Wisconsin Supercharger Discussion & Tracking

[islandbayy]

Well, I can vouch it is on right now in Mauston. Plowed in, but on. Bring a shovel. So 4 days online now.

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Anyone here live near Eau Claire site? It's a bit too far for me to make in my 60 and make it back to Mauston or the Dells right now without a few hours charging time.

Lets Recap:
Mauston--Online +1 w00t !!!1!11!!!111111!!!!!111!!!!!111!111!1!1 100% Complete
Madison--Still being built, currently, about 70% complete
Pleasant Prairie--Broken Ground, Nothing further at this time 5% Complete
Onalaska--Broken Ground, some minor work done 8% Complete
Eau Claire--Read somewhere may be delay due to geological issues? and thats all I know at this time and do not remember where I read that. So this one is the mystery right now. 1% Complete

 

[Aphysician]

@islandbayy

I have updated Madison and Mauston on Tesla Supercharger locations - Tesla Motors Club - Enthusiasts & Owners Forum. As you have already been to these places, please correct the information as necessary.

 

[J in MN]

Eau Claire--Read somewhere may be delay due to geological issues? and thats all I know at this time and do not remember where I read that. So this one is the mystery right now. 1% Complete

That was from me in the supercharger progress wiki. The location has since been found as behind the Panera / Cold Stone Creamery at the intersection of Keystone Crossing and Golf Road.

 

[Sgt Barone]

That was from me in the supercharger progress wiki. The location has since been found as behind the Panera / Cold Stone Creamery at the intersection of Keystone Crossing and Golf Road.

Thanks J! Has any construction on it started, or has the location simply been confirmed?

 

[J in MN]

As of Dec 1 all equipment and material were delivered, but construction had not started.

 

[Sgt Barone]

Mauston now has it's own supercharger page! The map and list have not yet been updated, however.

Mauston Supercharger | Tesla Motors

 

[Calvin.K]

Mauston is now a red dot on the supercharger map! http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

 

[glhs272]

Angola and Mishawaka too!!

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I am gonna head up to Mauston on Friday and check it out. I got the day off and I also want to test the range capabilities of my 60 in this nasty cold and snowy weather. I am hoping I can make it to Mauston from my house at 159Miles. I normally would go further to Rhinelander which is 175 miles north. This should be no problem during spring, summer, and fall but in winter remains to be seen. A good test I think.

 

[EV_Powers]

Mauston now has it's own supercharger page! The map and list have not yet been updated, however.

Mauston Supercharger | Tesla Motors

How do we get them to add more "amenities" to that page?

In reality there is an AWESOME gift shop right next door to the charger. It really should be listed!
The Red Geranium Gift Shop | Mauston, Wisconsin
You could easily spend an hour in that place just looking around and taste-testing the coffee and food samples.

 

[islandbayy]

Angola and Mishawaka too!!

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I am gonna head up to Mauston on Friday and check it out. I got the day off and I also want to test the range capabilities of my 60 in this nasty cold and snowy weather. I am hoping I can make it to Mauston from my house at 159Miles. I normally would go further to Rhinelander which is 175 miles north. This should be no problem during spring, summer, and fall but in winter remains to be seen. A good test I think.

Be careful with your 60. I left with a 100% range charge Monday morning from the Dells, to get home to Greendale (Milwaukee County), arrived with 2 miles left driving rather conservatively with heat very low. 0 degrees when I left, 19 when I arrived home. Had 30 minutes to charge at home, got 15 miles "rated" back, dropped the kids off at school (1 mile distance traveled, rated range now down to 5), then had to drop off Great Grandpa at home in So. Milwaukee, 9 miles away. Drove to MATC Tech College 3 miles away, arrived with CHARGE NOW on screen, plugged in for a hour, got 15 miles range back. Went 4.5 more miles to grandparents house, arrived with CHARGE NOW on the screen, plugged in to 120v that they had for 3 hrs, got 3 miles range, froze my ass off, went back to MATC to get 208v charging again, got 5 more miles range, limped it to pick up kids from school, went home arrived with CHARGE NOW. Plugged in again, had to leave the house to meet my sister and her daughter, left home with 20 miles rated, went 1 mile to Downtown Greendale for Pizza, we were their for 1 hr 30 minutes, arrived back to the car with CHARGE NOW on the screen, so lost 19 miles in 1.5 hrs of being parked. Visual Tesla desktop application stated I had 4% battery remaining when I left Ricardo's Pizza.

COLD KILLS!

And I absolutely hate how the battery pack warmer works in 5.8
When you have 4 miles range remaining, do you REALLY want your VERY POWER HUNGARY PACK WARMER TO TURN ON! Seems rather stupid to me. Heat the crap out of a dead pack..... just to get stuck on the side of the road...

Yes, Tesla said my vehicle is operating normally.


EDIT: Dells to Milwaukee is 125 miles, I started at a 100% range charge and a warm preheated battery with ~190 rated miles for a range charge.

