Some California Superchargers not providing maximum charging rates

[wdolson]

I think he's referring to internal heat, not the external temperature.

Heat damages electronics and makes them wear out quicker.

That was the way I interpreted it. Perhaps chargers with heavy use degrade in some way and become more prone to overheating. I don't think it's coincidence that the 3 slow chargers I encountered had noticeably hotter handles when I unplugged them than other chargers which were charging at the normal rate.

Those supercharger cabinets have a fair bit of electronics inside. I believe the charging circuitry is made up of several of the chargers included on the cars stacked up. It sounds like Tesla under-engineered one or more components in the superchargers and they are finding it difficult to fix the problem. It also sounds like they are seriously seeking a solution. For the time being they have their techs out in the field scrambling to repair the superchargers as fast as possible, but they are degrading too fast in at least some locations.

External air temperature is a contributing factor, but not the key factor. When the cabinets get too hot, if the air temperature is hot, the cabinets will take longer to cool down and the electronics will be subject to damaging heat longer. Newton's Law of Cooling, dT/dt.

Because a component has degraded from heavy use, even if wasn't used immediately before you charged?

Exactly.

Fine you win, but what's becoming clear is that Tesla is in over their heads and not capable of maintaining their infrastructure such that it keeps up with the rapid growth of their company and fleet

California is the test bed for their growth. I haven't seen any recent numbers on how many Teslas are registered per state, but California must have a staggeringly larger number than any other state. When I took my trip to California, I stopped at a number of superchargers and the there were only two times I didn't see another Tesla during my entire time there. That was when I stopped at Mt Shasta in the evening (about 9PM). One of the times at Atascadero, I was the only car there when I unplugged, but there were several plugged in when I got there. Most superchargers had a number of cars.

That's completely different from my experience of NW superchargers. I've only seen a couple of other Teslas total in several supercharger stops in the NW and the NW is getting a lot of new Teslas, Portland alone gets several truckooads a week.

 

[Shaggy]

I fully realize the title of the thread, but out of curiosity, is this being seen anywhere outside of the listed CA area?

 

[NOLA_Mike]

I fully realize the title of the thread, but out of curiosity, is this being seen anywhere outside of the listed CA area?

Yes, all over the country.

 

[GHammer]

I fully realize the title of the thread, but out of curiosity, is this being seen anywhere outside of the listed CA area?

In a 4000 mile trip this summer, Oregon, Washington,Idaho,Utah,Nevada,Colorado,California, it only happened in California.

 

[wdolson]

I think there have been some reports from other places, but it's a lot more common in California than anywhere else.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

In a 4000 mile trip this summer, Oregon, Washington,Idaho,Utah,Nevada,Colorado,California, it only happened in California.

In my multiple 3500 mile trips this summer to Louisiana, Texas, Okalahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado it happened all over the country.

Couple of supercharger stalls weren't at max performance, should I contact Tesla, and how?

Weird Supercharger Incident (Reduced Charge)

There are so many new Tesla owner's as each day goes by that many don't even realize something is wrong other than feeling misled by Tesla because the website said they'd get enough charge to continue on their trip in 20 mins. and instead it is taking 50 mins. or more.

 

[apacheguy]

The other odd thing is that the trip planner does not account for the charge reduction. I've been stuck at "Supercharging: 10 mins remaining" for over 25 minutes!

 

[Khatsalano]

California is the test bed for their growth. I haven't seen any recent numbers on how many Teslas are registered per state, but California must have a staggeringly larger number than any other state. When I took my trip to California, I stopped at a number of superchargers and the there were only two times I didn't see another Tesla during my entire time there. That was when I stopped at Mt Shasta in the evening (about 9PM). One of the times at Atascadero, I was the only car there when I unplugged, but there were several plugged in when I got there. Most superchargers had a number of cars.

In the Bay Area, the Model S is more common than a Honda Accord. I'm not exaggerating. I go to the gym, there are 6 of them. I drive home from the gym, I see 3 more. I walk my dogs for 30 minutes and there isn't a time where you don't see at least half a dozen roll by.

- K

 

[ecarfan]

In the Bay Area, the Model S is more common than a Honda Accord. I'm not exaggerating.

Well...I live on the SF Peninsula and would say you are exaggerating a bit. What gym do you go to? I will say that there are now several Teslas on my block and more on nearby streets, and I can't drive on a local freeway for more than 2 minutes without seeing one, and in 20 minutes I typically see 10 or more.

Clearly there are a lot of Teslas in the SF Bay Area and the LA area and the Superchargers in those regions are heavily used. Meaning they don't get much time to cool off and they go through a lot of heat cycles.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Anyways, the explanation the Dublin tech gave sounds very credible to me. As I said upthread, it is likely that manufacturing tolerances cause different cars and cables to mate differently, and that is made worse by slow degradation from wear and tear, all causing heat build up which causes the SC to throttle back.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think Tesla made a design mistake when they came up with their proprietary plug and receptacle. It is not robust enough to deal with the thousands of insertions and manufacturing tolerances at 300A of current. The NEMA 14-50 blades look just as robust to me and they are only designed for 50A.

