Superchargers super-slow

[Bengineer]

I feel like in their efforts to discourage supercharging for daily use or more than absolutely needed to continue a trip, Tesla has drastically reduced their utility. I used to be amazed how our 2013 MS with dual chargers used to be more than half-full after just grabbing a coffee for my wife and me. Lately, even when we're the only car at the entire supercharger and the battery is below 10%, the car only charges at 120kW for under 50 miles of range and then continues to reduce the charge speed, basically making a full charge take 2 hours.

I get that they want to discourage people from charging on a daily basis, but in the process they seem to be imposing crippling restrictions on supercharging in general, without any discrimination between frequent users and people just passing through. This is the most obvious to me at the JFK supercharger in NYC, where I continue to get charging rates of under 60kW even when my battery is below 50 miles of range. I've been switching between different stations to see of it helps, but that makes a minor difference at best.

Thoughts?

 

[brkaus]

Dual chargers makes no difference when plugged into a supercharger, so not related to that.

 

[harry]

Without speculating concerning Tesla's motivations, I can testify that superchargers from Maine to San Francisco, down to L.A. and back to Maine through the Gulf Coast, are mostly charging much slower than a year ago. It was not uncommon for me to wait 1 1/2 hours for a 90% charge. I used about 25-30 different supercharger locations on this 7 week trip, so it seems like a pretty good sample size.

 

[Ben W]

Bengineer, it looks like you have your charge limit set to 100%, which partially explains the longer (1h10min) estimated time to full. (That last 10% takes 20-30 minutes.) The 120kW rate has only ever applied to the first 20-30% of the pack, and slows down after that to prevent damaging the battery cells.

Note that if you're splitting a pair of supercharging stalls (e.g. 3A, 3B) with another car, your charge rate will be lower, because the available 120kW per pair (or 135kW at some stations) is shared between both cars. So try to park in a stall where the companion stall is empty. Since the Superchargers are getting busier in general, this pair-sharing is becoming more of an issue, but it has always worked this way.

FWIW, I have a Sig 2012 Model S with 45k miles on it, and have never noticed any change in SC behavior since then (and I've used the SC network quite extensively for roadtrips, probably 8k miles total).

 

[Eclectic]

I feel like in their efforts to discourage supercharging for daily use or more than absolutely needed to continue a trip, Tesla has drastically reduced their utility. I used to be amazed how our 2013 MS with dual chargers used to be more than half-full after just grabbing a coffee for my wife and me. Lately, even when we're the only car at the entire supercharger and the battery is below 10%, the car only charges at 120kW for under 50 miles of range and then continues to reduce the charge speed, basically making a full charge take 2 hours.

I get that they want to discourage people from charging on a daily basis, but in the process they seem to be imposing crippling restrictions on supercharging in general, without any discrimination between frequent users and people just passing through. This is the most obvious to me at the JFK supercharger in NYC, where I continue to get charging rates of under 60kW even when my battery is below 50 miles of range. I've been switching between different stations to see of it helps, but that makes a minor difference at best.

Thoughts?

My experience echos yours. It is, at best, annoying, and in my case, it puts me back in my ICE.

On Wednesday I had to make an emergency trip of about 120 miles each way. I had enough charge to make the first leg of the trip, but was coming close to running out of charge when I had to make a bunch of local trips at my destination. There is a supercharger at the destination, but it was (1) crowded and (2) charging at the significantly reduced rate that you experienced.

We had to abandon our Tesla and borrow my in-laws ICE car for the rest of the day. Later in the day, as we were preparing to come home for the night, we waited for over an hour and a half at the supercharger (combination of a wait for an open spot and then the slow charging).

Since we had to make the trip again the next day, we left the Tesla at home and got into my F150. It had half a tank of gas (36 gallon tank) and I pulled into a gas station on the way to the freeway, filled up in about 5 minutes and then made the 240 round trip plus about 100 miles of local travel at the destination without another thought.

The situation is untenable at this point and if the Model 3 comes out in the numbers predicted, things will be many times worse.

This isn't the first time I've had these kinds of problems when I use the Tesla for a relatively long trip to a destination where I'll have additional miles to drive upon arrival. Before, the superchargers (without crowds and operating at full speed) made Tesla use tolerable.

Our Tesla is being made irrelevant (and unusable) by these very serious problems. Maybe if Musk would spend more time fixing the problems with his existing products and company and less time dreaming of Mars and solar we'd all be better off.

