Tesla Supercharger Table

dauger · Jan 21, 2014

Tesla Superchargers definitely come in handy when taking a Model S on a long road trip, but how much time does the car need at each station? Especially if your passengers are a family with little kids, it would help to know if a stop should be just a short stop or should be a longer stop for lunch.

To answer this question, I took my S to the Hawthorne Supercharger to measure how fast it charges. I intentionally depleted the battery before my arrival and recorded measurements every five minutes while it charged it to 100% full. After some curve-fitting (one way to use a Physics PhD), I determined a formula to generate a table, inspired by PADI diving tables, useful for predicting the charging rate of this Model S from one state of its battery to another. Today it's on my web site:

Tesla Model S - Supercharger Table

To test its utility, I used it for my family's first long-distance road trip in my S from Orange County to the SF Bay Area:

Tesla Model S - First Road Trip

The table was very useful because it told me that I only needed a simple 20-minute rest stop in Tejon Ranch, then an hour lunch at Harris Ranch, perfect for a couple fussy little kids. And my actual results in the field, even when our stops deviated from my original schedule, nonetheless confirmed the predictions made via this table.

Now that the Tesla Supercharger network is so substantial, being able to predict needed charge time well in advance of your next long trip comes in very handy, so here it is shared with all.

This chart probably applicable only to the Performance 85 Model S with 90 kW Superchargers. It would be interesting to perform the same experiment with the 85 and 60 kWh Model S and construct similar tables.

NigelM · Jan 21, 2014

Interesting....could be quite useful so long as you make allowance for weather and road conditions. Any objection to posting the table directly here?

Tacket · Jan 21, 2014

Cool table and nice blog post! One note - you are only supposed to use up to 80% of a circuit's rating for a continuous load, so for a 30A circuit, we should only be charging the car up to 24A (re: using the dryer plug at your destination).

I made a trip from Seattle to Santa Barbara in my 60, had a complicated spreadsheet all figured out, and much like your experience, found that we never had to wait for the car to finish charging. Of course, had I run a tighter ship, that may not have been the case and those numbers I had crunched may have come in handy. In most cases, just plugged in, went and did something, came back, drove off.

dauger · Jan 21, 2014

I'd be happy to upload, but it's a two-page PDF:

http://dauger.com/tesla/SuperchargerTableP85.pdf

I didn't see a way to upload PDFs. The link is good enough?

For my trips, using 1.3 range-to-distance factor allows for significant conditions, in California at least. I get worse than 1.3 when climbing a mountain (e.g., OC to Lake Arrowhead) or, um, when I harvest too many Tesla grins. :wink:

commasign · Jan 21, 2014

Awesome table. Thanks for putting it together! Feature request: adjustment factors when charging less than 120kW?

wraithnot · Jan 21, 2014

dauger said:
Tesla Superchargers definitely come in handy when taking a Model S on a long road trip, but how much time does the car need at each station? Especially if your passengers are a family with little kids, it would help to know if a stop should be just a short stop or should be a longer stop for lunch.

To answer this question, I took my S to the Hawthorne Supercharger to measure how fast it charges. I intentionally depleted the battery before my arrival and recorded measurements every five minutes while it charged it to 100% full. After some curve-fitting (one way to use a Physics PhD), I determined a formula to generate a table, inspired by PADI diving tables, useful for predicting the charging rate of this Model S from one state of its battery to another. Today it's on my web site:

Tesla Model S - Supercharger Table

To test its utility, I used it for my family's first long-distance road trip in my S from Orange County to the SF Bay Area:

Tesla Model S - First Road Trip

The table was very useful because it told me that I only needed a simple 20-minute rest stop in Tejon Ranch, then an hour lunch at Harris Ranch, perfect for a couple fussy little kids. And my actual results in the field, even when our stops deviated from my original schedule, nonetheless confirmed the predictions made via this table.

Now that the Tesla Supercharger network is so substantial, being able to predict needed charge time well in advance of your next long trip comes in very handy, so here it is shared with all.

This chart probably applicable only to the Performance 85 Model S with 90 kW Superchargers. It would be interesting to perform the same experiment with the 85 and 60 kWh Model S and construct similar tables.

Your table seems like a really useful tool for road trips. Several people have posted additional charging data in case you want to make versions of your table for different battery types:

Finally 120KW Supercharging! - Page 21 Dropbox - SuperChargerData
Finally 120KW Supercharging! - Page 22
Finally 120KW Supercharging! - Page 24
Older Tesla's limited to 90kW super charging - Page 127

bob_p · Jan 22, 2014

A second table for 120KW chargers would be useful too...

jandkw · Jan 22, 2014

Just found this tread and the table looks good although I'm a little slow to understand it. I wonder if someone can create an app. on this?

