Supercharging - Elon's statement that Daily Supercharging Users are Receiving Notes

[scaesare]

I came across a point in the Tesla Service Manual (Theory of Operation section) that I thought was worthy of resurrecting this zombie thread for:

The Tesla Supercharger recharges Model S quickly on road trips that exceed the range of a single charge. Superchargers are not intended for everyday use. Frequent use can result in minor reduction of the HV Battery's life

Now obviously the recent payment system has provided some additional context on this... but, at the risk of implying some degree of "I told you so-ness", I found that an interesting statement given that's exactly what some of us have been pointing out was the messaging from the beginning...

 

[bonaire]

Were you trying to point out this line?
>> Frequent use can result in minor reduction of the HV Battery's life

Since the SC is over 1C charge rate and causes some levels of heat buildup in hot climates, it is possible this applies more to those who SC from the bottom of the state of charge when the most SC charge rate occurs.

Or were you just reviewing the "are not intended for everyday use". I had believed they didn't want to see the HV Battery life affected by heavy daily use and leading to eventual bad press or other "not reliable" issues, should they ever happen. Maybe making people pay for the SC usage will dissuade this amount of use and in some cases, less chance of lower HV Battery life.

 

[Candleflame]

tbh we know from empirical observation that cars which are frequently supercharged have actually a better battery degredation. - there have been some comments here that it may actually be more beneficial for the battery to be really hot for 20min than to be medium warm for 8h. I'm sure teslas engineers are on this but aren't sharing due to other carmakers

 

[supratachophobia]

tbh we know from empirical observation that cars which are frequently supercharged have actually a better battery degredation. - there have been some comments here that it may actually be more beneficial for the battery to be really hot for 20min than to be medium warm for 8h. I'm sure teslas engineers are on this but aren't sharing due to other carmakers

We don't know yet if that is because of some benefit to supercharging slowing/stopping/reversing dendrite build-up or if supercharging is throwing off calculation algorithms.

 

[scaesare]

Were you trying to point out this line?
>> Frequent use can result in minor reduction of the HV Battery's life

Since the SC is over 1C charge rate and causes some levels of heat buildup in hot climates, it is possible this applies more to those who SC from the bottom of the state of charge when the most SC charge rate occurs.

Or were you just reviewing the "are not intended for everyday use". I had believed they didn't want to see the HV Battery life affected by heavy daily use and leading to eventual bad press or other "not reliable" issues, should they ever happen. Maybe making people pay for the SC usage will dissuade this amount of use and in some cases, less chance of lower HV Battery life.

Actually no. As per the topic of this thread, it was more support for idea that Superchargers are for road trips, not for daily charing for folks to avoid charging at home.

 

[claudelaval]

Maybe this is why Tesla may have been toying with throttling a few months ago.

Perhaps after Tesla sends one of these friendly notes, if the owner's behavior doesn't change, Tesla may throttle that person's car via software as a deterrent. Maybe?

I don't remember but the early adopter that was having Free SC for life was it specified that it was for long distance only?

 

[sorka]

tbh we know from empirical observation that cars which are frequently supercharged have actually a better battery degredation. - there have been some comments here that it may actually be more beneficial for the battery to be really hot for 20min than to be medium warm for 8h. I'm sure teslas engineers are on this but aren't sharing due to other carmakers

Don't recall how far it is into this lecture, but there at some point, Dahn says that charging causes degradation and that the charging period is what matters, not the wattage. That lead me to believe that it's better to supercharge to say 80% in 45 minutes rather than charge with 110v for 2.5 days.

 

[supratachophobia]

Don't recall how far it is into this lecture, but there at some point, Dahn says that charging causes degradation and that the charging period is what matters, not the wattage. That lead me to believe that it's better to supercharge to say 80% in 45 minutes rather than charge with 110v for 2.5 days.

So would that mean that 80amp is noticeably different from 40amp over a couple years?

 

[AWDtsla]

Don't recall how far it is into this lecture, but there at some point, Dahn says that charging causes degradation and that the charging period is what matters, not the wattage. That lead me to believe that it's better to supercharge to say 80% in 45 minutes rather than charge with 110v for 2.5 days.

6 minutes in he shows a graph that would indicate that +/- C/56 charging is better than +1.5/-2.5 C, and the only link between charge rate and battery life is the calendar time taken to accomplish the same cycle number.

 

[Ugliest1]

I don't remember but the early adopter that was having Free SC for life was it specified that it was for long distance only?

Long and sometimes slightly vicious posts on this little nugget sprinkled all around TMC in various threads. "Specified" is too ...restrictive... a word. Sometimes Tesla's web site (since September 2012) has included "for long distance travel" and sometimes not, but never in a way that specifically precluded local charging. So the debate raged within the two extremes of "always intended for long distance travel and you local guys shouldn't hog all the spots" and "I paid for it, dammit, and I'll use it, dammit, and Tesla never told me I couldn't at the time I paid for it, dammit".

