Tesla charging gets 2x faster

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

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Tesla tonight introduced their v3 Superchargers with up to 1,000 mph peak charging speed - that's about 2.5x the peak speeds with the current Superchargers. It sounds like overall speed will be about 2x as fast. It remains to be seen what that means in the real world, but it sounds like 15 minutes to 80%.

Not that that will do anything for the curmudgeons here. ;)

Some of the modifications mean new Supercharger hardware, obviously. But surprisingly, they're going to be able to speed it up somewhat before any new hardware gets rolled out by doing software updates to the cars, so that when you arrive at a Supercharger the battery has already been preheated to the optimum temperature for fast charging.
 
Here is a real world example:
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1vAGRywokkRKl

His first person in the video charged from 45 miles to 208 miles of range in 16 minutes. That averages out to 610mph. That's a great real-world case. To get 1000mph means you need to go until you're almost empty before you start charging again, which can sometimes be done, but isn't always realistic.

So if the person in the video started at 100% that day from his overnight charge, then pulled in with 45 mile range, it means he drove 275 miles before starting to charge. He then charged for 16 minutes to get another 161 miles. In another words, he can travel 436 miles with one 16 minute stop and still arrive with 45 miles of range remaining.

Fun.
 
Maybe they should pass some laws to slow down gas pumps and limit the size of gas tanks. Only the military needs to refuel that fast and it’s just dangerous to have that much fuel in one place.
 
ytodd said:
assault pumps?
Click to expand...
Don’t laugh. I’d bet you’ll see legislation like this proposed and maybe even passed in the next 5 years.
 
EdFred said:
Lets see...a 5 gpm nozzle at the gas station on a 30mpg car and a 15 gal tank....
450miles/0.05min

Only 8000mph to go, Tesla!
:rofl:
Click to expand...


How dare you use their cute MPH marketing ageist them lol
 
Getting much better. If they could get these tied to a good lunch spot or maybe a whole food court, then 15-30 minutes wouldn't seem so bad on a trip.

Although, if the distance gets far I fly. For me it's more the $90k price tag that's a killer than the range; ok, $70-130k. Yeah, yeah, one can get a bare-bones model for $35k, but that's a much shorter range too, as well as lacking in many features. I can buy a lot of fuel for the difference between the $22k I paid for my convertible Mustang.
 
EdFred said:
Lets see...a 5 gpm nozzle at the gas station on a 30mpg car and a 15 gal tank....
450miles/0.05min

Only 8000mph to go, Tesla!
:rofl:
Click to expand...

How quickly does a gas nozzle fill a car when you’re at home?

SuperCharging is still something most people will do for less than 10% of their miles driven per year. If you can’t charge at home most of the time, you shouldn’t buy an EV.
 
The way I look at it, a road trip with a Tesla now is somewhat of an adventure. Kind of like flying. You have to plan out your stops, deal with a little extra inconvenience, etc. But often on a road trip, I just want to get there. I don't want an adventure.
 
wayne said:
Getting much better. If they could get these tied to a good lunch spot or maybe a whole food court, then 15-30 minutes wouldn't seem so bad on a trip.
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You're right. But the increase in popularity that something like this might bring about also comes with the possibility of another interesting problem: having to wait in line for a charging station.

If I take the Thruway somewhere, typically there will be six pumps at the rest areas, and they usually have lines. During busy times, maybe they're two or three cars deep. That's not a huge problem because you're still only talking about 10 minutes or so unless you were silly enough to get behind a rental truck or an RV with a bottomless tank. But it would be if it took 16 minutes to charge each car rather than three minutes or so to fill it.

That means there would have to be more chargers, probably in the parking lot itself rather than at an island. That raises questions about the cost of each charging station as well as the amperage needed to supply them all with power. They'd probably have to run HV or EHV lines to the service area to power them.

It might be more technically feasible to just build a natural gas generating plant on-site, depending on where the nearest pipeline is. Or build a thorium-fueled nuclear plant there. But neither of those options are likely to be politically viable.

