Too much supercharger use? is it worth renting a garage?

[MaryAnning3]

We have a wall-mounted charger at home, but a lot of our use of our model 3 involves driving about 220 miles, parking for a week or so, and then driving home. We have a rented parking space at that destination, but it has no electricity. Typically, we charge up at home to 90% and return at about 15%, but the rest of the miles, over 50%, come from supercharging. I did a check recently and found that of the 8000 miles we have driven, about 4400 miles came from supercharging. I was reading somewhere recently that too much supercharging is not really good for your battery* and I wondered if it would be worthwhile to keep a rented garage at that destination where we can slow charge. That would drop the supercharging percent or our total miles to a much lower percentage (15%) instead of what it is now (55%).

A garage where we could charge would cost a little more and maybe be at worse location than our current parking spot, but maybe it would be worth it to reduce the amount of fast DC charging that we do. What do you think? I think I read that Tesla will be reducing charging rates for DC fast charging (supercharging) at some threshold like 9000 miles because current research is indicating that too much DC fast charging may not be ideal. Is that accurate? I don’t really recall the details and searches mostly just produce things from 2017 for me.

 

[ucmndd]

There’s a lot of fear, paranoia, and misinformation about too much DC charging. There’s very little evidence to suggest it’s “bad” or to quantify what “bad” even means.

Personally, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, nor would I incur the expense of a less convenient parking arrangement to avoid it.

Charge the car when you need to, how you need to, and enjoy it.

 

[animorph]

Yeah, I'm not sure it's worth spending real money just to possibly save a little degradation of the battery. The Tesloop cars seemed to do pretty well with lots of Supercharging (though they did have at least one battery replacement I think).

I'm using our X for road trips pretty much exclusively. So we'll see a very large proportion of Supercharging. We might have a good answer in about 8 years.

 

[Evbwcaer]

Would charging be free at the garage? How does the $ wash out?

 

[duanra]

I would go for a parking spot with a plug.
You will save on SC and you won't waste all that time waiting and you possibly save your battery.

 

[ewoodrick]

The Supercharging isn't that big of an issue as far as the battery goes. But if the cost of another garage with power, even 120V 15A is not that much, it will save an hour of your time sitting at a Supercharger.

 

[Misterbee]

Any chance that the existing location would let you pay for having a 120 volt outlet installed?

We have a wall-mounted charger at home, but a lot of our use of our model 3 involves driving about 220 miles, parking for a week or so, and then driving home. We have a rented parking space at that destination, but it has no electricity. Typically, we charge up at home to 90% and return at about 15%, but the rest of the miles, over 50%, come from supercharging. I did a check recently and found that of the 8000 miles we have driven, about 4400 miles came from supercharging. I was reading somewhere recently that too much supercharging is not really good for your battery* and I wondered if it would be worthwhile to keep a rented garage at that destination where we can slow charge. That would drop the supercharging percent or our total miles to a much lower percentage (15%) instead of what it is now (55%).

A garage where we could charge would cost a little more and maybe be at worse location than our current parking spot, but maybe it would be worth it to reduce the amount of fast DC charging that we do. What do you think? I think I read that Tesla will be reducing charging rates for DC fast charging (supercharging) at some threshold like 9000 miles because current research is indicating that too much DC fast charging may not be ideal. Is that accurate? I don’t really recall the details and searches mostly just produce things from 2017 for me.

 

[SOULPEDL]

We have a wall-mounted charger at home, but a lot of our use of our model 3 involves driving about 220 miles, parking for a week or so, and then driving home. We have a rented parking space at that destination, but it has no electricity. Typically, we charge up at home to 90% and return at about 15%, but the rest of the miles, over 50%, come from supercharging. I did a check recently and found that of the 8000 miles we have driven, about 4400 miles came from supercharging. I was reading somewhere recently that too much supercharging is not really good for your battery* and I wondered if it would be worthwhile to keep a rented garage at that destination where we can slow charge. That would drop the supercharging percent or our total miles to a much lower percentage (15%) instead of what it is now (55%).

A garage where we could charge would cost a little more and maybe be at worse location than our current parking spot, but maybe it would be worth it to reduce the amount of fast DC charging that we do. What do you think? I think I read that Tesla will be reducing charging rates for DC fast charging (supercharging) at some threshold like 9000 miles because current research is indicating that too much DC fast charging may not be ideal. Is that accurate? I don’t really recall the details and searches mostly just produce things from 2017 for me.

By 2021, it should be able to go charge itself, but that could still be a supercharger, TBD. Maybe there will be community power shared even sooner. And then I found this... maybe an option for you.

"PlugShare gives EV owners the ability to add, review, and edit station information, and to safely share their own private residential charging station with other electric car drivers. It’s EV infrastructure backed by the power of crowdsourcing." ​

You're in California. If it's any cooler than in Phoenix where we're at, you have it easy. I'm probably damaging my battery just looking at it, >100F most of the time in the summer. FYI, (in case you do this as I can't tell from the post), it's not good to leave the car fully charged or near empty for extended periods. So avoid parking it empty in your case every week.

Elon said a while ago that the batteries like to average about mid-scale, half the time below 50% vs above it. That has me confused as I've been doing 90% every night (using shore power at night when it wakes up for a drink, which reduces # of charge cycles long term). In my case, maybe I should back off from 90% as I only drive 10 mi in a day. But then service just told me to hold off on charging every night to let it drop more (kind of agrees with Elon's statement). Not a science yet. I think it's just normal process manufacturing variables to where you get what you get. They still can't tell you why some batteries are going 350K+ miles and Tesla has the best data on batteries in the world!

You'll likely learn that your situation changes in just 2 yrs. Everything Tesla is on a fast track. Meanwhile...

 

[SOULPEDL]

Get this, I'm now on the PlugShare network. Worth a try...
Come charge at my house.
PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You

 

[MaryAnning3]

Any chance that the existing location would let you pay for having a 120 volt outlet installed?

Maybe. That would be ideal. Thanks!

 

[MaryAnning3]

There’s a lot of fear, paranoia, and misinformation about too much DC charging. There’s very little evidence to suggest it’s “bad” or to quantify what “bad” even means.

Personally, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, nor would I incur the expense of a less convenient parking arrangement to avoid it.

Charge the car when you need to, how you need to, and enjoy it.

Thanks! I guess I will stick with what I have then. I appreciate your advice!