artificial as why otherwise did Tesla pull the anticipated charge power boost from what I can gather?
So I did a proper test last night on my way a back from a job at half 11 at night.
Battery down to just over 10%, pre conditioned the battery and went to the Heathrow supercharger - all 18 bays were completely empty!
Worked great, got a proper charge and it immediately ramped up to 100kw, dropping down to about 60 when I got to 50% ish.
Good to know it's not the car and that there are quite a few factors involved with supercharging.
Why on earth doesn't one of the major UK supermarkets strike a deal with Tesla to get a few supercharger bays installed in their car parks? Could you imagine if Sainsburys and Tesla got a few bays in every car park, the coverage would be epic and Sainsburys would get a ton of additional customers as I reckon almost all Tesla drivers would pop in to buy stuff while they waited for the charge. I know I would.
Battery down to just over 10%, pre conditioned the battery and went to the Heathrow supercharger - all 18 bays were completely empty!
Worked great, got a proper charge and it immediately ramped up to 100kw, dropping down to about 60 when I got to 50% ish.
Good to know it's not the car and that there are quite a few factors involved with supercharging.
Why on earth doesn't one of the major UK supermarkets strike a deal with Tesla to get a few supercharger bays installed in their car parks? Could you imagine if Sainsburys and Tesla got a few bays in every car park, the coverage would be epic and Sainsburys would get a ton of additional customers as I reckon almost all Tesla drivers would pop in to buy stuff while they waited for the charge. I know I would.
For us it would be great - could be a good introduction of the Urban Superchargers to the UK, but for other EV drivers it would be a problem. I would think Supermarkets are more likely to go with solutions like Polar or PodPoint, rather than only catering for Teslas. Perhaps Waitrose or M&S though? 
Yeah I guess. One of the Sainsuburys near me has several PodPoints installed. They are 7kw though, seems stupid to have such a slow charger, even if you spent an hour doing a full week shop in the store, you'd only get a few miles.For us it would be great - could be a good introduction of the Urban Superchargers to the UK, but for other EV drivers it would be a problem. I would think Supermarkets are more likely to go with solutions like Polar or PodPoint, rather than only catering for Teslas. Perhaps Waitrose or M&S though?
Yep I think Waitrose could benefit from it...lol
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Why "stupid"?
They may well not have a huge fat power supply cable already. Serious cost to retro fit one of those.
Even if they do have a nice fat power cable the Peak Demand charges that a bunch of Tesla rocking up and all wanting 150kW could cost them an arm and a leg compared to the Peak of their normal, current, operating power consumption.
Significant cost for a 100kW+ D/C stall, compared to rows of 7KW A/C destination chargers. The ones we put in the work car park were £1K each (installed, including wiring the car park) and the government paid half the bill.
Perhaps 'stupid' was the wrong term to use there - I just mean it seems daft to have slow chargers at a supermarket, who spends 6 hours at the supermarket? The time you spend inside means a tiny amount of charge gained. I get that chargers are expensive to install and use a lot of power etc. and I guess you're just 'topping up' at the supermarket...
But in terms of superchargers:
Is it the property owner who pays for the Supercharger install? Or do Tesla pay for the installs of Superchargers? I thought it was the latter.
Surely the property owner doesn't pay thousands for Tesla Superchargers to be installed and then get little or no return on investment. I used the Supercharger at Hilton Heathrow last night - there's about 18 bays there. I can't see Hilton shelling out tens of thousands of £ unless they get something in return.
Surely Tesla approached Hilton and they cut a deal - Tesla pays for the superchargers to be installed and Hilton allows it, meanwhile potentially getting customers in the form of Tesla drivers who are on-site due to charging needs. Plus maybe a bit of money per kWh taken by Tesla drivers, on top of the re-imbursment of the actual kWh used?
But in terms of superchargers:
Is it the property owner who pays for the Supercharger install? Or do Tesla pay for the installs of Superchargers? I thought it was the latter.
Surely the property owner doesn't pay thousands for Tesla Superchargers to be installed and then get little or no return on investment. I used the Supercharger at Hilton Heathrow last night - there's about 18 bays there. I can't see Hilton shelling out tens of thousands of £ unless they get something in return.