It's evolving technology. I suppose they'll get it figured out some day, probably after I'm dead. But I'm glad they're working on it.

Rich
 
EdFred said:
Same speed as it does at the Corner Gas Station.
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I actually knew a family when I was in high school that had a gas pump at their home. My friends would top off when ever they came by. It was a really nice home. (That is, putting it mildly, an understatement.) I never thought much about the implications at the time. Now, I expect that the cost of remediation of the underground storage tank probably dwarfs the cost of the house.
 
PPC1052 said:
I actually knew a family when I was in high school that had a gas pump at their home. My friends would top off when ever they came by. It was a really nice home. (That is, putting it mildly, an understatement.) I never thought much about the implications at the time. Now, I expect that the cost of remediation of the underground storage tank probably dwarfs the cost of the house.
Click to expand...

My aunt and uncle live in a house that was built probably around 100 years ago, in a small town in the earlier days of the automobile. The garage was a real garage (rather than a horse stable), and had a built-in fuel pump with an underground fuel tank. I suppose in the early days when that home was built that was a desirable feature. During the gas crisis, my uncle got them working and they got filled up with diesel. They owned a cement company and so they were able to get around some of the regs and gas rationing, so they just had diesel delivered to their house and had all the cement trucks come by to fuel up there. My uncle had a diesel Mercedes at the time, so that was convenient for him as well.

Neat piece of history, but horribly impractical and cost-prohibitive today.
 
RJM62 said:
It might be more technically feasible to just build a natural gas generating plant on-site, depending on where the nearest pipeline is. Or build a thorium-fueled nuclear plant there. But neither of those options are likely to be politically viable.
Click to expand...

Ha, that's a great image. It would ruin the "out of sight, out of mind" charade of green vehicles though.

The implications for the grid as EVs becomes more widely adopted will be interesting.
 
F01LA said:
Ha, that's a great image. It would ruin the "out of sight, out of mind" charade of green vehicles though.

The implications for the grid as EVs becomes more widely adopted will be interesting.
Click to expand...
It's an interesting thought.

Some other logistics if all passenger vehicles became electric:

Folks with a garage or a house would simply "gas up" at home overnight. Folks with an apartment would have to gas up at work, a grocery store, a restaurant, or some other location, or maybe their apartment complex would have chargers in the parking lot and each resident would get a keycard or something to ration their time at the charger so others could use it. Folks in the city that park on the street would have to come up with some other way to charge, especially if they only drive a couple times a month. Maybe a "mobil charging service" could bring a truck around and charge up for you?

Highway gas stations would need a lot of chargers, like large truck stops have lots of pumps, plus some place for the humans to wait for charging to complete. I can see something like getting a text when your charge is complete, then having a certain amount of time to move your vehicle or you pay extra for every minute you tie up the charger.
 
Matthew said:
It's an interesting thought.

Some other logistics if all passenger vehicles became electric:

Folks with a garage or a house would simply "gas up" at home overnight. Folks with an apartment would have to gas up at work, a grocery store, a restaurant, or some other location, or maybe their apartment complex would have chargers in the parking lot and each resident would get a keycard or something to ration their time at the charger so others could use it. Folks in the city that park on the street would have to come up with some other way to charge, especially if they only drive a couple times a month. Maybe a "mobil charging service" could bring a truck around and charge up for you?

Highway gas stations would need a lot of chargers, like large truck stops have lots of pumps, plus some place for the humans to wait for charging to complete. I can see something like getting a text when your charge is complete, then having a certain amount of time to move your vehicle or you pay extra for every minute you tie up the charger.
Click to expand...

The problem some 'city folk' are running into is their house has no off-street parking(why? I have no idea, whatever) so they run an extension cord to the curb, then it gets stolen, also presumably has a speed-bump in the sidewalk for the cover.

On one hand, not standardizing battery shapes means they can put batteries almost anywhere in the car, on the other hand it also means that you can't do a battery swap like many were considering back when EVs were first coming out.