 

[WARP 10]

I feel like in their efforts to discourage supercharging for daily use or more than absolutely needed to continue a trip, Tesla has drastically reduced their utility. I used to be amazed how our 2013 MS with dual chargers used to be more than half-full after just grabbing a coffee for my wife and me. Lately, even when we're the only car at the entire supercharger and the battery is below 10%, the car only charges at 120kW for under 50 miles of range and then continues to reduce the charge speed, basically making a full charge take 2 hours.

I get that they want to discourage people from charging on a daily basis, but in the process they seem to be imposing crippling restrictions on supercharging in general, without any discrimination between frequent users and people just passing through. This is the most obvious to me at the JFK supercharger in NYC, where I continue to get charging rates of under 60kW even when my battery is below 50 miles of range. I've been switching between different stations to see of it helps, but that makes a minor difference at best.

Thoughts?

Curious about at least one part of your post; you say the car only charges at 120kW for under 50 miles of range, then reduces. In the last 2 months, we've made a trip from San Diego to Santa Fe and back and one from San Diego to Atlanta (going back on Sunday). We consistently see charge rates of 85-95kW, but I don't recall ever seeing over 100kW for more than a couple of minutes. Otherwise, still goes from 10% to 90%-100% in 40-45 minutes. No complaints, really. Crowded chargers, as mentioned many times, are another problem altogether but, outside of urban areas, doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

[EVie'sDad]

Did a trip up the coast wed/thurs in Petaluma. Going up we got 230kw/hr when below 50 percent, next day coming back, same station with zero other tesli charging, only ramped up (very slowly) to 150kw/hr charging..we had to wait for 30 plus minutes just to get enough charge to top off. This should have been an easy 20 minutes to restore the 90 percent load I wanted to have before heading south again.

I've personally experienced over 333kw/hr charges in Napa just over the bay. So yes, this seems rather reduced or throttled, call it what you will.

 

[brkaus]

There are plots here on the charge rate of the various models at superchargers. Has anyone compared their charge rates to those times?

Perhaps they slowed the charge rate at the last 10-20% to protect the batteries?

 

[brkaus]

Did a trip up the coast wed/thurs in Petaluma. Going up we got 230kw/hr when below 50 percent, next day coming back, same station with zero other tesli charging, only ramped up (very slowly) to 150kw/hr charging..we had to wait for 30 plus minutes just to get enough charge to top off. This should have been an easy 20 minutes to restore the 90 percent load I wanted to have before heading south again.

I've personally experienced over 333kw/hr charges in Napa just over the bay. So yes, this seems rather reduced or throttled, call it what you will.

It would be nice if the system would report if the car is reducing/throttling due to battery temp or if the SpC was throttling/reducing due to issues on the "shore" side.

 

[WARP 10]

Did a trip up the coast wed/thurs in Petaluma. Going up we got 230kw/hr when below 50 percent, next day coming back, same station with zero other tesli charging, only ramped up (very slowly) to 150kw/hr charging..we had to wait for 30 plus minutes just to get enough charge to top off. This should have been an easy 20 minutes to restore the 90 percent load I wanted to have before heading south again.

I've personally experienced over 333kw/hr charges in Napa just over the bay. So yes, this seems rather reduced or throttled, call it what you will.

Don't you mean mph and not kWh?

 

[Petra]

I may as well just toss this out there... I experienced abysmal charging rates at Harris Ranch on Tuesday evening (stuck at about 25kW, and eventually ramping up to 50kW). Interestingly, unplugging the car, rebooting the IC & MCU, and starting the charging cycle again fixed it--ramped right up to 80kW, which is what I was expecting given that I was paired.

 

[brianman]

230kw/hr.

I don't understand these units.

 

[EVie'sDad]

I don't understand these units.

My bad, yes should have been 230mi/hr on Wednesday then 150mi/hr on Thursday.

Record best is about 330mi/hr

 

[sorka]

My wife experienced extremely slow charging in Manteca the other night when she was with her sister(I wasn't there).

Wife just said she's never driving the Tesla again......

At any rate, that was it and she's done with Tesla. She'll never drive it again unless it's short trips where she doesn't have to charge. As a result, we will not end up buying another Tesla even if they end up fixing whatever the hell has been going on because she won't believe and will veto the purchase. Unfortunately, once she's made up her mind on stuff like this, you can't ever change it.

 

[ShotgunF15E]

Between slow charging and being #7 in wait in line just to get on a charger pretty much put the buzz kill on any future Teslas.

 

[Mark Z]

IMHO, I think it MAY have to do with battery health history after analyzing battery performance of those who have used the Superchargers too often. The local service center recently got after me verbally when I plugged in for a short time. Sounded like the original early days in late 2012 when we were warned only to Supercharge for vacation travel of two weeks duration per year.

