Supercharger capacity reality??

[davidmac27]

I see 72kW stations and I see 150kW stations. But my experience so far has been pretty bad. The Carlsbad supercharger is rated at 72 but typically is lucky to deliver 32kW. The Westlake Village station was a war zone with cones blocking a 1/4 of the faulty charger spots and then another 1/4 of the chargers were laying on the ground or looped around the charger to indicate they have a problem. I’m currently at the Oxnard “150” charger getting a whopping 36kW or 109 miles/hr.

Why does Tesla advertise hi kW but in reality delivers way less? Is the 150kW rating only valid when one of the 20+ stalls is in use???

I have also noticed that the button overlay material on every cable I have used is cracked around the button. I wonder if this is causing a water entry point leading to failure?

I love the idea of the Supercharger but it seems like Tesla is going to have a hard time keeping up with capacity.

I hope they figure this out for all of our sakes...

I would love to get educated on the issues above!!!

 

[hpartsch]

I see 72kW stations and I see 150kW stations. But my experience so far has been pretty bad. The Carlsbad supercharger is rated at 72 but typically is lucky to deliver 32kW. The Westlake Village station was a war zone with cones blocking a 1/4 of the faulty charger spots and then another 1/4 of the chargers were laying on the ground or looped around the charger to indicate they have a problem. I’m currently at the Oxnard “150” charger getting a whopping 36kW or 109 miles/hr.

Why does Tesla advertise hi kW but in reality delivers way less? Is the 150kW rating only valid when one of the 20+ stalls is in use???

I have also noticed that the button overlay material on every cable I have used is cracked around the button. I wonder if this is causing a water entry point leading to failure?

I love the idea of the Supercharger but it seems like Tesla is going to have a hard time keeping up with capacity.

I hope they figure this out for all of our sakes...

I would love to get educated on the issues above!!!

What car/year do you have?

 

[mjptech]

I see 72kW stations and I see 150kW stations. But my experience so far has been pretty bad. The Carlsbad supercharger is rated at 72 but typically is lucky to deliver 32kW. The Westlake Village station was a war zone with cones blocking a 1/4 of the faulty charger spots and then another 1/4 of the chargers were laying on the ground or looped around the charger to indicate they have a problem. I’m currently at the Oxnard “150” charger getting a whopping 36kW or 109 miles/hr.

Why does Tesla advertise hi kW but in reality delivers way less? Is the 150kW rating only valid when one of the 20+ stalls is in use???

I have also noticed that the button overlay material on every cable I have used is cracked around the button. I wonder if this is causing a water entry point leading to failure?

I love the idea of the Supercharger but it seems like Tesla is going to have a hard time keeping up with capacity.

I hope they figure this out for all of our sakes...

I would love to get educated on the issues above!!!

I live next to the Oxnard one and use them all the time... They are horrid in terms of power delivery and even functionality. I will see vehicles pull up, plug in, and then disconnect and move a stall or two.

When I first got the X earlier this year, I tried calling in when I encountered my first bad stall (on a weekend charge) - Tesla support stated (after an hour or so waiting for someone to answer) that they don't take Supercharger related issue calls on the weekend.

Anyway. Yes, at Oxnard, if you're making sure you're not on a pair with someone else (the A to their B, or the B to their A), and getting the slow rate, move from the 1-5 stall side to the 6-10 stall side and see what happens.

Don't forget at Oxnard, stalls 1-5 are 1A-5-A, then 1B-5B, rather than A-B side by side.

 

[ewoodrick]

I know that all the ones near me are highly reliable and tend to charge at the rated speeds.

But then again, most folks around me charge at home, not a Supercharger.

 

[davidmac27]

What car/year do you have?

2020 MX Performance with 600 miles.

 

[davidmac27]

I guess it’s just sort of unsettling when going on a road trip and all you see are SoCal SuperCharger locations reporting 0 or 1 open spots out of 20+ spots for 100 miles. Then when you get to the Supercharger - and you all know we all pick the 150kW location over a 72kW location because we don’t want to spend half the afternoon charging...but when we arrive at the “150” location, it’s only giving you 36kW or 109 miles per hour...damn, that’s frustrating!

But to end on a positive note - AutoPilot on my 2020 MX is phenomenal! There is very little difference between a flight from LAX to ATL versus a drive from Ventura to San Diego. You are sitting in a seat but someone/thing else is making the decisions! It’s amazing.