I think one of the background themes around the whole autopilot thing is that people would be able to send the car away to charge and have it come back when they need it. Then the company doesn't actually sell cars any more, but instead gets a revenue stream from cars as a service.

Maybe you take your little short range 'around town' car(or public transit) to a lot on the outskirts of town and borrow a long range car for your trip to the beach, maybe even a gas car or a pickup if you need one. Actually I just realized one thing I saw in Japan but didn't really register, there are a ton of tiny car rental places in the higher density areas. Don't need a car regularly so you just walk down the block and rent one when you do, saves on parking and everything.

There's still some ideas in the space, the question is if they can convince the consumers to go for them.
 
F01LA said:
Ha, that's a great image. It would ruin the "out of sight, out of mind" charade of green vehicles though.

The implications for the grid as EVs becomes more widely adopted will be interesting.
Click to expand...
I have absolutely no problem with anyone wanting an electric or hybrid car. If that's what you want, knock yourself out. But we are a long ways off from every car being an electric car.

I read two or three years ago an article about electric cars. It said just in the state of California, it is not even remotely possible to generate enough electricity in the next few decades to power all the cars there if they were all electric. It would take a massive increase in electric power generation to make that happen. It is not practical at all. Can you imagine the environmental implications of such a herculean effort? The environmentalists' heads would explode at such a proposal.
 
chartbundle said:
The problem some 'city folk' are running into is their house has no off-street parking(why? I have no idea, whatever) so they run an extension cord to the curb, then it gets stolen, also presumably has a speed-bump in the sidewalk for the cover.

On one hand, not standardizing battery shapes means they can put batteries almost anywhere in the car, on the other hand it also means that you can't do a battery swap like many were considering back when EVs were first coming out.

I think one of the background themes around the whole autopilot thing is that people would be able to send the car away to charge and have it come back when they need it. Then the company doesn't actually sell cars any more, but instead gets a revenue stream from cars as a service.

Maybe you take your little short range 'around town' car(or public transit) to a lot on the outskirts of town and borrow a long range car for your trip to the beach, maybe even a gas car or a pickup if you need one. Actually I just realized one thing I saw in Japan but didn't really register, there are a ton of tiny car rental places in the higher density areas. Don't need a car regularly so you just walk down the block and rent one when you do, saves on parking and everything.

There's still some ideas in the space, the question is if they can convince the consumers to go for them.
Click to expand...

Here in Indy, we have BlueIndy cars. They are electric cars that you rent by the hour. They commandeered metered parking spaces for the chargers. So, you don’t have to pay for parking. Just rent the car using your account card (sold at self serve kiosks) and drive up to an empty spot (you can find them on their phone app) and leave the car when your done to recharge for the next user.
 
A little side drift....

I am interested in electric vehicles, only problem is none meet my mission needs at this time. Someday they will.

My question, I have a fast charger for my cell phone, but if I use the usual speed charger the charge will last longer. Is this the same for charging electric cars? Will the charge last the same time, distance if the normal charge is used compared to the speed charger?
 
Zeldman said:
My question, I have a fast charger for my cell phone, but if I use the usual speed charger the charge will last longer.
Click to expand...
That's odd. That shouldn't happen. Do you unplug it the second it hits 100%? Or do you leave it on a while before unplugging?
 
Sorry if I missed it, but what is the cost of these new Super Chargers?
 
Zeldman said:
A little side drift....

I am interested in electric vehicles, only problem is none meet my mission needs at this time. Someday they will.

My question, I have a fast charger for my cell phone, but if I use the usual speed charger the charge will last longer. Is this the same for charging electric cars? Will the charge last the same time, distance if the normal charge is used compared to the speed charger?
Click to expand...