Surely Tesla approached Hilton and they cut a deal - Tesla pays for the superchargers to be installed and Hilton allows it, meanwhile potentially getting customers in the form of Tesla drivers who are on-site due to charging needs. Plus maybe a bit of money per kWh taken by Tesla drivers, on top of the re-imbursment of the actual kWh used?
Tesla originally had a deal with Sainsburys and three sites were built (Exteter, Winchester, Bristol). However, Sainsburys ultimately pulled out of the deal and caused the sites to be dismantled. Those three sites all have PodPoint now.
We don't know exactly what the deal was - in general, Tesla build and maintain the superchargers in exchange for free rent of the site; however it is rumoured that at some sites Tesla actually pay rent, while at others Tesla get the site owner to pay for electricity.
Possibly the stumbling point with Sainsburys was the need to expand the sites - they were all 2-stall, and the agreement ended around the time Tesla were looking to expand to a minimum of 8 stalls per site.
MrBadger
Badger out
I don't think I could do my shopping in amount of time it takes to supercharge. Add that to ending up in the queue for the till clock watching to avoid idle fees it would be a nightmare.
A 40 minute shop whilst hooked up to 7kW would give around 20 miles charge. So positive net charge for the trip. Tag a coffee on to it, you could be talking a 35 mile or so top up.
A 40 minute shop whilst hooked up to 7kW would give around 20 miles charge. So positive net charge for the trip. Tag a coffee on to it, you could be talking a 35 mile or so top up.
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Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
A few generic thoughts. Charge rate only maxes out on a well conditioned battery at low charge. If the battery is too cold or too hot, or the charge level is already maybe 40%+, the charge rate drops.
If you have a low charge and temperatures are reasonable (car has been parked indoors or general weather conditions are pleasant) and you still get a low charge rate, try a different supercharger pedestal. There have been incidents where one particular pedestal was only providing partial power (I've encountered this myself; can't remember where, but I think it was a St. Louis supercharger).
Also, until V3 rolls out everywhere, power is shared between twin pedestals, so try to pick a pedestal pair that is not in use if possible.
If you have a low charge and temperatures are reasonable (car has been parked indoors or general weather conditions are pleasant) and you still get a low charge rate, try a different supercharger pedestal. There have been incidents where one particular pedestal was only providing partial power (I've encountered this myself; can't remember where, but I think it was a St. Louis supercharger).
Also, until V3 rolls out everywhere, power is shared between twin pedestals, so try to pick a pedestal pair that is not in use if possible.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
The Hilton provides free parking (30 mins) to Tesla drivers (maybe to patrons too ... I didn't check), and a discount in the restaurant (and 4 hours free parking if you buy something rather than just Charge). I have no idea why ... having attracted Tesla owners to the hotel I have no idea why they would give them a discount as well (but I would expect free parking).
In the early days Tesla was keen to have sites, but probably only forward thinking landlords were up for it - why would you dedicate a bunch of spaces in your car park to Tesla cars, when next to none existed, and they only hung about for 30 minutes ... Now ... loads of M3s ... no-brainer. But now Tesla is more choosy about needing bigger sites, and the likes of Barnsley 2-stall sites are no more, and I doubt they would do Hilton either (in the sense of "parking behind a barrier; similar at Northampton where you have to go to reception to give them your Reg, otherwise you get a car-parking-fine)
I don't know if at some sites the Proprietor pays for the (Supercharger) electricity - seems a bit expensive [compared to a 7kW charger] for the possible sales, Tesla say that power for all Superchargers in UK comes from renewables (a deal with Ecotricity in UK I think), and I guess that wouldn't be possible to enforce if Proprietor provided the juice. In the case of Destination chargers the Workplace Charger scheme (dunno if that deal is still available) Tesla provided the Chargers for free, Proprietor had to pay for the juice, at least two chargers had to be Tesla only, the others could be either Tesla or AnyEV, and Proprietor not allowed to charge for use (but can restrict to Patrons only)
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Ref slow chargers, TezLab have just released their latest update, which tells you if the speed your receiving is in-line with what is expected based on previous charges. More that get involved the better the data will be (from a UK perspective).
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