 

[glhs272]

On my way up I am thinking I might be able to use the 14-50 you mentioned at the Dells as an emergency backup. Where is that BTW? Yes cold is the biggest challenge for my Model S. I have been getting pretty good mileage this fall. But today for instance on my way to work (about 32 miles) I got around 450wh/mi which is a lot worse than the 350 wh/mi is getting not too long ago. I was blasting the heat and didn't pre-warm the car much before I left. I am still running FW4.5 so it will be interesting to see if I can yield any more range out of it vs. FW5.8. Also, I generally run in range mode all the time. I am not sure but that might do less pack heating then running in normal mode. Do you run in range mode all the time?

It would nice if they had a "cold pack" mode for such situations when you are running at less than 50 miles. It seems it can take 5 to 10 rated miles out of the pack just to heat it up. When you are operating at less than 50 miles, every mile counts. Having regen disabled and maybe limited top end power would be OK in that situation I think. Not sure what the other implications would be.

Speculation: It may be that a cold pack is going to give you less miles than a warm pack. A cold pack that gets "warmed" may give you more miles when the pack is closer to full. At some point it will be that you will get less miles trying to heat a low pack then if you were just to run the pack cold. So the software may already be making that calculation. I have seen a message when the pack is low that "pack heating is reduced" or something like that. It maybe making that calculation that there is no point to heating the pack to get more range because heating the pack would consume too much range :/

 

[J in MN]

I am hoping I can make it to Mauston from my house at 159Miles.

You could do it, but be careful, and set your expectations correctly. I've done a couple of range tests over the past few weeks in preparation for my trip to Montreal in two weeks.

You can get 150 miles at 75 mph with range mode on, cabin temperature set to 17.5 deg C (the next to lowest setting), no headwind component and air temperature at 25 deg F. Oh, and a sunny cloudless day.
For every 10 deg F below this, you will need to reduce your speed by 5 mph.
For every mph of headwind component, you will need to reduce your speed by 1 to 2 mph.
A 10% reduction in speed gets you about 9% increase in range, but this effect diminishes at lower temperatures due to cabin heating.

The above assumes heating cabin and battery on shore power prior to departure.

Set your energy graph to 15 miles and average. Set the destination in the navigation. Continuously compare the energy graph estimated range against the navigation distance to destination. Anytime estimated range minus your risk tolerance buffer is less than remaining distance, drop your speed by 5 mph.

 

[glhs272]

Crazy as it sounds, this may be where having an auxiliary pack just for running the 12volt systems and HVAC would be nice. I bet if you could keep the main pack dedicated to getting miles and have a smaller removable pack you would get pretty close to rated miles even in the winter. "Just get an 85" you would say. Correct, would be my response. But, even an 85 has a limit to it's range and if I need to go farther than that having add-on juice would be nice. "Just use a supercharge", correct as well but it will be a long time before we see superchargers in northern Wisconsin. So again some additional options would be nice. After my warranty expires, I would seriously consider making such a product that can add range to my 60 (or 85) by taking off some of the other non-driveline loads. yes I am aware of the many many draw backs of doing such a thing, not least turning my MS into a flaming wreck. I can dream can't I?

 

[rdrcrmatt]

Crazy as it sounds, this may be where having an auxiliary pack just for running the 12volt systems and HVAC would be nice. I bet if you could keep the main pack dedicated to getting miles and have a smaller removable pack you would get pretty close to rated miles even in the winter. "Just get an 85" you would say. Correct, would be my response. But, even an 85 has a limit to it's range and if I need to go farther than that having add-on juice would be nice. "Just use a supercharge", correct as well but it will be a long time before we see superchargers in northern Wisconsin. So again some additional options would be nice. After my warranty expires, I would seriously consider making such a product that can add range to my 60 (or 85) by taking off some of the other non-driveline loads. yes I am aware of the many many draw backs of doing such a thing, not least turning my MS into a flaming wreck. I can dream can't I?

Does the internal cabin heat use the 12v system or the high voltage system? I would assume with the amount of heat put out and the power drawn by it, that the cabin heater would be using the high voltage system.

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Be careful with your 60. I left with a 100% range charge Monday morning from the Dells, to get home to Greendale (Milwaukee County), arrived with 2 miles left driving rather conservatively with heat very low. 0 degrees when I left, 19 when I arrived home. Had 30 minutes to charge at home, got 15 miles "rated" back, dropped the kids off at school (1 mile distance traveled, rated range now down to 5), then had to drop off Great Grandpa at home in So. Milwaukee, 9 miles away. Drove to MATC Tech College 3 miles away, arrived with CHARGE NOW on screen, plugged in for a hour, got 15 miles range back. Went 4.5 more miles to grandparents house, arrived with CHARGE NOW on the screen, plugged in to 120v that they had for 3 hrs, got 3 miles range, froze my ass off, went back to MATC to get 208v charging again, got 5 more miles range, limped it to pick up kids from school, went home arrived with CHARGE NOW. Plugged in again, had to leave the house to meet my sister and her daughter, left home with 20 miles rated, went 1 mile to Downtown Greendale for Pizza, we were their for 1 hr 30 minutes, arrived back to the car with CHARGE NOW on the screen, so lost 19 miles in 1.5 hrs of being parked. Visual Tesla desktop application stated I had 4% battery remaining when I left Ricardo's Pizza.

