Battery probably wasn’t warm enough upon arrival. 27 kW on 2D is definitely abnormal but 103 kW seems pretty reasonable for 42% if you hadn’t been driving for a while prior to charging.
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Supercharger Siler City, NC
- Thread starter ASUComputerGuy
- Start date
Battery probably wasn’t warm enough upon arrival. 27 kW on 2D is definitely abnormal but 103 kW seems pretty reasonable for 42% if you hadn’t been driving for a while prior to charging.
mikes_fsd
Banned
Battery was definitely warm enough - I had just driven to this supercharger from Roanoke VA and it was 82° outside. The reason I thought 103 kW was not reasonable is that I typically get 128 kW at 42% on a V2 charger, and this is a V3 charger. A V3 charger should normally give you in the neighborhood of 155 kW at 42% SOC.
Yes, I did get charged, although it took many hours longer than usual to show up on my phone (usually it's immediate).
Actually, maybe the battery was too warm. I had trouble getting the Navigator to navigate to that supercharger, so the car didn't know to "prepare the battery for supercharging" as it normally does. I checked the Navigator just now and it does now show the Siler City supercharger as a destination.
My above experience at the new Siler City Supercharger brings up the question, What exactly is the car doing to "prepare the battery for supercharging" as it navigates to the supercharger? The manual says, "Model 3 pre-heats the Battery to ensure when you arrive at the Supercharger, the battery temperature is optimal and ready to charge. This reduces the amount of time it takes to charge." But it doesn't say what that optimal temperature is, although some older information from Tesla says their battery management system normally tries to keep the battery below 95°F (35°C) and tries to keep its lifetime average at 77°F (25°C).
However, the situation is different when DC Fast Charging the battery, since the battery does charge faster at higher temperatures. There's another TMC forum discussion here called "How hot should the batteries get while charging?" with a comment from Zoomit that says, "The target temperature for On Route Battery Warmup is 40°C (104°F), based on a comment by a Tesla engineer at the V3 Supercharger test station when it first opened in Fremont. I think the battery will charge at max rate when that temp has been reached..."
For that long discussion see: How hot should the batteries get while charging?
But once the car reaches the above "target temperature" of 40°C to allow faster charging and is hooked up to the Supercharger, the car's battery management system will try to keep the battery temperature below 45°C (113°F) as the DC Fast Charging by itself heats up the battery. Once the battery temperature gets to 45°C during the DC Fast Charging, the Supercharger will then begin to reduce charging power significantly. For more on that see: Watch Tesla's battery thermal management in action while Supercharging
To summarize, for fastest charging at a Supercharger, the car's battery temperature should be close to 104°F (which the car will try to take care of automatically if you navigate there), but if it's a hot day and the battery temperature gets up to 113°F, your Supercharger will reduce your charging power at that point. If it's a cool/cold day and you don't navigate to the Supercharger, which means you could arrive with a battery temperature much below 104°F, you will get reduced charging power.
However, the situation is different when DC Fast Charging the battery, since the battery does charge faster at higher temperatures. There's another TMC forum discussion here called "How hot should the batteries get while charging?" with a comment from Zoomit that says, "The target temperature for On Route Battery Warmup is 40°C (104°F), based on a comment by a Tesla engineer at the V3 Supercharger test station when it first opened in Fremont. I think the battery will charge at max rate when that temp has been reached..."
For that long discussion see: How hot should the batteries get while charging?
But once the car reaches the above "target temperature" of 40°C to allow faster charging and is hooked up to the Supercharger, the car's battery management system will try to keep the battery temperature below 45°C (113°F) as the DC Fast Charging by itself heats up the battery. Once the battery temperature gets to 45°C during the DC Fast Charging, the Supercharger will then begin to reduce charging power significantly. For more on that see: Watch Tesla's battery thermal management in action while Supercharging
To summarize, for fastest charging at a Supercharger, the car's battery temperature should be close to 104°F (which the car will try to take care of automatically if you navigate there), but if it's a hot day and the battery temperature gets up to 113°F, your Supercharger will reduce your charging power at that point. If it's a cool/cold day and you don't navigate to the Supercharger, which means you could arrive with a battery temperature much below 104°F, you will get reduced charging power.
Nekota
Member
RTPEV
Active Member
And all this, while off-topic for this thread, is why it would be SO useful to have a display in the car that indicates what power the car is commanding versus what it's getting from the Supercharger. Yes, I doubt Tesla would ever want to provide that data as it makes visible the fact that the car is not really always capable of the charge speeds that are advertised (today you can just easily blame the Supercharger and not the car). But whether it's the car or the Supercharger, it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth of a driver that doesn't understand all the complexities of what's going on and is perplexed at the slow charging rates. Even if specific numbers were not given, but rather simple reasons: charging limited by Supercharger; charging limited by battery temp; charging limited by state of charge
Only 3 stalls were working on 3/19. The others were out of order for some reason.
I'm probably going to hit this charging station Thursday. Are there any other food options around other than the Pizza Hut that the Tesla site mentions? I'm heading to a meeting in Sanford from Charleston, but am going to jump up here beforehand to 'fill up' so that I can head straight back home after my meeting.
There are quite a few options within walking distance if you are willing to walk 5 minutes or so. There is a McDonalds on the far side of that Ford dealership (not shown in map snip)
BrownOuttaSpec
Active Member
Don't do it! Sounds like some reported issues with this site today on my FB chatter and only 1 of the 8 stalls was working (1B). Try to avoid this charger if you can. I just checked in my car about an hour ago and it said zero stalls available.
I didn't see this and went their Thursday with no issues. There was a guy there working on one of the boxes (he was in a Model Y). So I pulled up to the other bank of stalls and the first one I plugged into worked fine. I hit the Buc-EE's station in Florence on the way home.
LoL-Gas
Member
Cars navigation shoes temporary closure for the past few days but it’s working just fine. Any idea why the car would say this?
I seem to recall someone posting on one of the supercharger site threads, that a site can show as Down in the nav if it's internet connection is not good, and so Tesla cannot determine its current status. Not sure if that is the case here.
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