Supercharging only is that an option?

[Zet!]

Hi Folks,

I live in Bay Area so needless to say i don't own a home and live in a tiny apartment my landlord also refuses to install charging stations not that I have an assigned parking spot anyway (they are all already taken). Therefore, charging at home unfortunately is not an option. Work does not currently have EV charging either but perhaps will soon (at the moment i am going with an idea that they dont have it at all).

I saw bunch of videos on youtube people saying they survive just fine on supercharging every few days (part of me really wanted to hear that as I always wanted a tesla). So i went ahead and order one and atm just waiting for it to be made and trying to find as much info as possible on lifehacks for the car.

Well the other day I stumbled on a video of Ben Sullins (

) and he mentions in it that there was/is a user who only done supercharging like I would be doing and Tesla throttled his charge ability permanently to protect the battery and my heart basically just dropped.

Do you guys know if this is true or there is more to this story? As if not I am afraid that I will end up in the same boat which will be very regretful. Also do you have any advice for me or is canceling order is the best option?

Thanks,

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

Hi Folks,

I live in Bay Area so needless to say i don't own a home and live in a tiny apartment my landlord also refuses to install charging stations not that I have an assigned parking spot anyway (they are all already taken). Therefore, charging at home unfortunately is not an option. Work does not currently have EV charging either but perhaps will soon (at the moment i am going with an idea that they dont have it at all).

I saw bunch of videos on youtube people saying they survive just fine on supercharging every few days (part of me really wanted to hear that as I always wanted a tesla). So i went ahead and order one and atm just waiting for it to be made and trying to find as much info as possible on lifehacks for the car.

Well the other day I stumbled on a video of Ben Sullins (

) and he mentions in it that there was/is a user who only done supercharging like I would be doing and Tesla throttled his charge ability permanently to protect the battery and my heart basically just dropped.

Do you guys know if this is true or there is more to this story? As if not I am afraid that I will end up in the same boat which will be very regretful. Also do you have any advice for me or is canceling order is the best option?

Thanks,

Tesla has never really came clean on this. However I think it is more a limitation on the state of the art on battery technology. Repeated fast charging will degrade the battery cells somehow. They are slowing your charging speed to protect you from capacity degradation. Engineering trade offs. Either you retain high speed charging rate and sacrifice capacity or retain capacity and limit charging speed. From tesla's financial perspective, they rather limit your charging speed and avoid battery capacity degradation warranty.

 

[Msjulie]

California law says landlord must allow EV charging station to be installed

It may be a pain in the backside but maybe this helps? How California Tenants Are Charging Electric Vehicles at Home | Astanehe Law

 

[smatthew]

Supercharging only is an option. I did it for the first 4 months after I got my Tesla Model 3. I didn't mind it. But once I got my charging setup at home, I couldn't believe I had waited so long and wasted so much time sitting around charging.

Have you considered talking to your landlord and seeing what can be figured out? Perhaps a parking space near-isn a power outlet could be reserved for you? Even if you could plug into 120V with an extension cord when you get home from work, that could take care of most or all of your charging needs.

 

[vsansal]

I know of 2 owners with early batch 2018 LRRWD vehicles with 130K miles that almost exclusively supercharge. They said no throttling when they are super charging. One of them claims he charges to 100% all the time through superchargers as well. They both have less then 10% degradation. One of them currently shows 300 miles at 100% and the other one 298 miles or so at 100%. I think you should be just fine with only supercharging.

 

[JulienW]

I live in a high rise without any L2 charging. We do have a SuperCharger in the parking deck so that makes it at least convenient. So I only SuperCharge. I know of at least 4 other Teslas in the building and there are several buildings in the neighborhood (see other Teslas around too) that don't have L2 access.Meet 2 owners and they both have free L2 charging at work. Not sure what all the others do.

 

[Saghost]

The only case I know of where the car had problems was a car that was fast charged daily for several years using the CHAdeMO adapter (owner was near a free third party DCFC charge point.)

I’m not sure if being CHAdeMO instead of Supercharger is relevant to the situation or not, but it might be (different behavior for the initial preload phase.)

You should be fine for a while just Supercharging, but you’ll lose a lot of the effortless convenience of a Tesla that way.

Personally, I don’t know if I would do it if I didn’t have a fairly definite exit strategy (work promised they’ll install chargers in four months, and I believe them. Or I’m planning to move next year anyway, and I’ll make sure I can charge in the new place. Or something.)