COLD KILLS!

And I absolutely hate how the battery pack warmer works in 5.8
When you have 4 miles range remaining, do you REALLY want your VERY POWER HUNGARY PACK WARMER TO TURN ON! Seems rather stupid to me. Heat the crap out of a dead pack..... just to get stuck on the side of the road...

Yes, Tesla said my vehicle is operating normally.


EDIT: Dells to Milwaukee is 125 miles, I started at a 100% range charge and a warm preheated battery with ~190 rated miles for a range charge.

That sounds like you're really beating your battery up. Lithiums don't like living near either extreme of their capacity.. Like like we can help it all the time though, right? I ended up on charge now the other day after spending the night away from home the day after doing a round trip to chicago.

 

[islandbayy]

Does the internal cabin heat use the 12v system or the high voltage system? I would assume with the amount of heat put out and the power drawn by it, that the cabin heater would be using the high voltage system.

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That sounds like you're really beating your battery up. Lithiums don't like living near either extreme of their capacity.. Like like we can help it all the time though, right? I ended up on charge now the other day after spending the night away from home the day after doing a round trip to chicago.

Cabin heater uses the Traction Battery, Seat Heaters use the 12v.
Not trying to beat up my battery, just cant help it. When you think you have 20 miles range, and you go 4 or 5 miles and it's gone... Had to take the kids to school, had to pick em up, and had to take Great Grandpa home.
Would have taken my truck, but that wouldn't start, it's been so long since I used it, the 12v in that died, and the battery froze thats in the house thawing (still has ice in it after 18 hours indoors @_@ )

 

[glhs272]

Cabin heater uses the Traction Battery, Seat Heaters use the 12v.

Hmm... I guess that makes the whole Aux battery pointless.

 

[islandbayy]

Lets put it this way, the square space in the frunk, was supposed to be for a secondary battery, and word has it Tesla scrapped the idea due to problems running cooling lines or something along that. I have a nice collection of the same size lithium cell the traction pack uses, once I have enough, I am going to build a case of some sort and put it in the frunk. My idea, is while I wont be able to tap directly into the traction battery to "boost" it's capacity, I could have a fairly kW dense battery pack in that space. Then, could use a 240v inverter to be able to transfer it to the main pack through the UMC. All ideas as of yet.

 

[glhs272]

Lets put it this way, the square space in the frunk, was supposed to be for a secondary battery, and word has it Tesla scrapped the idea due to problems running cooling lines or something along that. I have a nice collection of the same size lithium cell the traction pack uses, once I have enough, I am going to build a case of some sort and put it in the frunk. My idea, is while I wont be able to tap directly into the traction battery to "boost" it's capacity, I could have a fairly kW dense battery pack in that space. Then, could use a 240v inverter to be able to transfer it to the main pack through the UMC. All ideas as of yet.

I was thinking of something along those lines. My intention was to not have too much power draw such that passive cooling would be adequate. That means not connecting to the traction battery. I was hoping to put in a 3 way contactor of some sort (high voltage relay) to connect to the high voltage input side of the DC to DC converter. Such that when the relay/contactor was triggered it would pull the load off of the aux battery instead of the traction battery. And because that load is not as high as what the traction battery deals with, it wouldn't draw too much to require cooling. This is a major simplification of coarse. Some things to consider when switching the DC to DC from one pack to another like voltage differences between the traction pack vs. aux pack may cause a problem for the DC to DC's capacitors frying everything. And tons of other complications. Really I was just hoping to stay in the 12volt DC world and just take care of those loads and not deal with the high voltage at all. But if the large loads like HVAC and pack heaters use high voltage anyway, then the 12 volt loads are probably so small that the whole system would be moot anyway.

Bottom line is that there is so much about this car that is a mystery to me on how it actually works. Overtime when people start dissecting these things more info will begin to filter out, but for now we only know what Telsa is telling us (pretty much nothing).

 

[montgom626]

That sounds like you're really beating your battery up. Lithiums don't like living near either extreme of their capacity.. Like like we can help it all the time though, right? I ended up on charge now the other day after spending the night away from home the day after doing a round trip to chicago.

Why would Tesla allow such trauma to the battery?

 

[rdrcrmatt]

Why would Tesla allow such trauma to the battery?

I think they protect the battery as much as is reasonable.. when I was at charge now the REST API stats I pull still showed 7-8% battery SOC.

When the battery gets "low", the voltage is dropping. In order to generate enough watts to move the car you have to draw more amps. Drawing high amperage on a cell with low voltage is hard on them too. Add that to the very low SOC and extreme cold weather.. I was just saying the battery had a rough day.

The size of the battery packs and the programming within the car makes it able to handle the occasional extreme. Personally, I know I have a nice 8 year warranty, but in the event I decide to keep the car longer than that, I want to know I'm doing everything I can to make sure the battery lasts as long as possible.