 

[mxnym]

I guess it’s just sort of unsettling when going on a road trip and all you see are SoCal SuperCharger locations reporting 0 or 1 open spots out of 20+ spots for 100 miles. Then when you get to the Supercharger - and you all know we all pick the 150kW location over a 72kW location because we don’t want to spend half the afternoon charging...but when we arrive at the “150” location, it’s only giving you 36kW or 109 miles per hour...damn, that’s frustrating!

But to end on a positive note - AutoPilot on my 2020 MX is phenomenal! There is very little difference between a flight from LAX to ATL versus a drive from Ventura to San Diego. You are sitting in a seat but someone/thing else is making the decisions! It’s amazing.

Sounds like you may be a new Tesla owner. You should know that v2 (150kW) superchargers are paired, so when they are full, you only get the left over power from whoever you end up paired up with. OTOH, the urban (72kW) superchargers each have their own supply. IOW, in the situation you describe, going to the urban superchargers might actually work out better. I guess it's a gamble either way, because the person you're paired with should get done charging and leave you with most of the power vs the next guy, in theory.

 

[davidmac27]

Hi MXNYM, yes! I am 100% newbie! Thanks for explaining that to me. As a newbie, it just seems like Tesla could make things a little more clear. I think they need to focus on these things if they want to go mass mass market. Things like:

- Supercharger true capacity - call it 150kW shared or something
- Supercharge stalls should have a green or red light to indicate whether they are working. Nothing worse than pulling up to a stall, backing in, getting out to find that it's not working. Then repeating the process - sometimes several times.
- Way better maintenance of these SC sites. Upscale Westlake Village Promenade SC location - all I can say is YIKES!
- Better handle design. Every handle I have used has cracked overlay material surrounding the button. I would be shocked if engineers at Tesla are not working on improving this already. I personally think customers don't understand how the button works. You have the green, blue, etc. colors, the handle is a tight fit in the car, people press the button once and nothing happens, so people are doing the "press of death" thinking they need to press hard on the button when they really don't. I have some experience with designing spa-side remotes for pools/spas so I am probably more tuned to this...

Don't get me wrong - I am totally blown away by my X and especially Autopilot. It's the above things that have soured the overall experience so far. I hope Tesla makes some concerted effort to improve the SC sites in terms availability, reliability, etc. I think this is an area that could really get away from them quickly and tarnish their overall reputation.

 

[ewoodrick]

I guess it’s just sort of unsettling when going on a road trip and all you see are SoCal SuperCharger locations reporting 0 or 1 open spots out of 20+ spots for 100 miles. Then when you get to the Supercharger - and you all know we all pick the 150kW location over a 72kW location because we don’t want to spend half the afternoon charging...but when we arrive at the “150” location, it’s only giving you 36kW or 109 miles per hour...damn, that’s frustrating!

It's always fun to hear about the complaints of SoCal folks who have chargers every 10-20 miles when most of the country only has chargers every 100-200 miles.

 

[Tslacg]

It's always fun to hear about the complaints of SoCal folks who have chargers every 10-20 miles when most of the country only has chargers every 100-200 miles.

Go drive out to Cali and wait an hour in line to charge. I'll take my charger that's empty any day.

 

[CBGPE]

Go drive out to Cali and wait an hour in line to charge. I'll take my charger that's empty any day.

I usually charge my 2020 Model X long range at home for convenience . I have used the same local supercharger twice. So this is a VERY limited data base. The first time I was at perhaps 200-210 miles of range and the charge rate was slow I think maybe 20 KW and 80 mph.
Max range setting 230-240 miles
The next time I was down to about 140 miles of range and it started charging at 120 KW and 408 MPH and same range setting of 230-240 miles. The take away is based on this LIMITED data is the less range you have the faster it charges. I picked up 60 miles of range in about 10 minutes or less. The take away for me is that if I am running low and only need 50-60 more miles of range to get home with a little cushion a super charger will do what you need quickly. I did not change the range to some higher level to see if that increased the charge rate.
Has anyone tried that ?
BTW I charge through a nema 14-50 Tesla cable and it charges at a full 48 amps but only at 28-29 mph
It is a 60 amp service connected to a 100 amp sub panel line to 200 amps main panel.
The line voltage is usually less than 240 volts