It is nice to hear that corporate is well aware of the problem and is trying to fix it. I suspect the Mountain View trial was part of the attempt to get real world data (among other things - yes I know the initial reason given was they were trying to mitigate cold weather cable stiffness, but the test could have served more than one purpose).

 

[Ulmo]

(I'm in semi-inventive solution oriented mindset right now.)

It should be pretty easy to craft a simple workaround: a converter plug that converts worn SuperCharger plug to worn Tesla socket. Each side would have the appropriate amount of spring-loaded thick leads that would mate to the corresponding worn surfaces. A kit that comes with the plug would be available to clean the Tesla socket so that the converter plug mates with it with clean connections.

I'm thinking that a calculation on minimum surface area contact would have to be made, then springs in each connection point that would successfully wrap around the various worn contact points successfully.

When connecting, you simply plug this converter into the car, and the SuperCharger cable into it.

If Tesla realized this works, they could even use those principles to swap out the SuperCharger cables to something that gets around the problem of worn Tesla sockets.

I've said before: new Tesla cars need a quickly replaceable socket, so that maintenance on the socket could be performed (replace it, basically). The full logistics would have to be tested: make certain there's enough extra cable to pull out to perform the maintenance; proper bolt connections for the cables, and insulation, etc..

 

[Ulmo]

Searching for solutions:
Cleaning the Tesla Charge Port and Universal Mobile Connector (UMC)

Watching this video, I suggest also to pull some cotton off the Q-tip so that you can get it into some of the smaller crevices.

 

[Ulmo]

We also noted that the slowed down 4B cable was hot to the touch when I moved the car after 10 minutes, much more so than the 5A cable after nearly an hour of charging.

This and your entire post is consistent with:

• What the maintenance person ("they") said about heavy use
• What they said about hot days
• What they didn't say, but didn't hide evidence of from you, but others here have: worn out connections, mostly the plug to car connection
• What few anywhere have said: worn out cables (is someone vandalizing/abusing the actual cables?)

I'll repeat for the third time that I think the charge port and connectors are regular maintenance replacement items, & Tesla hasn't admitted this to themselves. Those things need to be replaced as often as spark plugs on an ICE, or more. Also, intermediate cleaning should help, too.

Also, bring a thermace of dry ice, open it, and attach a fan to blow its escaping cool gases onto the charge cable? Pretty ridiculous in terms of convenience, but it would have a heat compensating value. I'm really surprised the cooled cables didn't work; they ought to try better cooled cables. Still, they won't fix a bad connection.

 

[TexasEV]

I'll repeat for the third time that I think the charge port and connectors are regular maintenance replacement items, & Tesla hasn't admitted this to themselves. Those things need to be replaced as often as spark plugs on an ICE, or more. Also, intermediate cleaning should help, too.

That's a little over the top. Most owners have never needed to have a charge port replaced. Tesla does need to keep up maintenance on the superchargers though.

 

[ecarfan]

That video offers no evidence whatsoever that "cleaning" the charge port and cable contacts results in increased charging rates in situations where someone thinks they are getting a lower rate than they should. All it shows is someone using a Q-tip to clean the contacts.

What would support that contention is if someone is at a Supercharger getting a lower rate than they expect to then disconnect, "clean" the connections using the method shown in the video, and then reconnect and start charging and see if the charge rate changed (and do all that very quickly and hope that the paired stall does not have a car that either plugs in or unplugs while you are performing the cleaning).

Later this week I will be doing a 840 mile roundtrip using the Superchargers on the I5 in the Central Valley of California. I have done that trip many times in my S. If I plug in and get a signfiicantly lower charge rate than I expect I will "clean" my contacts and see if that makes any difference.

Searching for solutions:
Cleaning the Tesla Charge Port and Universal Mobile Connector (UMC)

Watching this video, I suggest also to pull some cotton off the Q-tip so that you can get it into some of the smaller crevices.

 

[FlatSix911]

Try a bit of electrical contact cleaner ...

 

[gaswalla]

Reduced charging at San Juan Capistrano today.. Temperature is mild.. In the 60's.
Five cars waiting on the rain.
Come on Tesla, this is making all the investment in the network look like a boondoggle

 

[Lloyd]

Perhaps their software sensing the proper connection has been set too sensitive so any minor problem with the connection is causing the reduced current flow. Perhaps the answer is only a software tweak??

 

[Cosmacelf]

Perhaps their software sensing the proper connection has been set too sensitive so any minor problem with the connection is causing the reduced current flow. Perhaps the answer is only a software tweak??

Read upthread. People have been finding some SC handles almost too hot to touch during a charging session. I think the problem is real.

 

[Tony8489]

Reduced charging at San Juan Capistrano today.. Temperature is mild.. In the 60's.
Five cars waiting on the rain.
Come on Tesla, this is making all the investment in the network look like a boondoggle

Not a boondoggle, just an unforeseen problem. After all, it took nearly 3 years before supercharger use became intense enough for this problem to develop.

Nonetheless, despite all that is on Tesla's plate, it's important for them to find a solution before the problem gets worse and gets MSM publicity. We have read in these threads that cables are being replaced at some chargers. Until a more lasting solution is found, perhaps supercharger cables/handles will be like sparkplugs, needing regular replacement at time intervals frequent enough to minimize the slowdowns.