Tesla Super Charger conspiracy

[McXtravert]

An update from my earlier post. Mrs McX arrived back from her 330 miles journey from Edinburgh after setting off with 100% charge and being told by the car to supercharge TWICE. She arrived home with 130 miles worth of charge. She followed the onscreen guidance to the letter and to the second.

That for me is a complete joke. There is no need to arrive home with that much charge. Something is way off with the algorithm and Tesla are simply profiteering off the back of it.

We've complete this journey many times, across all weather and traffic conditions and never had to charge twice.

 

[yessuz]

well well well.

I mean it's kinda not much - 10 gbp or maybe 20 more than in it should be (130 miles is like 30 kwh x 0.77 = 21 gbp)

with wholesale power getting to decent levels, this is becoming really interesting

 

[thewishy]

I wonder if
- Initial range calculation is performed on the basis of a coolish battery
- SC heats the battery up significantly
- When the range is recalculated, the battery is now at a more optimal temp, and hence you've overcharged, assuming you're driving direct and not letting the battery cool down

 

[yessuz]

I wonder if
- Initial range calculation is performed on the basis of a coolish battery
- SC heats the battery up significantly
- When the range is recalculated, the battery is now at a more optimal temp, and hence you've overcharged, assuming you're driving direct and not letting the battery cool down

it's a bit different.

When SC charges, battery is hot. but during the charge car will guide you to charge much more than it will be needed to reach destination. when you have 100 miles remaining you do not need 80% battery to cover that distance. but car displays that you will be able to drive once the charging at the limit will be reached.

also, once you drive, your range might increase (as you say - warm battery) but since it proposes unnecessary SC stops it is very strange and exessive.

 

[looseend]

I was at Telford SC on Sunday night, I charged until it said, which it reckoned would leave me with 17% at home. I reached home with 15%. So it's not a universal problem.

 

[yessuz]

I was at Telford SC on Sunday night, I charged until it said, which it reckoned would leave me with 17% at home. I reached home with 15%. So it's not a universal problem.

because it's night and off peak, maybe?

My charging suggestion was at the peak prices

 

[Leejmoff]

I have to say I noticed this on my last trip. I even said to the wife, I'm sure we never used to have to need that amount of charge for our regular long trip up North. I just took it that the cold weather conditions made the computer think we needed to charge more. But as soon as we started driving the SoC went up. I ended up spending £4 more on charging, than I needed to. I was a bit cheesed off.

 

[rowedav]

Hmmmm - interesting thread. As a newbie Tesla owner (picked up 9th Dec) I did my first road-trip the week after; a 500mile roundtrip to London, and after having read some of the comments here, a lot of this rings true. Having said that, I think my roadtrip experiences boil down to my lack of supercharging experience!

IIRC, I left home with pretty much a full battery (98/99%) and the car wanted me to charge at Grantham, which I did. This is just over halfway, which I thought was a bit early but went with it as a) I was pretty inexperienced with supercharging/roadtrips and b) I'd have plenty of charge on arrival so I wouldn't have to faff about looking for somewhere to top up once I got to my destination. I arrived in London with about 40%.

On the way home, I had to charge twice. First stop (can't remember where it was) I charged until I had enough miles on the screen to get me home - the car didn't tell me to unplug, I just figured (in my inexperience, and the fact I was in a bit of a hurry, and there were no real services at this stop) I'd have enough to get home. Note this was the week or so before Christmas where it was -4/5 degrees, so not exactly ideal weather conditions!

Second charge was on a v3 (expensive!) and I overcharged slightly - was shocked to see a £32 supercharge bill on the screen. Had plenty to get home though - I think I arrived with about 50%!

Certainly a bit of a learning curve for me, but will keep these conspiracy theories in mind for the next roadtrip!

 

[Jason71]

Hmmmm - interesting thread. As a newbie Tesla owner (picked up 9th Dec) I did my first road-trip the week after; a 500mile roundtrip to London, and after having read some of the comments here, a lot of this rings true. Having said that, I think my roadtrip experiences boil down to my lack of supercharging experience!