Yes, technically if you fast charge all the time it will degrade your battery faster. However, there are quite a few things that Tesla does to stretch out the life that doesn't happen on a cell phone:

a) Tesla batteries are very tightly temperature controlled using a heated/cooled fluid. Cell phone don't do this (Nissan Leaf's neither).

b) They use a very strict temperature guided charge taper, so that the fuller the battery becomes the slower it charge. When you fast charge it's unlikely that you will want to charge to more than 80%, which is also better for the battery if you don't fill it. I wish I can restrict especially my laptops to not charge more than 80% - the batteries will last years longer.

c) The amount of charge cycles going through a cellphone battery is many times higher than a car. If you charge/discharge your car daily like you do a phone it would be the equivalent of 100'000 miles per year. So a phone battery lasts about 2 years if you fast charge it every day. That would be the equivalent of a car battery lasting 200'000 miles if you really beat it up.

And that sounds about right - Tesloop (Tesla taxi service between Vegas and LA) had their batteries replaced at 196'000 miles by using very incorrect supercharging patterns. They supercharged every day, charged to 100% each time, and left the car overnight at 100% in high heat areas. Even then it had only 6% degradation but the battery started throwing other fault messages since it entered a new state in the Chemistry that Tesla didn't expect (and they now fixed in software). So that was 200k miles with worse case usage. They changed their patterns a bit (still Supercharging but not leaving the battery overnight at 100%), so their Model X "Rex" got 300'000 miles on the original battery with 10% degradation (in 1.75 years).
 
asicer said:
That's odd. That shouldn't happen. Do you unplug it the second it hits 100%? Or do you leave it on a while before unplugging?
Click to expand...

I leave the slow phone charger on until the little green light turns on. (forgive my highly technical details...:lol::lol:)
 
deonb said:
Yes, technically if you fast charge all the time it will degrade your battery faster. However, there are quite a few things that Tesla does to stretch out the life that doesn't happen on a cell phone:

a) Tesla batteries are very tightly temperature controlled using a heated/cooled fluid. Cell phone don't do this (Nissan Leaf's neither).

b) They use a very strict temperature guided charge taper, so that the fuller the battery becomes the slower it charge. When you fast charge it's unlikely that you will want to charge to more than 80%, which is also better for the battery if you don't fill it. I wish I can restrict especially my laptops to not charge more than 80% - the batteries will last years longer.

c) The amount of charge cycles going through a cellphone battery is many times higher than a car. If you charge/discharge your car daily like you do a phone it would be the equivalent of 100'000 miles per year. So a phone battery lasts about 2 years if you fast charge it every day. That would be the equivalent of a car battery lasting 200'000 miles if you really beat it up.

And that sounds about right - Tesloop (Tesla taxi service between Vegas and LA) had their batteries replaced at 196'000 miles by using very incorrect supercharging patterns. They supercharged every day, charged to 100% each time, and left the car overnight at 100% in high heat areas. Even then it had only 6% degradation but the battery started throwing other fault messages since it entered a new state in the Chemistry that Tesla didn't expect (and they now fixed in software). So that was 200k miles with worse case usage. They changed their patterns a bit (still Supercharging but not leaving the battery overnight at 100%), so their Model X "Rex" got 300'000 miles on the original battery with 10% degradation (in 1.75 years).
Click to expand...


Ok, thanks. That is a lot more information than I knew before.
 
So, here's another infrastructure type question...

Currently, if you're a AAA member, I believe you can call AAA and have them send someone out to you if you run out of gas. I assume whoever gets dispatched will give one a couple gallons of gas and directions to the nearest gas station. The question is whether AAA is set up to do similar with EVs if folks run out of charge or otherwise can't make it to a charging station.

BTW... I've never been a AAA member.
 
Anymouse said:
So, here's another infrastructure type question...

Currently, if you're a AAA member, I believe you can call AAA and have them send someone out to you if you run out of gas. I assume whoever gets dispatched will give one a couple gallons of gas and directions to the nearest gas station. The question is whether AAA is set up to do similar with EVs if folks run out of charge or otherwise can't make it to a charging station.
Click to expand...
Presumably today you'd get a tow. I'd expect at some future point they'd add a PTO and on-board generator to tow trucks to be able to give a few miles of range. Or maybe dedicated remote power vehicles for the electrics.

