ThosEM
Space Weatherman
I need to try cleaning my terminals, as soon as I own up to something.
Having traveled 3500 km in the past three weeks, from Annapolis to Portland ME, then back to Annapolis and on to Santee SC for the eclipse, then home to Annapolis, I have an admission to make. I was mistaken about experiencing very low supercharging rates in very hot weather.
We did a lot of supercharging in hot weather during these trips, and the results were consistent and reasonable, once my spouse figured out something important. That is, the arrangement of charging ports at superchargers varies, and is often inconsistent with my assumption that as long as you don’t park next to another car, you will get the full rate as lone user, rather than the shared rate. Once we figured out exactly how to avoid sharing the charger by studying the designations (1A/B, 2A/B, etc.), we consistently had 60 kW or better up to 60% SOC, and completed a +50% charge within 30 min. On one occasion, we had no choice of charger and saw only 28 kW rate at the beginning. Once the other car departed, we were back up over 60 kW.
All that admitted, it is still puzzling to see the charging rate consistently start near 120 kW, but then drop to ~60-70 kW after just a few minutes, followed by a long plateau in that range, until 60-70% SOC, when it begins to taper off as expected. I suppose I would prefer to have the charger make an attempt at 120 kW charging before backing off. Still, it does strike me as strange that the superchargers are apparently unable to determine the most practical charging rate immediately and instead go through this exploratory period, presumably of cranking up the battery cooling system and monitoring the temperature increases at the battery and charging cable to determine how high a rate can be sustained. Much of this I’m inferring from Elon Musk’s speculations about the possibly future use of liquid cooled cabling for superchargers.
Or, is a few minutes of full charging rate just done to impress those of us who aren’t watching very carefully? I would really like to understand this system and how it works better than I do currently, and it would be nice if Tesla would just tell us what is going on. Has anyone figured it out?
Having traveled 3500 km in the past three weeks, from Annapolis to Portland ME, then back to Annapolis and on to Santee SC for the eclipse, then home to Annapolis, I have an admission to make. I was mistaken about experiencing very low supercharging rates in very hot weather.
We did a lot of supercharging in hot weather during these trips, and the results were consistent and reasonable, once my spouse figured out something important. That is, the arrangement of charging ports at superchargers varies, and is often inconsistent with my assumption that as long as you don’t park next to another car, you will get the full rate as lone user, rather than the shared rate. Once we figured out exactly how to avoid sharing the charger by studying the designations (1A/B, 2A/B, etc.), we consistently had 60 kW or better up to 60% SOC, and completed a +50% charge within 30 min. On one occasion, we had no choice of charger and saw only 28 kW rate at the beginning. Once the other car departed, we were back up over 60 kW.
All that admitted, it is still puzzling to see the charging rate consistently start near 120 kW, but then drop to ~60-70 kW after just a few minutes, followed by a long plateau in that range, until 60-70% SOC, when it begins to taper off as expected. I suppose I would prefer to have the charger make an attempt at 120 kW charging before backing off. Still, it does strike me as strange that the superchargers are apparently unable to determine the most practical charging rate immediately and instead go through this exploratory period, presumably of cranking up the battery cooling system and monitoring the temperature increases at the battery and charging cable to determine how high a rate can be sustained. Much of this I’m inferring from Elon Musk’s speculations about the possibly future use of liquid cooled cabling for superchargers.
Or, is a few minutes of full charging rate just done to impress those of us who aren’t watching very carefully? I would really like to understand this system and how it works better than I do currently, and it would be nice if Tesla would just tell us what is going on. Has anyone figured it out?
