Slow Supercharger charge speed, potential issue for long distance travellers.

[gnuarm]

I think others have explained this, but just to make it clear... the battery is a large hunk of mass. It takes significant power to change its temperature. The car just does not have the means for heating it up quickly. Even 15 minutes is not enough time to change the temperature of the battery much. I believe I have read that the car will start heating the battery up to an hour before reaching the charger if it is the current destination. The amount of time required depends on the battery temperature of course, but the regen display is not a good indication of the battery taking a fast charge.

It took the auto industry over half a century before they make really good automobiles. I expect EVs will take a couple or three decades before they get the bugs out of using batteries to store the energy for moving a small room about the planet.

 

[Phil Bates]

I have been logging my charging sessions. I used to charge mostly at home, but lately I've been doing a lot of driving for work. I have found that charging at Tesla charge stations is very slow for me. The car is a Model S P85D with about 140,000 miles on it (just under as of today). I have a charger about walking distance from home (1.1 miles), so I charge there frequently. It's basically taking me 2 hours to almost fully charge. I know full charge is slower as you get close to full, but 2 hours to get to 90% seems pretty high to me. I monitor the charge, and rarely see charge rates over 160 miles/hr. I'll try setting the supercharger as a destination, and see if that helps with battery pre-heat. BTW, I have charging for my car logged in an excel spreadsheet. It is clear that the emptier you are, the faster you charge. If that wasn't already clear, it can be easily shown.

 

[gnuarm]

I have been logging my charging sessions. I used to charge mostly at home, but lately I've been doing a lot of driving for work. I have found that charging at Tesla charge stations is very slow for me. The car is a Model S P85D with about 140,000 miles on it (just under as of today). I have a charger about walking distance from home (1.1 miles), so I charge there frequently. It's basically taking me 2 hours to almost fully charge. I know full charge is slower as you get close to full, but 2 hours to get to 90% seems pretty high to me. I monitor the charge, and rarely see charge rates over 160 miles/hr. I'll try setting the supercharger as a destination, and see if that helps with battery pre-heat. BTW, I have charging for my car logged in an excel spreadsheet. It is clear that the emptier you are, the faster you charge. If that wasn't already clear, it can be easily shown.

I don't speak mph charging speed, but I assume that's only 55 kW or so. I typically get a peak of 140 kW give or take with the 100 kWh battery. I've read threads about the 85 kWh battery loosing both charging speed and total capacity due to updates, in fact, I think there was a law suit about it.

 

[gaswalla]

@Phil Bates is ruining his battery with repeated supercharger sessions and Tesla is slowing the charging rate to 'protect' the battery... i know folks don't want to accept this fact, but it is what it is

 

[gnuarm]

@Phil Bates is ruining his battery with repeated supercharger sessions and Tesla is slowing the charging rate to 'protect' the battery... i know folks don't want to accept this fact, but it is what it is

Oh, yeah, I remember now. The 85kWh batteries are supposed to be subject to accelerated wear from Supercharging. They didn't have the battery formula down very well in earlier autos and they had to prevent doing too much damage by severely limiting the charging rate.

Funny, Tesla won't allow the user to limit the charging rate. Very odd.

 

[gnuarm]

@Phil Bates is ruining his battery with repeated supercharger sessions and Tesla is slowing the charging rate to 'protect' the battery... i know folks don't want to accept this fact, but it is what it is

BTW, I think it is a bit disingenuous to say "@Phil Bates is ruining his battery" with supercharging. He said he is driving for work more and he clearly has no choice. Why would Tesla design a charging system that causes excessive wear to the battery? Now that they figured that out they cut the charging rate in half so they don't need to replace the batteries.

I think this shows that we don't own cars like a Tesla. We just pay to use them and Tesla does with them as they want.

 

[Phil Bates]

It is winter, and charging certainly isn't better with the cold weather. I believe it's the ability of the car to do the pre-heating that is an issue. When it's 10 - 20 degrees F out, and it is 170 miles between charges, it just takes a lot of time, and there is it is slow starting to charge, as well as slow at the peak. Today I charged 1 1/2 hours and got 107 miles of charge. The car now has 147XXX miles on it, and it will still charge to the max limit it had when new. So I'm probably not killing my battery, but it does take a long time to charge. I've learned to live with it, but I don't enjoy it.

 

[Phil Bates]

BTW - someone said I clearly have no choice but to supercharge the car and someone else said I am ruining the battery. Not exactly true - I could drive my 1958 MGA. Weather protection is not so good in that though. I used to drive my V8 Audi S4 from time to time, but it had a timing chain tensioner issue, and is probably out of commission for 6 months or so. I'm a car guy, and I have other choices that need some work as well, but they all take gas - which I'm not that opposed to - and my Tesla is old enough I have free charging for life.