IIRC, I left home with pretty much a full battery (98/99%) and the car wanted me to charge at Grantham, which I did. This is just over halfway, which I thought was a bit early but went with it as a) I was pretty inexperienced with supercharging/roadtrips and b) I'd have plenty of charge on arrival so I wouldn't have to faff about looking for somewhere to top up once I got to my destination. I arrived in London with about 40%.

On the way home, I had to charge twice. First stop (can't remember where it was) I charged until I had enough miles on the screen to get me home - the car didn't tell me to unplug, I just figured (in my inexperience, and the fact I was in a bit of a hurry, and there were no real services at this stop) I'd have enough to get home. Note this was the week or so before Christmas where it was -4/5 degrees, so not exactly ideal weather conditions!

Second charge was on a v3 (expensive!) and I overcharged slightly - was shocked to see a £32 supercharge bill on the screen. Had plenty to get home though - I think I arrived with about 50%!

Certainly a bit of a learning curve for me, but will keep these conspiracy theories in mind for the next roadtrip!

The superchargers used to route you to a charger when your battery was low. makes sense. charges faster less stops etc. recently that seems to be less and less the case. It often tells you to charger really early in your journey. Theory's for this include:
1) demand management. Tesla know the ones you might use later are likely to be busy at the time you arrive so is doing them and you a favour by sending you to a less busy one sooner.
2) It is trying to avoid you charging in peak which would be more expensive for you so sends you to an earlier charger while it is off peak time.

 

[btc1k]

Got in my diesel car with a full tank. Manufacturer says it does 65mpg. Had to stop at a fuel station on the motorway, as in the cold weather because it actually did 45mpg. Bit cheesed off I paid extra when I didn't need to and could have kept going until nearer to home before filling up. Reckon it is a conspiracy with BIG OIL to make me fill up more frequently. Blatant profiteering.

 

[yessuz]

Got in my diesel car with a full tank. Manufacturer says it does 65mpg. Had to stop at a fuel station on the motorway, as in the cold weather because it actually did 45mpg. Bit cheesed off I paid extra when I didn't need to and could have kept going until nearer to home before filling up. Reckon it is a conspiracy with BIG OIL to make me fill up more frequently. Blatant profiteering.

well, this is BS comparison and you know it.
just in order to correct your incorrect analogy: once you arrive to fuel station at Services instead of topping up like 10 litres in order to reach the fuel station close to your home where you would fuel half the price (and you know the price difference) you are strongly suggested to fill full tank at Services with much more expensive fuel even you do not need it.

The main issue being that previously car used to state that you need a short stop to top up in order to arrive at your destination with 10% or so, because that's where you charge cheapest.. now it proposes to stop for almost half an hour or similar and as result you arrive at your destination with 30% or more SOC which is completely unnecessary. More over, you can see on your car that consumption did not change in some material way and it is more or less normal as usual (not like due to weather instead of 240 wh/mile it is now 600 wh /mile

My forward journey without stopping was 270 wh/mile.
Return journey AFTER SC charge - 290 wh/mile
Return leg before SC was 387 wh/mile - so great hit on the precondition.

you can safely assume that there is less than 10% variation between forward and return journeys (excluding SC precondition) which can be caused by wind/temp changes, but in general it is not a significant variation on the Heatpump cars anyway and should not make assumption than in case I used 50% battery on my outbound journey, then suddenly I need to add another 50% SOC on top of my 40% existing SOC. at the start of the return trip, because I know that I need ~50% to reach my destination. More over I do not need to have 60% SOC on M3 LR to cover 130 miles...

 

[browellm]

Got in my diesel car with a full tank. Manufacturer says it does 65mpg. Had to stop at a fuel station on the motorway, as in the cold weather because it actually did 45mpg. Bit cheesed off I paid extra when I didn't need to and could have kept going until nearer to home before filling up. Reckon it is a conspiracy with BIG OIL to make me fill up more frequently. Blatant profiteering.

Terrible self own really as I assume you don't have a diesel pump at home that's 8-9x cheaper than current diesel prices on the forecourt.