 

[SilverString]

In total kilowatts charged I have half at superchargers and half on my HPWC. My car is almost a year old with 23K miles and currently has 5% range loss. In a recent service request Tesla noted that my range loss was within normal spec, but also partially due to my charging habits at home citing a cell imbalance (now corrected) from charging too soon after driving.

The rest of the message went on to say that my high supercharging to home charging ratio could potentially damage my battery, but stopped short of saying it had anything to do with the range loss or had yet caused any battery degradation. I am still supercharging on V2 chargers at 141 to 146 kW as of a few weeks ago.

May have a lot to do with how much and how often.

 

[UncleCreepy]

In a recent service request Tesla noted that my range loss was within normal spec, but also partially due to my charging habits at home citing a cell imbalance (now corrected) from charging too soon after driving.

Charging too soon after driving... if that was a thing, shouldn't it be in the manual? The manual only states "The most important way to preserve the Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it." It seems to me that they just wanted to make it look like it's your fault that the cells weren't balanced.

 

[Knightshade]

California law says landlord must allow EV charging station to be installed

It may be a pain in the backside but maybe this helps? How California Tenants Are Charging Electric Vehicles at Home | Astanehe Law

California’s charging station law does not apply to properties where:

1. Landlords have installed EV charging stations in at least 10% of the designated parking spaces;
2. Tenants are not provided parking in their lease agreement;

From OP-

I live in Bay Area so needless to say i don't own a home and live in a tiny apartment my landlord also refuses to install charging stations not that I have an assigned parking spot anyway

So sounds like it would depend on if parking is specifically included in the lease agreement (even if it's not numbered/assigned spots).

If it IS included then yeah landlord would have to allow the install AFAIK- though he can charge a fee for essentially creating an "assigned" parking spot that isn't normally provided.

 

[Zet!]

Hey Everyone,

Thank you for your replys. As some of you mentioned it would be great to install it and I could pursue it but the main issue here is that the complex has more units then parking spots as it was build in the 70s so while there is an option for the parking spots I have been on waiting list for 2 years and I am nowhere close to the top. Also, unfortunately in Bay Area making any improvements on your dime to the property is asking for one of the 2 things, getting your rent doubled or getting evicted (or having to go through a ton of headache) as once they get rid of you then can raise the rent and sell it to someone else (wont take them long either). Moving somewhere else is also not an option for me unfortunately as I take care of my sick mother who needs to go to Stanford hospital on almost weekly basis for chemo and labs and procedures.

The main thing I wanted to really know if its feasible to use Superchargers only without getting penalized for it. I would obviously try charging everywhere I could even if its the slow charging spots and get a fried or 2 to drive the car and charge it once a week or something if I am on a trip (although with everything going on I dont think i have to worry about this for awhile). On that note, in my situation would you say its worth for me to get CHADEMO adapter? I was thinking of getting 14-30 and 14-50 plugs just in case but not sure about chademo

Again, thank you to everyone who shared their experiences and replied to the thread.

 

[Big Earl]

You’ll be fine using Superchargers exclusively. I know several Tesla owners in the DC area with no home charging. So far, no Model 3s have been throttled that we’ve heard of, but that could change in the future.

 

[SilverString]

Charging too soon after driving... if that was a thing, shouldn't it be in the manual? The manual only states "The most important way to preserve the Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it." It seems to me that they just wanted to make it look like it's your fault that the cells weren't balanced.

I had never heard that either. They suggested I charge to 90% everyday using scheduled charging in the early AM at a time when the batteries have had time to "rest" and then have time to "settle" after the charge. I have been doing this for 5 days and seen a 5 to 6 mile improvement, but looking at the scatter chart on TeslaFi more time needs to pass to be sure.

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

Just for those who think the model 3 or Y will not throttle. I remember when this issue first appeared in thr 90Kwh pack, everyone was up and arms and complained. Tesla said, at the time, this was normal and recommended 100kwh pack if you don't want this issues. Well at the time, without enough time and data, the 100kwh indeed did not throttled like the 90kwh did. This was mainly due to better cell tolerance and newer design. However currently you can read about a few high supercharging cycles 100kwh pack seeing throttling same as the 90kwh. So I'm pretty certain the model 3 or Y pack will exhibit similar in behavior sometime in the future. We just we don't have enough data yet. Until the million miles pack comes out, I doubt this issue is solved.