 

[GtiMart]

You need to navigate to the supercharger so that the car preheats the battery. If you do this long enough in advance you can get the same charging speed as in the summer.

 

[Phil Bates]

Yesterday I drove 160 miles to a supercharger. That was the destination. Charge rate was one of the best rates I've had in a long time, and it was cold out. My guess is that GtiMart is correct about the reason I've been charging very slowly. Unfortunately for me, I usually drive 20 minutes to a charger. That makes it so the car is not well warmed for charging.

 

[gnuarm]

BTW - someone said I clearly have no choice but to supercharge the car and someone else said I am ruining the battery. Not exactly true - I could drive my 1958 MGA. Weather protection is not so good in that though. I used to drive my V8 Audi S4 from time to time, but it had a timing chain tensioner issue, and is probably out of commission for 6 months or so. I'm a car guy, and I have other choices that need some work as well, but they all take gas - which I'm not that opposed to - and my Tesla is old enough I have free charging for life.

My brother had an MGA, 1960 I think. There was no way to stay dry when it rained with those silly plastic sliding windows.

I'm heading into my retirement and may become an auto hobbiest. I need to get a large garage first. Really large! I'd really like to convert some gas cars to battery. I'm in Puerto Rico now and you don't need a lot of battery since the entire island is only 100 miles or so long. If I had my model X here I could probably lap the island without charging... or almost. Too bad there are only two superchargers on the island. lol

They really could use another supercharger at Ponce and another on the east coast, maybe Fajardo or Humacao. I think they've put the two in the two parts of the island that have the most disposible income. Even then the chargers are only two bangers and not well placed.

 

[Phil Bates]

After being on this list, I more regularly put a charging station as a destination. It seems to warm the battery appropriately if it can, and gets me a faster charge. I've found that charge rates pretty much have nothing to do with number of cars at the charge location, and I've tracked this pretty closely. They pretty much are related to only how empty the battery is, the temperature of the battery (and the model/year car). People say overcharging and supercharging can limit the battery life, and I believe it is true, but I haven't seen it yet. My car has 148xxx miles on it, and will still take full capacity. I charge it to full 2 or 3 times a week, but I also drive it fairly long distance that day.

 

[Phil Bates]

BTW gnuarm - Look into an "airpark community." The neighborhood will have a runway diagonally through the middle of it. Most of the houses will have airplane hangars. This makes it so one can house many cars indoors if you don't own a plane. Further, you can heat (or air condition in Puerto Rico) it, and have room for a lift and a bunch of automotive work. It would be like having a repair shop, but it's on your property. I'm familiar with such neighborhoods here and there in the US, but not familiar with Puerto Rico.

 

[TomServo]

I hit 10 different SCer’s on our Christmas road trip from southern IL to southern MD via I-64 between Dec 22nd and the 28th. In no instance did I experience “poor” charging speeds. All my speeds were as expected based on my arrival SOC, pre-Conditioning, Charger type (V2 or V3) and usage.

It would be nice to know where these chargers are located, so I hope folks took the time to post PlugShare comments as I did.

 

[vikingrob]

I just got back from a road trip today, to Wisconsin Dells. The hotel where I stated did not have a place for me to plug in (at least that I knew of before), so I charged up to near full in Mauston, WI, about 20 miles away, before arriving in town; I was only staying the one night.

Basically, my strategy with hotels that do not offer Level 2 chargers is this: set where you are staying the night as the destination, but make sure to set the last supercharger before you get there as a stop en route; doing so, you will ensure that you have an opportunity to charge up enough to get to the next supercharger the next day. This approach is what I used to make sure I had enough charge to get back to Mauston. As it turned out, I had enough to get to Tomah, where I charged up to get to the next supercharger on my way home. (Tomah to St. Paul offers two logical routes: west on I-90 and north on US 52, stopping at superchargers in La Crosse and Rochester; or I-94, stopping at Eau Claire and/or Menomonie.)

Having enough range to get to Tomah allowed me sufficient time to precondition the battery pack to get the best possible charging speed. If you won't have access to a Level 2 charger to charge while you sleep, at least during the colder months, plan such that you can go at least 40 miles upon departure in the morning before you need to charge. I followed this strategy when I overnighted in Eau Claire this winter, and the strategy paid off.

 

[Phil Bates]

I ultamitely had to take my car into Tesla for the charging issue. They found that it started charging after being stored indoors for several hours. They then found that the water pump on the cooling system was electrically disconnected. They put on a new connector, and the car charges again. For those that don't know, there is a battery heater. It keeps the battery above freezing (0°C) when charging., and it is a fluid system. This has probably been a problem for my car for several years, but as I have a heated garage, and in the past I would rarely charge on the road, it hasn't been a problem. Anyhow, problem solved.