 

[Steinmetz]

I usually charge my 2020 Model X long range at home for convenience . I have used the same local supercharger twice. So this is a VERY limited data base. The first time I was at perhaps 200-210 miles of range and the charge rate was slow I think maybe 20 KW and 80 mph.
Max range setting 230-240 miles
The next time I was down to about 140 miles of range and it started charging at 120 KW and 408 MPH and same range setting of 230-240 miles. The take away is based on this LIMITED data is the less range you have the faster it charges. I picked up 60 miles of range in about 10 minutes or less. The take away for me is that if I am running low and only need 50-60 more miles of range to get home with a little cushion a super charger will do what you need quickly. I did not change the range to some higher level to see if that increased the charge rate.
Has anyone tried that ?
BTW I charge through a nema 14-50 Tesla cable and it charges at a full 48 amps but only at 28-29 mph
It is a 60 amp service connected to a 100 amp sub panel line to 200 amps main panel.
The line voltage is usually less than 240 volts

Is this through a Tesla Wall Connector? I think to keep the NEC happy you would need to use a maximum of a 50 Amp breaker, since your 14-50 receptacle is rated for a maximum of 50 Amps. Not that it will not work, just not code compliant. The wall connector would have to be hardwired to use the 60 Amp circuit and breaker, which then allows the full 48 Amp charge rate.

 

[mswlogo]

I see 72kW stations and I see 150kW stations. But my experience so far has been pretty bad. The Carlsbad supercharger is rated at 72 but typically is lucky to deliver 32kW. The Westlake Village station was a war zone with cones blocking a 1/4 of the faulty charger spots and then another 1/4 of the chargers were laying on the ground or looped around the charger to indicate they have a problem. I’m currently at the Oxnard “150” charger getting a whopping 36kW or 109 miles/hr.

Why does Tesla advertise hi kW but in reality delivers way less? Is the 150kW rating only valid when one of the 20+ stalls is in use???

I have also noticed that the button overlay material on every cable I have used is cracked around the button. I wonder if this is causing a water entry point leading to failure?

I love the idea of the Supercharger but it seems like Tesla is going to have a hard time keeping up with capacity.

I hope they figure this out for all of our sakes...

I would love to get educated on the issues above!!!

What SOC (State Of Charge) are you starting at?

If you are starting say at 50% you'll never see the high charge rates.

Battery needs to not be cold and below 30% or lower to get the high charge rate and you have to not be on a shared Stall.

I've seen 130+ kW on my Raven X when I first got it (September), but battery is to cold to get much above 80 Kw in the last couple months.

 

[jboy210]

What SOC (State Of Charge) are you starting at?

If you are starting say at 50% you'll never see the high charge rates.

Battery needs to not be cold and below 30% or lower to get the high charge rate and you have to not be on a shared Stall.

I've seen 130+ kW on my Raven X when I first got it (September), but battery is to cold to get much above 80 Kw in the last couple months.

+1 on SOC (State of charge)

SOC above 50% means the battery is going to charge at a lower rate. My X 75 will drop down to under 20 KW when SOW is 80+%. It does best when I pull in with 20% SOC or so. And then the charge rates starts to taper off at around 50%. Getting slower and slower as the SOC continues to rise.

 

[Uncle Paul]

A little trick, to get faster Supercharging is to select the Supercharger as a destination. As your car gets closer it will warm and condition it's battery to make it charge it's fastest when you arrive.

Superchargers are rated at their fastest capability. It is often you car that causes the slow down. If your are is almost empty, or almost full, it will charge much slower. That is the nature of Li-Ion batteries. Fastest charging is when your batteries are properly conditioned and charging from about 25% to 60%. Outside those parameters you will seel slower charging. Before you get too upset, realize that most competitive EV's would be happy to be gettign +100 miles/hr charge. They are much slower.

Your X is also slower than the newer Model 3. Your batteries are of an older design and are not capable of the fastest charging.

After you own your Tesla for a while, you will learn where it charges the fastest, and where it will take longer. Trying to fully charge it to 100% often takes twice as long as just charging to 80%.

Local Urban charging can sometimes be a battleground. Seems like everyone wants to charge up at the same time, and lines form. On the other hand, traveling long distances usually find Superchargers mostly empty with the fastest possible charging available when you need it most on a longer trip.