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Supercharging Question

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googleiscoul

3 months maybe, 6 months definitely......
Mar 13, 2017
117
81
Aldie VA
Hello - Its been a while since I posted on the forums - but yesterday I came back from a trip to Mount Washington in NH. It was an awesome trip, but I had a thought on supercharging on trips. I have a 100D and I had two options
1. Charge to like 50-60% and go to more superchargers effectively charging faster and not spending too much time at superchargers but going to more of them
2. Charge at 1-2 superchargers to 90-95% and drive straight to the next supercharger.
In my case I made sure that we ate lunch/dinner at the 2 superchargers we stopped at (and made sure the charge rate was greater than 320 mph)
I personally think that I should have stopped at more superchargers instead because the first ~55% fills up way way faster than past 60%. What are your opinions?
 
I do #1 with intention to do #2 at the last SC prior to reaching destination. I use EVTripper or other apps. My goal is when I reach the final destination, I would have at least 30% - 40% power left. I want to at least drive around town or go have dinner w/o rushing to get it change when I get there. Or have enough to reach another SC at a later time.

I just finish a trip from Los Angeles to Zion National Park that way with stop over in Vegas.
 
As far as I'm concerned any time we're doing something like eating or shopping that's free charging time, where charging doesn't impact your travel time. Charge that whole time, 100% if possible and you are leaving soon. If you can complete the trip that way, great.

If you are waiting for the car to charge, then just pick up enough charge to get you to the next SC (and arrive there with the buffer or destination driving range you want). That takes advantage of the faster charging at lower states of charge and will get you to your destination with the least amount of waiting.

Most often on our road trip we were waiting and just charged enough to get to the next stop. For overnight stops we tried to top off to 100% just before leaving. And a few times dinner or walking around unexpectedly took longer than charging. In those cases I used the app to make sure the charge limit was set to 100% so we could pick up a little extra charge and spend less time at our next stop.
 
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If you're comfortable with watching your miles remaining and your range without freaking out, then always better to run it down lower for a fast charge. Especially when more and more superchargers are not charging at full capacity these days. I very often arrive to superchargers with <10% left.
 
If you're comfortable with watching your miles remaining and your range without freaking out, then always better to run it down lower for a fast charge. Especially when more and more superchargers are not charging at full capacity these days. I very often arrive to superchargers with <10% left.

Careful with this. On the newer builds the rate is significantly reduced if your connect with <3% remaining. Some owners have reported waiting for 30 mins before the power finally ramps up.
 
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Careful with this. On the newer builds the rate is significantly reduced if your connect with <3% remaining. Some owners have reported waiting for 30 mins before the power finally ramps up.

Roger. Only time that's happened to me in the past (MS 60) is when I rolled in at 0 miles remaining. Or -1 or -2. But you're right, finding the sweet spot is the key. I usually have 8-10% remaining.
 
Roger. Only time that's happened to me in the past (MS 60) is when I rolled in at 0 miles remaining. Or -1 or -2. But you're right, finding the sweet spot is the key. I usually have 8-10% remaining.

Was this your 2013 MS60? If so, I'd be surprised. I've never experienced this behavior on my 85 kWh despite rolling in with only 1-2% remaining.
 
Was this your 2013 MS60? If so, I'd be surprised. I've never experienced this behavior on my 85 kWh despite rolling in with only 1-2% remaining.

Yeah. In fact, I called Tesla thinking that all the superchargers at the site were down. After sitting on the phone with them for 10-15 mins, it started charging normally. But this was before the southeast corridor was filled in and I was pushing my luck on quite a few of the legs, arriving with single digit range, or in this case a few miles past zero.
 
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