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Older Teslas limited to 90kW Supercharging

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ckessel

Active Member
Jan 15, 2011
4,455
405
I sent Tesla an email because I was only getting 90kwh out of the new Springfield, OR 120kwh chargers. I was told today that my car is older and doesn't support 120kwh. I'm rather steamed about that. Nowhere that I can find has Tesla ever said newer cars had different support than older cars. I asked about an upgrade. Doesn't know. Would an upgrade be part of the "hardware upgrades" mentioned in my prepaid service contract? Doesn't know.

If someone bought a used Tesla or activated SC on a 60kwh, would they know if it was 90 or 120 enabled? Doesn't know.

I'm not particularly happy about the 90kwh limit and particularly by the complete lack of information conveyed to anyone about the fact a difference existed or how to find out. This certainly dims the resale value of older Teslas.

He said he'd call me back when he found out more information, but I'm not pleased. I'm seriously regretting purchasing when I did rather than waiting another few months (VIN P02310).
 
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I sent Tesla an email because I was only getting 90kwh out of the new Springfield, OR 120kwh chargers. I was told today that my car is older and doesn't support 120kwh. I'm rather steamed about that. Nowhere than I can find has Tesla ever said newer cars had different support than older cars. I asked about an upgrade. Doesn't know. Would an upgrade be part of the "hardware upgrades" mentioned in my prepaid service contract? Doesn't know.

If someone bought a used Tesla or activated SC on a 60kwh, would they know if it was 90 or 120 enabled? Doesn't know.

I'm not particularly happy about the 90kwh limit and particularly by the complete lack of information conveyed to anyone about the fact a difference existed or how to find out. This certainly dims the resale value of older Teslas.

He said he'd call me back when he found out more information, but I'm not pleased. I'm seriously regretting purchasing when I did rather than waiting another few months (VIN P02310).
Are you running the 5.x firmware train or still on 4.x?
 
I sent Tesla an email because I was only getting 90kwh out of the new Springfield, OR 120kwh chargers. I was told today that my car is older and doesn't support 120kwh. I'm rather steamed about that. Nowhere than I can find has Tesla ever said newer cars had different support than older cars. I asked about an upgrade. Doesn't know. Would an upgrade be part of the "hardware upgrades" mentioned in my prepaid service contract? Doesn't know.

If someone bought a used Tesla or activated SC on a 60kwh, would they know if it was 90 or 120 enabled? Doesn't know.

I'm not particularly happy about the 90kwh limit and particularly by the complete lack of information conveyed to anyone about the fact a difference existed or how to find out. This certainly dims the resale value of older Teslas.

He said he'd call me back when he found out more information, but I'm not pleased. I'm seriously regretting purchasing when I did rather than waiting another few months (VIN P02310).

I'm sure he's wrong. There are a lot of people that work for tesla and dont know anything about the product. Some of there people that dont know anything just say stupid stuff. That cant be true it would be an absolute outrage among customers. I'm sure hell get back to you and correct himself.
 
Have we searched through either the 5.8 or 120kW threads to see the VINs of folks who have reported the higher charge rates since either 5.0, 5.6 or 5.8? I could have sworn there were some beta testers on 5.0 who were Signatures who had reported higher charging rates?

Edit: I actually just read the 120kW thread, and and at least one person (Cottonwood) with a Sig reported the same thing, i.e., that they were not able to get better than 90 kW.
 
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Come on guys, let's not freak out here. This is pure misinformation, as there are reports of sigs and low vin cars charging at close to 120kw. Unless you talk with Tesla engineering, take every word someone says with a grain of salt.
 
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My understanding of it was that 60s cannot charge at the same supercharging rate as the 85s simply due to the literal # of batteries in the car and the distribution of the DC charge. In other words, if each battery pack and take max XXX amount of DC charging, and the 85kwh contains more battery packs, then logically the 85 can receive a higher DC charge rate than the 60 can.... makes complete sense to me. AFAIK this is expected behavior, and has nothing to do with any sort of 'older hardware limitation' but instead simply the 85s can charge faster than the 60s because it has more batteries that it can charge simultaneously.
 
This is pure misinformation, as there are reports of sigs and low vin cars charging at close to 120kw.

Could you kindly point out a screenshot/other evidence that demonstrates a Sig charging above 90 kw? I have a Sig and have maxed out at 85 kw my previous two SC sessions. Also, the taper curve is worse than 4.5. I dial back to ~70 kw by 80 rated miles. I'm running 5.8.
 
Could you kindly point out a screenshot/other evidence that demonstrates a Sig charging above 90 kw? I have a Sig and have maxed out at 85 kw my previous two SC sessions. Also, the taper curve is worse than 4.5. I dial back to ~70 kw by 80 rated miles. I'm running 5.8.
It's in the 120kw charging thread.
 
I sure hate to sing the same song over and over, but: Tesla is a fine young company, but they sure do need some help with communications. As someone posted in another thread, should have asked three different Tesla people and than taken the answer you liked best.:mad::biggrin::frown:

I haven't Supercharged for over a month, so no experience.
 
Hmm... The only users that posted rates on that page were Cattledog, Dirknh, and SarahsDad. None of them have Sigs.

I have a feeling all you Sigs are sitting on future gold mines. Even if you have to wait an extra 15 minutes to fill up at super chargers once in a while when you are going on long road trips it would not bother me, I'll trade you my non Sig for one of your Sigs any day.
in 10 years those Sigs will be worth more than what you paid...in 25 years they will be worth more than 1 million each (inflation adjusted)...just imagine how much they could be worth in 50 years when they are getting auctioned off at those Sotheby's auctions for super rich alongside Picasso paintings, etc.

Id be bummed too in the near term, but just trying to put a positive spin by seeing the big picture. When you bought the car you didn't realize there would be faster charging available, just try to imagine that faster charging surprise never happened :)