Perhaps a lower speed of Supercharging has been found to help battery longevity. Remember, Tesla must warranty the battery for 8 years. It would not be financially wise to continue a charge rate that prevents the battery from reaching its full life span.

 

[ecarfan]

I used to be amazed how our 2013 MS with dual chargers used to be more than half-full after just grabbing a coffee for my wife and me. Lately, even when we're the only car at the entire supercharger and the battery is below 10%, the car only charges at 120kW for under 50 miles of range and then continues to reduce the charge speed, basically making a full charge take 2 hours

As others have noted, your car having dual AC chargers is irrelevant to Supercharger performance. Your comment that your car charges at 120kW from a very low level to around 50 miles of range is normal. It is also normal to take well over an hour to get to 100%. Using a Supercharger to achieve that final few percent takes as long as when using a 40A AC circuit at home, for example.

Charging to 100% at a Supercharger, or even to something like 97%, makes no sense to me because it takes so long. I would only do it if I absolutely needed that level of charge to make it to my next charge location.

We consistently see charge rates of 85-95kW, but I don't recall ever seeing over 100kW for more than a couple of minutes. Otherwise, still goes from 10% to 90%-100% in 40-45 minutes. No complaints, really. Crowded chargers, as mentioned many times, are another problem altogether but, outside of urban areas, doesn't seem to be a problem.

That has been my experience as well, over my almost 3 years of ownership.

 

[sorka]

Perhaps a lower speed of Supercharging has been found to help battery longevity. Remember, Tesla must warranty the battery for 8 years. It would not be financially wise to continue a charge rate that prevents the battery from reaching its full life span.

"Tesla Superchargers provide up to 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes."

If they reduce the charge rate so that this is no longer possible under any circumstance, then they'll be going back on their word. If I pull into a supercharger at 10% and the battery temperature isn't too cold, I expect to get 170 miles in 30 minutes. I usually get that in about 25 minutes when I have a 10% SOC....except for recently.

 

[Bengineer]

Sorry for the late reply to all the helpful posts on here.

Thanks for reminding me that the dual chargers have nothing to do with supercharging speeds - wasn't sure anymore and just wanted to rule that out.

I totally agree about charging to 100% at the SC not being necessary in most cases - as a matter of fact, I had my charge limit at the regular 230 miles for the majority of our stay in NYC and only changed it that day to see if it would affect anything (maybe tricking the SC into charging faster due to a lower percentage of total charge limit).

My big problem isn't the fact that they seem set on discouraging people from filling up all the way at the SCs, but rather the fact @sorka mentioned above - they're supposed to/used to be charging to well above 50% within half an hour, but lately charging to 150-170 miles of range (charging from 10-25 miles) takes us almost an hour.

And this is despite me making sure I'm not sharing a stall (AB) with another driver and often completely empty SCs (even in NYC).

And I get the point about not charging at 120kW (supposedly some now even put out 140kW, no?) for extended periods of time, but why ramp it down to 50-60 (or on occasions even 30) when you're still well below 100 miles range...

The logic behind the algorithm used to be pretty transparent to me, but lately it all just seems like bullshit hokuspokus essentially serving no other purpose than discouraging us from making use of a heavily advertised feature that continues to be one of the major reasons for buyers to go with Tesla (or an EV in the first place, for that matter).

I just feel like Tesla in general is giving less and less of a *sugar* about existing customers. They used to pick up our car and drop off a loaner for repairs as a courtesy and told us we're just outside the 15-mile range from the service center. Now all of a sudden they claim it's 25 miles...

Same goes for referral rewards. So far, I've referred over 30 MS/X buyers and still haven't seen a single reward (the biggest disappointment being getting NOTHING for 18 refs in round 2). The arachnid wheels were supposed to have arrived in early Oct (after a 2-month wait), then they said 3 more weeks, and that deadline passed 6 weeks ago without another word or a reply to several emails from my end.

I'm really starting to get fed-up with this...

 

[J1mbo]

Charged last night from 10%, would usually expect a full 115-120kw rate, but the charger started at 80kw an quickly dropped to ~70kw.

Just in case it was the charger, I swapped to another stall. The rate shot up to 90kw for about 5 seconds before quickly dropping back down to 70kw. So I left it running to go get a coffee.

I was the only one on the charger. Had been driving for about 30 mins and it was -1C outside.

tl;dr

If the battery is cold, the supercharger rate is reduced. Easy to forget after a long period of warm weather.