Supercharger question

[Zorg]

Stopped by the supercharger in Vacaville on my way home to the SF Bay area. There were 4 or 5 cars charging and I could not get more than 30 KW. Does this happen often?

 

[appleguru]

Stopped by the supercharger in Vacaville on my way home to the SF Bay area. There were 4 or 5 cars charging and I could not get more than 30 KW. Does this happen often?

If you are on a paired supercharger and show up second, you get whatever capacity is left. So, if it is a 135kW station and Car #1 is pulling 105kW, you only get 30...

Obviously, this balance will shift as the other car slows its charging/leaves, so is usually pretty short lived.

 

[Zorg]

Got it. At first there was nobody next to me so I assumed I was not sharing but I don't know how the pairing was done. It still never went over 30KW.

 

[bmah]

Got it. At first there was nobody next to me so I assumed I was not sharing but I don't know how the pairing was done. It still never went over 30KW.

When you are charging, the other "side" of a pair is often but not always next to you. The only way to tell for sure is to look at the labels on the pedestals. Each has a label that has a number and either the letter "A" or "B". Stalls with the same number are paired, so for example 1A and 1B are paired.

With the new "urban" Superchargers, the peak power you can draw is lower than the original Superchargers, but there is no pairing between stalls.

You should also know there are a number of other factors that affect Supercharging. Temperature of the charger electronics and/or the battery pack in your car can affect the speed of charging. Your car can generally charge faster (more kW) if the battery is less full (so to charge from 20% to 80% might take the same amount of time as going to 80% to 100% charge). In the specific case of Vacaville, I think someone reported fairly recently that there was some work being done inside the transformer enclosure, so perhaps there was/is something that needs fixing.

Bruce.

 

[Chrisizzle]

Further to Bruce’s comment above about the chargers not being next to each other. My nearest superchargers are laid out as 1a 2a 3a 4a and then 1b 2b 3b 4b. So, the paired charger is actually four parking spots away.

I can vouch for battery temp playing a role too. Here in Canada in winter, the battery takes quite a while to warm up in the morning. If you see the warning for reduced regenerative braking due to a cold battery, a Supercharger will be useless. I mean, if the power from braking is too much for the battery, you can imagine how limited a Supercharger input will be.

 

[whitex]

Stopped by the supercharger in Vacaville on my way home to the SF Bay area. There were 4 or 5 cars charging and I could not get more than 30 KW. Does this happen often?

What was your SoC (battery %) and what size battery was it?

 

[Zorg]

85 kwh at 40% SOC. I actually stopped at the same super charger (not same stall) earlier in the morning and it worked fine.

 

[whitex]

85 kwh at 40% SOC. I actually stopped at the same super charger (not same stall) earlier in the morning and it worked fine.

Sometimes the SC is slowed down for some reason, I even hit it once with nobody else at the SC. Switching to a different charger made it go faster.