Supercharger - San Francisco, CA - Geary Blvd. (LIVE 20 May 2021, 16 V3 + 18 Urban stalls)

[Mrbrock]

Sorry if this is an obvious - [though I couldn't find much of an answer on Google fwiw !] - at a site with both L2 & L3 Superchargers, how do you tell the difference when selecting which Supercharger - [ie particularly when planning a shopping visit and happy to have a slower charge rate] any photos showing the physical differences please? Many thanks !

This site will have L2 (50A 240V or 9.6kw AC) like the foreground of the above picture, L3 Urban Supercharger (480V 150A or 72kw DC) like the background of the above picture and L3 V3 Supercharger (480V 480V 520A or 250kw DC) like in the picture above that one.

 

[SFEV2020]

By L2 do you mean AC charging? If so, it should be obvious. The L2 would be on a small post. It'll look like your home charger mounted on a post. They are not superchargers and would typically charge much slower than a supercharger.

The L3 (DC chargers, Tesla calls superchargers) would be a pedestal substantially bigger.
They look like these:
View attachment 657775

If instead you are talking about V2 vs V3 superchargers, the difference is V2 has two pedestals per cabinet, so they are numbered in pairs (1A and 1B for example). V3 has four per cabinet. I just visited one last week and noticed they are numbered in 4s (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D for example).

There's also urban chargers which are slower (limited to 75kW from memory). They look like these (the ones in the background).
View attachment 657776

Thanks - yes my question is basically "If I was shopping at this site and was happy to have a slower charging rate so how would I know which was a V2 or V3?"

 

[Mrbrock]

There isn’t a true V2 at that site. V2 is capable of 150kw max shared across two stalls (if one is at 25kw the other can be at 125kw). The urban super chargers use the same base hardware of V2 but max out at 72kw per stall so the 150kw is essentially shared but you can’t ever go above 72kw. Unless you are at 10% soc or lower you wont see much difference between V2 and V3.

Are you confusing L2 and V2? If you pull into this garage to charge with 70% and plan to be there for an hour or two then you want L2. The HPWC that look like a home charger, not urban, V2 or V3 superchargers, those will all be too fast, 15-20 minutes to get you to 90% and idle fees if you stay there more than 5 minutes after you reach your limit. You will get about 10-15% per hour of charging on L2 depending on LR or SR(+). Although it looks like you have an X or S so you won’t see anywhere near the max rates.

 

[mociaf9]

There isn’t a true V2 at that site. V2 is capable of 150kw max shared across two stalls (if one is at 25kw the other can be at 125kw). The urban super chargers use the same base hardware of V2 but max out at 72kw per stall so the 150kw is essentially shared but you can’t ever go above 72kw. Unless you are at 10% soc or lower you wont see much difference between V2 and V3.

Urban superchargers are V2. They use the same supercharger hardware and architecture as the 150 kW units, just in a slightly different configuration that permanently shares the power, half and half, to the two stalls served. The charging posts are clearly different though.

 

[Big Earl]

There isn’t a true V2 at that site. V2 is capable of 150kw max shared across two stalls (if one is at 25kw the other can be at 125kw). The urban super chargers use the same base hardware of V2 but max out at 72kw per stall so the 150kw is essentially shared but you can’t ever go above 72kw. Unless you are at 10% soc or lower you wont see much difference between V2 and V3.

Power sharing on non-urban V2 sites happens in quarters. 36/72/108/144 kW. Previous to sometime in 2019 or 2020, V2 sites would give priority to the car that arrived first, with the second car getting the leftovers rounded up to the nearest 36. If you're curious about why 36, it's because the Superchargers are comprised of four groups of three 12 kW charging modules, each group has a module on each of the three phases. After sometime in 2019 or 2020, Tesla changed the way sharing works; power is immediately split in half to 72 kW for each car when a second car plugs into an A/B pair. When the first car dips below 36 kW, the second car gets an allocation of up to 108 kW. These are all nominal figures and can vary up or down depending on grid voltage and equipment condition.

V3 Superchargers handle power sharing completely differently and can save a considerable amount of time when a station is busy. V3s have 4 stalls per cabinet plus the cabinets can share power between themselves (up to 7 cabinets) on a common DC bus, plus solar and battery storage can be installed on that same DC bus to provide extra power when the transformer is maxed out (and/or charge the cars from renewables). This allows cars to part at any stall at the site and receive the maximum available power, compared to V2 which requires users to spread themselves out and avoid sharing A/B pairs.