Although after looking at the charging times, it may be more useful for the tow company to just slap the car on the flatbed and deliver it to a charger rather than hang out in the field giving it enough power to move again. That way the truck can turn around faster and serve other customers.
 
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chartbundle said:
Presumably today you'd get a tow. I'd expect at some future point they'd add a PTO and on-board generator to tow trucks to be able to give a few miles of range. Or maybe dedicated remote power vehicles for the electrics.
Click to expand...

Yes today you'd get a tow, and AAA won't cover that since Tesla's need to be flat bed towed.

You can theoretically just rope-tow a Tesla and it will charge itself during the tow, but I don't think that's legal in the US. At least I've never seen that here.

I've honestly never seen the value of AAA. If you drive for 50 years you'll spend $5000 on AAA. How many times do you think your cars will break down in that time to justify $5000 of towing?? Can't imagine it's worth it.
 
I'm watching this stuff as it comes out, definitely interesting but I'm not quite ready to buy in yet. What they've managed to do with lithium batteries is impressive but I'm still waiting on some of the other technologies under development to roll out before I'm willing to seriously consider buying one. Well, that or a spectacular deal on the used market....
 
EdFred said:
Lets see...a 5 gpm nozzle at the gas station on a 30mpg car and a 15 gal tank....
450miles/0.05min

Only 8000mph to go, Tesla!
:rofl:
Click to expand...

I think standard pumps are 8 gallons per minute.

napping in the car is the future
 
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Fallsrider said:
I read two or three years ago an article about electric cars. It said just in the state of California, it is not even remotely possible to generate enough electricity in the next few decades to power all the cars there if they were all electric. It would take a massive increase in electric power generation to make that happen. It is not practical at all. Can you imagine the environmental implications of such a herculean effort? The environmentalists' heads would explode at such a proposal.
Click to expand...

I call b/s on that. If there is enough power during the day to run an aircon for 12 hours, there's enough power at night to charge an EV for 2 hours.

You may need a time-of-use incentive, but no "massive increase in electric power generation" is required - especially in California.
 
deonb said:
I call b/s on that. If there is enough power during the day to run an aircon for 12 hours, there's enough power at night to charge an EV for 2 hours.

You may need a time-of-use incentive, but no "massive increase in electric power generation" is required - especially in California.
Click to expand...
Doesn't California have some sort of plan to convert everything to solar power? How well does that work at night? Can they use "black light"?
 
JOhnH said:
Doesn't California have some sort of plan to convert everything to solar power? How well does that work at night? Can they use "black light"?
Click to expand...

Germany had a green plan, solar and wind and all, didn’t turn out too hot


deonb said:
I call b/s on that. If there is enough power during the day to run an aircon for 12 hours, there's enough power at night to charge an EV for 2 hours.

You may need a time-of-use incentive, but no "massive increase in electric power generation" is required - especially in California.
Click to expand...

Incentive?
Normally that translates to increased taxes and fines for not doing XYZ the way the goverment wants you to.

It’s like saying we give elephants a incentives to preform, well turns out that “incentive” is more like using force and abuse to get them to comply.

Frankly just let people and freemarket do it’s thing, if it’s worth anything folks will invest in it, why do you need to bring a gun into it?
 
RJM62 said:
You're right. But the increase in popularity that something like this might bring about also comes with the possibility of another interesting problem: having to wait in line for a charging station.
Click to expand...

Thinking about I was thinking either valets or a self-parking feature. Even still, the recharge time is much longer than refueling, so queuing could still be an issue. Especially so for a short stop; bathroom break and drinks/snacks.

Even for a commuter car, which is largely what I use my car for, these are just a bit pricey. I think we've taken one trip in it as my wife puts more miles on her car regularly. Maybe once the price comes down more I might get something like a Leaf or Bolt.
 
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