Supercharging Question:

[MdlSP100D'16]

So I am trying to wrap my head around supercharging. I see pretty much every post discuss how supercharging is bad for the battery. However, I guess I am just lost on that. Why? My understanding is the BMS actively controls charging levels. I also wonder if supercharging issues matter for older Teslas. For example, mine maxes at Superchargers at about 115kw. That charging speed drops of course as the battery fills up and the majority of my fill-up is probably between 60-80kw levels.

My "battery" history [using mile history as indicator for wear on battery and frequency of charges] is as follows:
Produced August, 2016
1st Registration: North Carolina: October 5, 2017: 11,168 miles [on another thread it was pointed out given the 12 month delay from registration and production it was likely a demo/show model]
2nd Carfax update: North Carolina: April 25, 2019: 30, 328 miles
3rd Carfax update: Florida: May 30, 2020: 36, 213 miles [purchased as a fleet vehicle]
4th Carfax update: Florida: June 26, 2023: 94,601 miles [sold to the dealership I bought it from]

My 2016 Model S P100D retailed with a 315 mile range. When I received it with the ~95k miles it has, at 100% charge (per my request to see what its max range is) it had a range of 272 miles. Approximately, 12.7% degradation.

I charge it to 85%, and by the time I get home it is at 80% as I park in my spot so it never sits higher than 80% SOC. I run it down usually to around 35-50% and by then we normally are out shopping and I refill it while we are in the store.

I have no idea what type of charging they used with either the original owner or when it was used as a fleet vehicle. Regardless, with FUSC that I have and the fact that I live in an apartment with no charging stations, I only fill up on superchargers.

I am wondering if anyone can explain if or why supercharging would deteriorate the battery given the advanced BMS system Teslas have that control charge rates--especially given the lower max rate my older model caps at. Or, if it does on newer cars that receive around double the charging speed mine can, are such concerns for my 2016 vehicle are misplaced? Again, I know everyone says supercharges kill batteries but it seems usually that is just stated without any empiracal evidence which takes into account Tesla's incredibly advanced BMS as well as the variations on charging speeds found in older vehicles.

With all that being said, I know zero about this stuff so that's why I am asking all of you to educate me! Thanks!!

 

[Teetoogrn]

Congrats on your S. You’ll get lots of opinions here. I used supercharging sparingly with the 2016 70D I owned before the LR S I drive now. After seven years and 70K miles, it showed a range of 230, down 12 miles from the 242 mile range it started with. I wouldn’t worry about the supercharging. I would be careful with charging to 100% unless you plan to use the car soon after reaching the max. Just my $0.02.

 

[MdlSP100D'16]

Congrats on your S. You’ll get lots of opinions here. I used supercharging sparingly with the 2016 70D I owned before the LR S I drive now. After seven years and 70K miles, it showed a range of 230, down 12 miles from the 242 mile range it started with. I wouldn’t worry about the supercharging. I would be careful with charging to 100% unless you plan to use the car soon after reaching the max. Just my $0.02.

Thanks buddy! And yeh I figured I'd have a lot of opinions on this one, and I like the anecdotal references for different peoples charging habits, battery sizes, and models, to get a feel for it. As for charging, I never go to 100% (the dealership kept it at 50%) and the only time I know for sure it was at 100% was when I asked the dealer to charge it that high the day they shipped it to me so I could see max charge mileage. And congrats! Only a 5% loss at 70k miles seems great!

 

[PCMc]

You will hear charging rate expressed in terms of C-rate, which is the charging power relative to nominal capacity of the battery pack. So for a 100 kWh pack, charging at 100 kW would be 1-C, 150kW would be 1.5-C. The maximum C-rate that a battery can be charged without damaging or hurting the pack depends on the battery chemistry, battery temperature, level of charge in the battery and state of health of the battery. Simple way to think of it is running a 4-minute mile puts a whole lot more stress on your cardiovascular system than say walking a brisk 15-minute mile, and that 4-minute mile would be a lot more hurtful to me than say a world class miler (as if I could even run a 4-minute mile!!!).

Now in your situation, you've already stated that you really don't have a lot of other options than to use superchargers regularly, so a very pragmatic view is don't worry about it. Stressing over a factor you cannot control isn't very beneficial.

 

[tesluv108]

Tesla has the data but they won’t share it with anyone. Basically they know how much supercharging affected batteries which is why they slowed them down after getting to 70%. I’m fairly certain supercharging has no impact on if a battery will fail prematurely . There are numerous examples on this forum of unhappy campers that followed “the no or very rarely supercharging model” and still had their batteries fail at very low miles. Many have pointed out that these early failures may be attributed to manufacturing defects but could be a very small sample when compared to the number of model s batteries produced. Does anyone even Tesla know which batteries are going to fail? Probably not. I would keep charging like you are. For every example of a 43k failure with no supercharging there is a 180k battery that has 60% of the time been supercharged