The good news is these pack are replaceable and hopefully by that time, the million miles pack are crazy expensive and we current owner can swap easily and at a low cost.

 

[dirkbike1]

Lease it
Supercharge exclusively
Turn it in before warranty expires

 

[Rocky_H]

@Zet! I wrote up a comment about this in another thread about potential throttling issues. Here's a link to it, so you can read the rest of the thread if you want:

Model 3 Supercharge Throttling? To buy or not to buy.

And here it is, quoted:

And I think people are also forgetting something about the charging speed differences between the S/X versus the 3. The older S/X that have had their charging speed reduced used to only be able to handle a maximum of about 115-120kW in the very best case, and they have been slowed down to in the realm of about 80-90. So they're still in that realm of about two thirds to three fourths or so. But yes, that kind of charging speed for vehicles with lower efficiency does get kind of frustrating for travel.

The Model 3 was built with thicker power cables inside and apparently a battery pack formulation that can handle higher charging speeds, so they can make use of that version 3 Supercharger stuff that gets to nearly 250kW. I don't think any slowing has been observed yet on the 3s, but even if it were to ever happen, and they cut the speed down some in a similar proportion, that would still be max charging speeds around 180kW. For vehicles with better efficiency like the 3/Y, that is still an absolutely great usable speed for people's traveling use.

So even if any throttling were to occur on the 3, it would be no big deal.

 

[lUtriaNt]

for now thats all im doing. im about 10 or so urban charging sessions in on my 3/2020 model 3 performance.

 

[Watts_Up]

I live in Bay Area so needless to say i don't own a home and live in a tiny apartment my landlord also refuses to install charging stations not that I have an assigned parking spot anyway (they are all already taken).

It might take time, but still try to get a way to charge at home, it's priceless.

Can you give a rough description of your building and garage (number of units, floors, number of parking spots, outdoor or indoor, number of level...) and possible age of the building.

Does all the electrical meters are located all together? Does each unit have a main circuit beaker, and if so how many Amps, is there dual phase?

Can you see the main feeder coming from the street, is there any indication of the total Amp capacity of the line?

How far away is your parking spot from your meter?

Is your land lord the owner of the building and id directly involved with all the maintenance of the building
or is it an agency with sales type of people who don't know anything about of the plumbing, electrical, garbage... issues?

It just to have an idea of your situation... Each case if different, best and simplest way would be to connect your EV plug to your meter,
so you could take advantage of the off peak rate,
but for larger garage with possible several floors, the best is to contact your electrical company and they have plans where they install
a dedicated line and a company like PlugShare install and manage the meters who in general are used as a sharing pool.

Eventually another tenant with an EV will move and that would incite your landlord to be more proactive.

Does your landlord gave you any specific reason for not allowing you to get a plug installed?

Providing EV support can only improve the value of the building by providing future tenants interest.

I hope you can find a proper solution. In the main time try to find a local public L2 charger near your home, gym, work...
where you can leave your car overnight, or for few hours during the day, once a week.
I did this for few months until I got finally a plug at home.

 

[smatthew]

On that note, in my situation would you say its worth for me to get CHADEMO adapter? I was thinking of getting 14-30 and 14-50 plugs just in case but not sure about chademo

I have the CHAdeMO adapter. I think it is useless for almost everyone who is in an area with enough Superchargers. All the CHAdeMO chargers I've found are more expensive than a supercharger.
That being said - if you have access to a CHAdeMO at subsidized rates, it might be worthwhile. Or, if you travel to the Pacific Northwest. You can't throw a stick without hitting a CHAdeMO charger in Portland, but Superchargers are much farther apart than I'd like.
And there have been instances on road trips where Superchargers were down, or working at limited capacity, or just too many cars in line, and owners with CHAdeMO adapters were able to find a CHAdeMO charger and get back on the road much quicker than waiting for the supercharger.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

So even if any throttling were to occur on the 3, it would be no big deal.

You don't know whether it would be a big deal.

Tesla will nerf it if they find problems and you don't know how much they'd nerf, since you don't know what the problems would be.

But if the OP is willing to accept the chance that it'll become a bit slower, then they can go ahead. Or lease it and dump it.

But also, in the meantime, the OP could
- try looking for a job elsewhere where property prices are a bit more sane.
- try looking for another place with charging.