Supercharger - San Diego, CA (Qualcomm / Pacific Heights Blvd., 12 V2 stalls)

[No2DinosaurFuel]

Was there last night. There was one local charger there for sure because his wife drove an ICE SUV right behind him to take him home or somewhere right after he plugged in. Good thing it was pretty much empty the whole time I was there.

Anyways here is the picture. Around 105KW for around 15 minutes then it taper from there on until 76% where I in plugged and left. Was there around 30 minutes total.

So full power should be there. I am not sure about the tapering's cause because I have been at higher SOC and have charged faster at other supercharging stations. But those time I arrived at a higher SOC so I was charging as long.

 

[bxr140]

It seems possible that the charger cable replacement at several California Superchargers recently is related to the slow charge rate issue. I know that some disagree, but we are seeing reports of normal charging rates now at those Superchargers with the newly replaced charge cables.

I'm going to call false positive on that one. I could see an outside chance that the MV cables crapped out, but there's pretty much no way the legacy cables were the reason for slow charging.

There was most likely some other maintenance required and they had the technicians change the cables at the same time.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It really doesn't matter - the bottom line seems to be that the SCs themselves were causing throttling due to hardware issues inside the units. Could be cables, could be other things. It's interesting that the San Diego SC is fairly new, and IIRC, started having throttling problem reports very early on.

 

[Tony8489]

Burbank is newer than San Diego, had the throttling issue in July/August, had the cables replaced a couple of weeks ago and no longer has the throttling issue.

I charged my S90D from 49 - 171 rated miles in half an hour on a paired charger at Burbank today.

 

[markb1]

It does seem plausible that the connectors on the cables degraded over time, causing resistance, which caused the superchargers to throttle. As to why it seemed to affect old and new superchargers around the same time, perhaps Tesla pushed out an update system-wide to be more conservative in their throttling algorithm?

 

[bxr140]

It does seem plausible that the connectors on the cables degraded over time, causing resistance, which caused the superchargers to throttle.

The varying time-in-service for the reduced output locations simply does not support that conclusion.

 

[ggr]

I have a theory that newer Model S have a temperature sensor in the socket, which causes throttling if it detects overheating. Older ones (like mine) definitely don't have such a sensor, and I've never experienced throttling. ISTR there was some mention of this a year or two ago, but can't find it.

 

[gaswalla]

My four year old S has had throttling. So, I don't agree that this is a issue with new vehicles

 

[markb1]

The varying time-in-service for the reduced output locations simply does not support that conclusion.

You completely ignored the second sentence of my post, where I suggested an explanation for why it could have hit all the superchargers around the same time, regardless of time-in-service.

 

[bxr140]

You completely ignored the second sentence of my post, where I suggested an explanation for why it could have hit all the superchargers around the same time, regardless of time-in-service.

Because that [very plausible] explanation has nothing to do with physical degradation of the connectors.

 

[markb1]

Because that [very plausible] explanation has nothing to do with physical degradation of the connectors.

Then you misunderstood what I meant. What I was speculating was that it was a combination of these two things. Connectors had degraded, but hadn't slowed down charge rates until Tesla pushed out an update to the superchargers that throttled due to these bad connections. And then it was fixed when the connectors were replaced. At that point, the connectors didn't heat up beyond whatever threshold the new software started throttling, so throttling didn't happen. Again, this is just speculation, but it seems plausible to me.

 

[bxr140]

Then you misunderstood what I meant.

Okay, then I disagree with your false association entirely.

It is very plausible that some non-optimized software is the cause of the throttling. It is VERY implausible that there's ANY association with the cables.

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

Ok I take my point back on the supercharging stations at San Diego is fixed.

I am not 100% sure it is car or not, but here is what I observed at one charger. Without any sharing tesla on the same charge bank I was able to get 105-108KW charging after arriving with 11% for about 5-7 minutes. Then it dropped to 60A for pretty much until 20 minutes in. It went back up to 70A when the car cooled a bit, I.e. the cooling fans stop whiring. But it never went back up to the 100KW power charging. It stayed at 20-25KW until I gave up and moved to another Nonsharing charge bank. I then got 159A or 59KW right off the bat but it stayed there even though I was only at 32%.

I tried tricks like stop and starting the charging again and plugging and unplugging and plugging in again. No avial. I think the San Diego chargers has issues. Not sure what it is. It was cool and at night. So hopefully sdge wasn't involved.

 

[ShotgunF15E]

Slow charging is back in San Diego. Multiple stalls reduced from anywhere from 50-70% from max speed. Plan accordingly.

 

[WARP 10]

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this and/or had an explanation. When at the Qualcomm supercharger, I happened to notice the list of Wi-Fi networks on my iPhone is almost 100 entries long, almost none of which make any sense and show as unprotected. I see names like Heathrow airport, SunHarbor, Holiday Inn-Fresno, multiple iPhone hotspot names, as well as a bunch of what look to be wireless printers and just garbage. Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

 

[Ulmo]

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this and/or had an explanation. When at the Qualcomm supercharger, I happened to notice the list of Wi-Fi networks on my iPhone is almost 100 entries long, almost none of which make any sense and show as unprotected. I see names like Heathrow airport, SunHarbor, Holiday Inn-Fresno, multiple iPhone hotspot names, as well as a bunch of what look to be wireless printers and just garbage. Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Sounds like a thief attempting to try man in the middle attack on every Tesla coming through San Diego. Most likely a military connected invasion of some sort. Or, just someone trying to make money off of ???

Keep your wifi off is what I recommend, and keep the wifi of the cars off too. They may have a MIM attack on Teslas, and then be able to drive your car whereever they want. That could be very bad for you: kill you, etc.

"Long list of wifi networks I don't understand" is not a curiosity to me: it is a danger. While in Home Depot, I expect to see "rebar", "concrete", etc., which I usually do, but if I'm at a SuperCharger and see anything but the name of the nearest store in the wifi list, I turn all my wifi off.

This isn't random, either: I only see this at major transportation and public gathering place hubs, not in any places that it would make sense to have that many wifi networks.

 

[DDotJ]

I was at stall 1A the other day and after charging I had difficulty getting the connector to unplug from the car. I would push the release button and the LED ring would turn white but it wouldn't unlatch. After wrestling with it for 5 minutes it suddenly let go.

Not sure if it was a supercharger issue or a vehicle issue. I think I'll give my service center a call later

 

[WARP 10]

I was at stall 1A the other day and after charging I had difficulty getting the connector to unplug from the car. I would push the release button and the LED ring would turn white but it wouldn't unlatch. After wrestling with it for 5 minutes it suddenly let go.

Not sure if it was a supercharger issue or a vehicle issue. I think I'll give my service center a call later

Seem to be problems there for the last month. It was completely down a couple of weeks ago and has been slow. Wouldn't open the charge port the last couple of times I was there.

 

[caltechkid]

Had about an hour available late last night before I headed back home - started with 20%, couldn't get past 56 kW on the 5 different stalls I tried.

 

[gaswalla]

All stalls full - iced by 2 cars