Tesla’s Charging Network of Tomorrow
By: William Laast
Tags: Technology, Tesla, Travel, Battery, Electric Car

Humans like change but at the same time are resistant to change; we’re very weird that way. The fact that people have been driving gas cars for over 200 years means that as soon as you tell them they’re gonna have to do something a little bit differently, a gust of confusion and concern comes in.

Charging an electric vehicle is just so dramatically different than charging a gas car or filling a gas car that you have to think about it differently. Once you get an electric car, you start to realize that unless you are going on road trips, you can get by with charging from home.

Source: Tesla (Sorry for diving into your HTML source code to extract this video ❤ )

Not only is it way cheaper, but way more convenient. You get back from work, your car charges up overnight, and it’s ready to go by the morning. But if you’re not thinking in that electric car mindset and you’re not considering that you charge from home, the charging network helps sell Teslas just as much as the range does.

Tesla’s Superchargers serve as a response to electric vehicles’ worst enemy, tradition. People considering an electric vehicle start to worry about being stranded in the middle of nowhere when they realize that they don’t go to gas stations anymore.

Speed

Video by Steven Mconroy at the San Luis Obispo, California Supercharger Station

The previous generation Superchargers utilize a single 150 kW backend that is shared between two charging stalls. If a single vehicle is charging, it can pull down the full 150 kilowatts. Each Supercharger cabinet has twelve charger modules and feeds two charging stalls (max 150 kW per car), so when both pairs of Tesla Supercharger station stalls (A and B) are occupied, that 150 kW feed is not so fairly shared between the two depending on arrival time.

Car A gets a fully variable tapered charge, while Car B gets 10 kW increments (since modules can only be switched in 10 kW incremented between the two cars). For example:

Car A Car B

83 30

82 30

81 30

80 40

79 40

78 40

When Car A leaves, Car B will get the full 150 kW until another car arrives. As a result, charging to 90% takes an hour, and to fully charge takes 75 minutes.

8% to 75% in 25 mins VS ~45 mins with V2 ∴ ~200 miles of range in 25 min Source: Privaterbok3000

With Tesla’s V3, you get 1,000 miles of range per hour. 250 kW per car. You don’t have 1,000 miles in your Tesla, but that’s the speed you’ll charge at. Meaning that in 15 minutes, you will get 2 1/2 hours of driving. However, the V3 tapers quickly. The 250 kW advertised charging rate is impressive, but risks battery damage and overheating, so it can’t be maintained…for now.

Additionally, although any Tesla can plug into a V3 Supercharger, only Model Ys and Long Range and Performance Model 3s running the latest firmware will be able to charge at 250 kW. Standard Model 3s will continue to charge at 150 kW, while the Model S and Model X have received a firmware update allowing 200-kW charging at V3 Superchargers. Unfortunately, older Model S and Model Xs can’t accept the higher power delivered by the V3 stations, because they use different battery cells; a worry that arises as Tesla seeks to change their battery cocktail again shortly.