AC (grid) input on each cabinet is only 350 kW and the utility transformer could range anywhere from 500 kVA (500 kW at 1:1 power factor) to 1,000 kVA for an 8 stall V3 site (leaving room for future expansion) depending on what the utility can support at any given location. With neither solar nor battery storage on an 8 stall site with 8 cars charging, a V3 site would be limited to about 87.5 kW per vehicle due to the AC input limitation of the charging cabinets.

 

[sxnahm]

It is great to see my interest in a Supercharger at City Center come to fruition. I stopped by there today a wow, was it windy. Hold on to your hat when you get out of your car to plug in. This tweet has a couple shots I took while there.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1387949308511543296

 

[kai7]

Looks like most wiring is all done, and all parking lines have been repainted. So most of the installation seems to be wrapping up, not sure what remaining steps are from PG&E standpoint.

 

[SFEV2020]

out of curiosity, is there any "definition" of what qualifies as 'Compact' ? e.g. would a Model X 'infringe' on that definition ??? if it doesn't why would they bother even painting that on these stalls

 

[stopcrazypp]

out of curiosity, is there any "definition" of what qualifies as 'Compact' ? e.g. would a Model X 'infringe' on that definition ??? if it doesn't why would they bother even painting that on these stalls

Even if Model X qualifies, there's still the Cybertruck, which is almost 3 feet longer.

 

[Mrbrock]

Might be a state/city requirement if the spots aren’t a certain length or longer.

 

[CD523]

Saw some Tesla energy trucks up there today with some folks charging. My guess as a "test". The installers said open "soon".

This site is going to be popular with all these V3.

I wonder if the L2 chargers are going to be free?

 

[Piwacet]

Cool. I was there over the weekend and it seemed generally finished. Except oddly 1 of the (out of 6 total) L2 chargers does not have visible conduit going to it. Perhaps they fed the wire through the floor? Also I noted metal posts placed near some of the superchargers and the V3 transformers to protect against vehicles bumping into them. The V2 transformers did not have these metal posts to protect them, but perhaps they're far enough away from the course cars will take.

Can I ask what Tesla energy trucks are?

Would be very cool if this site actually went live soon. Expecting it to be very popular. At least there are 36 superchargers!

 

[mociaf9]

Can I ask what Tesla energy trucks are?

Something like this (picture from a different location):

 

[Mrbrock]

Saw some Tesla energy trucks up there today with some folks charging. My guess as a "test". The installers said open "soon".

This site is going to be popular with all these V3.

I wonder if the L2 chargers are going to be free?

L2 will likely be free. And might have J1772 plugs on them so they won’t be Tesla specific. I don’t think Tesla has a way to charge through a HPWC.

 

[mociaf9]

L2 will likely be free. And might have J1772 plugs on them so they won’t be Tesla specific. I don’t think Tesla has a way to charge through a HPWC.

They do. We already know of one location that this has happened: Getting billed for using a normal looking wall connector?

 

[Piwacet]

Well I stopped by there today and all the cones were removed, as if all construction was finished. I was the only one there.

Plugged into a V3 charger briefly and did receive a charge. Only 20kW, which I assume was because my battery had not pre-conditioned and it's state of charge was in the high 70 percent.

So wouldn't surprise me if this site showed up in the navigation soon.

 

[eladts]

I don’t think Tesla has a way to charge through a HPWC.

Not yet. Tesla plans to enable payments for Gen3 Wall Connectors.

 

[mociaf9]

Not yet. Tesla plans to enable payments for Gen3 Wall Connectors.

Yes, yet. See Getting billed for using a normal looking wall connector?

 

[_ayn]

Well I stopped by there today and all the cones were removed, as if all construction was finished. I was the only one there.

Plugged into a V3 charger briefly and did receive a charge. Only 20kW, which I assume was because my battery had not pre-conditioned and it's state of charge was in the high 70 percent.

So wouldn't surprise me if this site showed up in the navigation soon.

nice, I'll have to check it out, my SoC is at 80% so probably will have to wait til next week. It must've been super windy up there today.

 

[stopcrazypp]

nice, I'll have to check it out, my SoC is at 80% so probably will have to wait til next week. It must've been super windy up there today.

It's not on the "find us" map yet on Tesla's site. Looking at the permit tracking they just finished the "pre-final" inspection on 5/17/2021, still have not done final inspection yet. Was going to stop by, but I think I'm going to wait until they have their final inspection first, as technically they need to wait until after the final before letting the public use it.