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Some California Superchargers not providing maximum charging rates
- Thread starter Tony8489
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- California Supercharging USA
jeffro01
Active Member
Um. They can install Tesla PowerPack battery backups
Fair enough, there is a cost to that though and I'd rather they spent that money on more stalls\locations than battery backups for load balancing and load shaving issues at this time...
Jeff
whttiger25
Member
What's been happening then? The language I'm reading suggests occasional deviations from a normal expectation. What I'm experiencing is that I rarely, if ever, get anywhere near 120kw consistently, accounting for tapering. Perhaps I'm just really unlucky. But I'm learning not to depend on these superchargers if I need to be somewhere at a particular time.
Waiting an extra 20 minutes at a supercharger. I really feel sorry for you. I would love to have the opportunity to wait an extra 20 min at a supercharger driving to south Texas or west Texas but there are no superchargers on those routes.
The rates Tesla quotes are under ideal conditions. Sometimes conditions aren't ideal. Most of us learn to live with that.
whttiger25
Member
TexasEV - It was an "extra" 20 minutes on top of 30 minutes. So 50 minutes. Just to get 100 miles of range. I was literally getting only 120 mph charge starting from about 5% on a 90D. Wait, I thought you get 170 miles in 20 mins? ha
And you choose to focus on just my single 20 minute extra experience and not my long list of other negative experiences.
I'm experiencing "most of the time" conditions aren't ideal instead of "sometimes".
The language, as I read it, says it's possible to charge at up to 120kW in ideal conditions. You've been unfortunate in that you haven't encountered ideal conditions. But that's what you're hearing in both threads where you're posting the same thing. I'll report this to the mods, as these should be split off into their own thread.
And obviously Tesla knows that very well, since at the Model 3 reveal earlier this year Elon stated that "by the end of next year we will double the number of Superchargers" (to about 7500 worldwide) and also "more than double" the number of Service Centers.
And of course Tesla wants all Superchargers to be "reliable". I am sure they are working on improving the situation in the Central Valley of California, and elsewhere.
whttiger25
Member
I
I didn't intend for this conversation to expand in both threads. It started basically because both tejon and harris ranch chargers gave me issues yesterday.
I didn't intend for this conversation to expand in both threads. It started basically because both tejon and harris ranch chargers gave me issues yesterday.
Actually, it does lessen the impact of your position if you list chargers where you were at a stall where the paired stall was in use but you consider the stall you were at as being abnormally "slow".
I do not dispute your position that you have had several Supercharger experiences where it appears you should have received a higher charge rate than you actually did.
I do dispute your position that "Tesla is totally overwhelmed" and "doesn't care" (in quotes because those are your words). That is obviously not the case.
I have driven tens of thousands of miles in California in my Model S over the past almost 3 years and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have felt that I was not getting the charging rate that I should have been getting. That has been my experience.
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That is the way the Superchargers have worked since they first became available in late 2012 (and it's not always slower at the "B" charger, it's slower if you use a stall where the paired stall is already in use). You just became aware of that characteristic this month, and you are complaining about it?
Not really, I feel lucky to have avoided this type of inconvenience. I was at Burbank SC inquiring about the 4G going down, then went home and did a routine overnight charge. I've only had my car 4 months but have had zero supercharger slowdowns. We did waste some time leaving San Diego after the All Star game because I-805 was closed and there was an obstacle course of traffic to get to the Sorrento Valley Supercharger. There is no question I would be plenty pissed if one of my Mammoth drives was delayed like Whttiger25's.whttiger25 said:
It seems that the slowdowns can be a function of heat, regardless of whether the Supercharger is busy or not. Perhaps the utility has discretion during high energy load heat waves how to conserve power, and Tesla Superchargers are low on the priority list to maintain full capacity. We have no idea, but it might have cost Tesla more to guarantee higher priority from the utilities. And no doubt some utilities may be more sensitive to this than others. I'm somewhat alarmed to see this happening late at night at Harris Ranch with no one else there.whttiger25 said:
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I've had my car 4+ months and supercharged 5,400 rated miles during that time with no slowdown issues. BUTecarfan said:
1) Most of those miles were between L.A. and Mammoth in spring with temps in the 70's
2) The ones near home in Burbank have been late at night, not that warm either
3) Only 2 were in hot weather, Fresno 6/2 and Inyokern 6/12, I was only car there, no problem with those either.
The Central Valley in July/August is probably a worst case scenario for the utilities. It's unfortunate whttiger25's experience is concentrated here.
It would be informative to establish if this is a pattern. It would tell me some circumstances where it's better not to use the Tesla for a road trip. Most of mine are Mammoth in spring so I'm happy. If yours are the more common L.A. to Bay Area, is summer the only problem season?
HookBill
Member
As a correction, SJC location is powered by San Diego Gas and Electric and not SoCal Edison.
Xenoilphobe
Well-Known Member
No kidding - Cali has some spoiled Tesla owners - you named off more superchargers than we have in our whole tri-state area and we have two of the three wealthiest counties in the country (which should mean we have plenty of Tesla adopters)
I would love to wait 20 minutes for the juice!
I would love to wait 20 minutes for the juice!
This seems to be the best place to comment. A few "years" (maybe a decade or more) I read an article regarding the future of BEV transport and the potential stress on the grid. IIRC, it was in Scientific American, but it could have been any other "light" science journal. They author put forth a similar situation as seems to be happening here. In the worst case, they predicted skyrocketing dynamic pricing, charging lines, throttling, and ultimately the inability to travel. I've tried to find the article, but couldn't find it. Is it really happening now? Will it actually happen in the future? I don't know. However, what we are seeing now is filling superchargers, ICE'd spaces, EVs that don't move after filling, and throttled charging (whether due to temperature, pairing, grid issues, bad nozzles, etc.). I don't recall the author discussing heat-related stress on the charging infrastructure. This will likely be a problem in high travel areas and at peak times. This is one of the biggest summer vacation times, families with children out trying to see and do everything before school starts. I think this will continue to be a problem until Tesla adds many more charging stations, re-engineers cooling into all of the cables, includes dynamic charging over more than just two paired chargers, adds solar carports over every station, and provides real-time alternative routing around the over-used stations . Yes, this can be solved, and yes, CA will see the problems and innovations first.
whttiger25
Member
Ryan MF
Member
I'm so glad Tesla Superchargers exist. They are vastly more reliable than chargepoint, blink, or other public chargers not to mention much faster. It goes without saying no other car company has created a network of high speed chargers. I will gladly accept reduced charging rates in certain circumstances (paired stalls, etc). Tesla is also making the expansion of the network a high priority which to me is much more useful than the theoretical max charge rate.
Randy, thanks for posting that information. I'm going to assume that your use of "we" means you work for SCE and have access to reliable information, a welcome addition to this discussion.
Nice avatar photo.
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