IMHO Tesla's current plan of 1,000kWh free annually is a good thing.

 

[scaesare]

I don't remember but the early adopter that was having Free SC for life was it specified that it was for long distance only?

There weren't explicit restrictions against using them for your daily charging needs. But that's not what they were advertised for. And Tesla actually sent notifications to some folks asking them not to abuse them that way.

They were touted for use on road trips.

 

[supratachophobia]

Long and sometimes slightly vicious posts on this little nugget sprinkled all around TMC in various threads. "Specified" is too ...restrictive... a word. Sometimes Tesla's web site (since September 2012) has included "for long distance travel" and sometimes not, but never in a way that specifically precluded local charging. So the debate raged within the two extremes of "always intended for long distance travel and you local guys shouldn't hog all the spots" and "I paid for it, dammit, and I'll use it, dammit, and Tesla never told me I couldn't at the time I paid for it, dammit".

IMHO Tesla's current plan of 1,000kWh free annually is a good thing.

Wait, I thought it was 400kw which comes out to 1000 miles of driving? 1000kw is pretty freaking fair.

 

[supratachophobia]

There weren't explicit restrictions against using them for your daily charging needs. But that's not what they were advertised for. And Tesla actually sent notifications to some folks asking them not to abuse them that way.

They were touted for use on road trips.

Uhhh, I guarantee that sales galleries were explicitly telling customers otherwise. At least at first they were. Now they have come inline with company policy, but before, it wasn't the case.

 

[TexasEV]

Wait, I thought it was 400kw which comes out to 1000 miles of driving? 1000kw is pretty freaking fair.

It is 400 kWh per year.

 

[supratachophobia]

It is 400 kWh per year.

Thought so, thanks. Odd number to communicate to people, I'd have made it a nice round 500kw to avoid confusion.

 

[calisnow]

Thought so, thanks. Odd number to communicate to people, I'd have made it a nice round 500kw to avoid confusion.

As a rough example, an extra 100 kwhrs @ $0.15 each per car = $15 extra per year per car. 300,000 cars per year, say = an additional $4,500,000 cost per year for zero benefit to Tesla. Twiddle with the numbers all you like (cost per kwhr, whether or not user use most of that incremental power, number of cars, etc.) - point is an extra 100 kwhr per year per car for free is not just pocket change and yet will have most likely zero incremental effect on sales, or close to it.

 

[calisnow]

Wait, I thought it was 400kw which comes out to 1000 miles of driving? 1000kw is pretty freaking fair.

It is pretty fair - no argument from me. It's just psychologically hard to swallow for those of us who are used to the cars having a magical "endless gas tank."

 

[supratachophobia]

As a rough example, an extra 100 kwhrs @ $0.15 each per car = $15 extra per year per car. 300,000 cars per year, say = an additional $4,500,000 cost per year for zero benefit to Tesla. Twiddle with the numbers all you like (cost per kwhr, whether or not user use most of that incremental power, number of cars, etc.) - point is an extra 100 kwhr per year per car for free is not just pocket change and yet will have most likely zero incremental effect on sales, or close to it.

If they use it. The 400 is based on a percentage of people who use that amount, my guess 50-60%. You increase the allotment by 100kw, and collect, what? 65-70%? Point is, we don't know. But I would assume they picked that number to satisfy the most amount of people while keeping costs in check. Nothing wrong with the number per say, it's the psychological thing like @calisnow mentioned.

 

[sorka]

6 minutes in he shows a graph that would indicate that +/- C/56 charging is better than +1.5/-2.5 C, and the only link between charge rate and battery life is the calendar time taken to accomplish the same cycle number.

Thanks for finding that. He does say that Tesla doesn't use those type of cells but he also didn't say that the cells that tesla uses don't suffer the same calendar time charge issues that produce parasitic reactions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this explains why Teslas that frequently supercharge are doing better than those that charge slowly.

When I go to my timeshare in the mountains, I can do the whole round trip with 75% of a my 75 kWH availability. I usually charge for a few days at 120 v just because I can and it provides an extra buffer of security. Thinking I may not want to do that anymore unless it's really cold.

 

[sorka]

Long and sometimes slightly vicious posts on this little nugget sprinkled all around TMC in various threads. "Specified" is too ...restrictive... a word. Sometimes Tesla's web site (since September 2012) has included "for long distance travel" and sometimes not, but never in a way that specifically precluded local charging. So the debate raged within the two extremes of "always intended for long distance travel and you local guys shouldn't hog all the spots" and "I paid for it, dammit, and I'll use it, dammit, and Tesla never told me I couldn't at the time I paid for it, dammit".

IMHO Tesla's current plan of 1,000kWh free annually is a good thing.

Hmmm, please show me a version of the 2012 website that actually said that. You can use: archive.org to see nearly any date of teslamotors.com.