 

[pgkevet]

Got in my diesel car with a full tank. Manufacturer says it does 65mpg. Had to stop at a fuel station on the motorway, as in the cold weather because it actually did 45mpg. Bit cheesed off I paid extra when I didn't need to and could have kept going until nearer to home before filling up. Reckon it is a conspiracy with BIG OIL to make me fill up more frequently. Blatant profiteering.

Obviously a wealthy owner. I would have detoured to an off motorway cheap petrol station for a top-up and still saved time compared to supercharging.

 

[yessuz]

Another question is actually coming from the Teslamate analysis.

So my forward journey comes in two charts (had to stop for a weee ):

On the return it's two as well, due to SC:

I am surprised, a bit, that precondition of battery happens that early and takes so much time... was it really necessary to have any precondition that early on the return?! half of the trip? hech with that.

I just really cannot understand why tesla decided that I need so much of SOC to reach my destination when I do not in reality.

so either bad algorithm either it is done of purpose as I need to charge at the most expensive rate for long time.

 

[McXtravert]

Got in my diesel car with a full tank. Manufacturer says it does 65mpg. Had to stop at a fuel station on the motorway, as in the cold weather because it actually did 45mpg. Bit cheesed off I paid extra when I didn't need to and could have kept going until nearer to home before filling up. Reckon it is a conspiracy with BIG OIL to make me fill up more frequently. Blatant profiteering.

A swing and a miss with that response. Top trolling though and thank you for your worthwhile and insightful post.

Now if only this thread was around spotting a new trend emerging around our cars telling us to charge more than needed instead of not getting the manufacturers stated achievable distance.

Also, getting 65 (or 45MPG) travelling the length of the UK in your diesel car, you shouldn't really have to stop for fuel to reach your destination. My VW Golf will do 700 miles on a full tank in winter

 

[Jason71]

Also, getting 65 (or 45MPG) travelling the length of the UK in your diesel car, you shouldn't really have to stop for fuel to reach your destination. My VW Golf will do 700 miles on a full tank in winter

That's good so that means any journey under 700 miles you can just fill it up at home which is much cheaper.......oh hang on

 

[mjspin]

I think the cars now need a setting for people who are happy to have lower performance and slower supercharging to increase efficiency.

I was quite impressed on my recent trip (when ignoring the advice to supercharge) that the car did advise to travel at no more than 65 mph in order to arrive home on the charge I had.

 

[yessuz]

I was quite impressed on my recent trip (when ignoring the advice to supercharge) that the car did advise to travel at no more than 65 mph in order to arrive home on the charge I had.

but if was a peak (most probably the reason) maybe you would be advised to charge for half an hour...

 

[bhanorthy]

I never trust the nav. It tends to sit at 4% ETA and doesn't move as the SOC is going up by 8% or more. I normally leave at 4% estimated.
It does the same at 3rd party IONITY and Ospreys I've used so I dont think its supercharger exclusive. Tesla probably want the cash and also don't want the negative press with people continuously running out after the car advised them to leave.

Being still on 5p Octopus Go until May it really makes sense to arrive home basically dead at 0%. I'm aware I'm playing with fire, all it takes is one road closure, diversion or such and I'd in a royal pickle

 

[browellm]

I have suffered from the same strange algorithm behaviour as the OP recently while at Hawshead Moor SuC. I ended up with about 15% more than I needed to get home and if I'd waited the recommended time it would have been more like 20%.

Not directly (but somewhat) related to this issue I had a chance to do a no preconditioning test today. I had an initial 140 miles drive to get to Abington SuC. The nav said I would arrive with 16%. At about 90 miles(!) out I got the preconditioning message. At this point I cancelled the nav and just navigated to the services instead. As most know, Abington is a busy v2 so at best I would be getting about 125kW and usually half that because of sharing.

So on cancelling and navigating to the services the nav recalculated and estimated I would arrive with 22%, which by my rough calcs is around 4.5kW saved by not preconditioning. As it happened I did manage to get a free double-stall for about 15 mins on arrival and I charged at 115kW having arrived bang on 22%.

I think the lesson is if you have the time and inclination it's worth doing the mental gymnastics and working stuff out manually, especially while the algorithm is being so "enthusiastic" with it's stops.