Slow Superchargering - 18kwh (Whole station)

[godkane]

This weekend I was stopping at St. Joseph, MI and there was a line which I had not seen before. I thought it was just busy. I originally was getting 18 kwh and thought the car beside me was just getting the rest of the charge, what I was surprised by is that when that car left, my rate did not change and the new car that got in was also getting 18 kwh. I was just wondering if anybody has seen the whole station being limited?

I'm guessing because of the high rate of cars that the battery storage was empty and that the 18*8 kwh was the rate Tesla can pull from the grid.

 

[outdoors]

This weekend I was stopping at St. Joseph, MI and there was a line which I had not seen before. I thought it was just busy. I originally was getting 18 kwh and thought the car beside me was just getting the rest of the charge, what I was surprised by is that when that car left, my rate did not change and the new car that got in was also getting 18 kwh. I was just wondering if anybody has seen the whole station being limited?

I'm guessing because of the high rate of cars that the battery storage was empty and that the 18*8 kwh was the rate Tesla can pull from the grid.

No battery issue with the SC, as this SC doesn't work that way. The long term thought is battery storage on site might help with demand charges from a utility bringing the overall cost down. So way down the road, and retrofitting doesn't seem high on the list now.

Often when the Supercharger is completely full one can have reduced charging across all units. This happened to me once outside Atlanta. The Supercharger at St. Joe has been having some issues lately. So this may not be issue. One suggestion is to call it in to Tesla. I am sure if line was happening and this was the result for all cars someone did. Yet if everyone thinks someone else did it. Then no one did.

 

[widodh]

This weekend I was stopping at St. Joseph, MI and there was a line which I had not seen before. I thought it was just busy. I originally was getting 18 kwh and thought the car beside me was just getting the rest of the charge, what I was surprised by is that when that car left, my rate did not change and the new car that got in was also getting 18 kwh. I was just wondering if anybody has seen the whole station being limited?

I'm guessing because of the high rate of cars that the battery storage was empty and that the 18*8 kwh was the rate Tesla can pull from the grid.

Small note: It's 18kW (KiloWatt) and not kWh. kW is a measure of power for charging or discharging the battery in this case. kWh is the amount of energy.

Charging at 18kW for 1 hour means a energy transfer of 18kWh.

 

[ilyak]

One suggestion is to call it in to Tesla. I am sure if line was happening and this was the result for all cars someone did. Yet if everyone thinks someone else did it. Then no one did.

I've called and emailed in dozens of instances of broken hardware and slow charging over the past year. Around this past June, I started receiving responses both over the phone and email that they no longer need these reports as they are instead relying on automatic failure notifications from the stations themselves. Here's a copy of a recent response:

Thank you for contacting Tesla. In the event of a fault, our Superchargers will automatically notify us with the necessary information to address, so no further direct reporting of issues is needed. Our Supercharging Service team works as quickly as possible to address any issues. Thank you for being a part of the Tesla community!

While I do not fully buy this - the supercharger in this particular instance has a history of outages for the first four stalls that can be traced back to March on PlugShare - when I pressed the support team member to forward my response to the team responsible for maintaining it, they said that this was no longer possible.

​

 

[outdoors]

I've called and emailed in dozens of instances of broken hardware and slow charging over the past year. Around this past June, I started receiving responses both over the phone and email that they no longer need these reports as they are instead relying on automatic failure notifications from the stations themselves. Here's a copy of a recent response:



While I do not fully buy this - the supercharger in this particular instance has a history of outages for the first four stalls that can be traced back to March on PlugShare - when I pressed the support team member to forward my response to the team responsible for maintaining it, they said that this was no longer possible.

​

Then I must be the squeaky wheel that just keeps on squeaking. I more call on what looks like recent damage. Tesla can't see external damage. Recently it seems to me that people are having a much harder time correctly backing into stalls.

I did hear that they supposedly can see the stalls and issues, but it seems more and more the whole charger has to go down before they do anything. I will stall call it in or email. Having half a supercharger reduced for half a year is kind of crappy.

 

[ilyak]

Then I must be the squeaky wheel that just keeps on squeaking. I more call on what looks like recent damage. Tesla can't see external damage. Recently it seems to me that people are having a much harder time correctly backing into stalls.

I did hear that they supposedly can see the stalls and issues, but it seems more and more the whole charger has to go down before they do anything. I will stall call it in or email. Having half a supercharger reduced for half a year is kind of crappy.

I agree, and I will continue reporting issues too. But first line support has repeatedly made it sound like they cannot act on these reports in any meaningful way.

 

[TomServo]

I'd hate to be near empty and in a hurry.....