PhilBa · Jan 22, 2014

great work. Now could some one capture this in an app? Then you can factor in other things like weather and actual route (for terrain and head/tail winds).

NigelM · Jan 22, 2014

dauger said:
I'd be happy to upload, but it's a two-page PDF:

http://dauger.com/tesla/SuperchargerTableP85.pdf

I didn't see a way to upload PDFs. The link is good enough?

Thanks Dean.

Dean's PDF is better to download and print but here's a version I managed to get loaded as a post:

N4HHE · Jan 22, 2014

It would be handy if each Supercharger posted advice on how to reach the next Superchargers in the network. Something like "116 miles to Harris will consume approximately 150 EPA miles of range at 85 MPH."

dauger · Jan 22, 2014

Thanks for the notes and the links. I downloaded the data and took a first crack analyzing the 120 kW results. The cleanest data seemed to be the Quartzsite 120kW, and I can see an improved charging rate at low range, but most surprising to me is that data says topping off to 260 miles of range takes 10 minutes longer than what I measured from the Hawthorne 90kW back in April 2013. Perhaps confounding factors like other S's arriving disturbed these 120kW trials, but I could also imagine Tesla changed their algorithm to decelerate more at high range.

These doubts make me hesitate to post a 120kW table just yet. Now that I know about the Hawthorne 120kW, I must go back and repeat the experiment. I'll post what I learn as soon as I can.

brianman · Jan 22, 2014

jandkw said:
Just found this tread and the table looks good although I'm a little slow to understand it. I wonder if someone can create an app. on this?

A webpage would be better .. on the 17".

bob_p · Jan 23, 2014

+1 for having a web page!

+1 for providing advice on reaching the new supercharger. Tesla could provide considerable trip planning assistance with the navigation software.

Because charging rate slows down as the battery approaches full capacity - the ideal strategy is to charge only enough to reach the next charging station, plus cushion. Charging more than that will cost more for the charge at the first supercharger than the amount of time saved at the next.

If the final destination was entered into the navigation software, it could identify the superchargers on the route - and make recommendations of which stations should be used - and the amount of range for the car before leaving on each leg of the trip. Plus, using data on how long it takes to charge the car to a certain level - the software could even include a projection of charging times in the time prediction for the trip.

If Tesla doesn't intend to provide this level of functionality in the car's navigation software, then hopefully they'll provide the programming interface support for 3rd parties to develop an app - that could be installed in the car. Or someone could develop this now and provide it via a website or mobile phone app.

scaesare · Jan 23, 2014

Very interesting tool.. thanks for making it available to us all here...

TexasEV · Jan 23, 2014

N4HHE said:
It would be handy if each Supercharger posted advice on how to reach the next Superchargers in the network.

The navigation system does that. Just tap "superchargers" under "places".

wraithnot · Jan 23, 2014

dauger said:
Thanks for the notes and the links. I downloaded the data and took a first crack analyzing the 120 kW results. The cleanest data seemed to be the Quartzsite 120kW, and I can see an improved charging rate at low range, but most surprising to me is that data says topping off to 260 miles of range takes 10 minutes longer than what I measured from the Hawthorne 90kW back in April 2013. Perhaps confounding factors like other S's arriving disturbed these 120kW trials, but I could also imagine Tesla changed their algorithm to decelerate more at high range.

These doubts make me hesitate to post a 120kW table just yet. Now that I know about the Hawthorne 120kW, I must go back and repeat the experiment. I'll post what I learn as soon as I can.

The superchargers weren't crowded when I recorded my 120 kW data and I didn't share any supercharger stacks with other cars so I don't think that accounts for the difference. My max range gradually increased during the trip so some of the slowdown at the end of the charge could have been due to the battery pack balancing. You could put an asterisk after the times for charging to a nearly full battery and add a footnote explaining that these times are more variable and may depend on the condition of your battery pack.

Dave EV · Jan 23, 2014

dauger said:
To test its utility, I used it for my family's first long-distance road trip in my S from Orange County to the SF Bay Area:

Tesla Model S - First Road Trip

A bit off-topic, but I saw that you noted charging at 27A on a 30A dryer circuit. That is over-spec, you should only charge at 24A on a 30A circuit - circuits must be de-rated by 20% for continuous loads such as EV charging.

Yeah, you can probably get away with 27A most of the time, but the NEC puts in those safety ratings for a reason.

Also, there's no reason for the extra ground. The dryer outlet should already be grounded. You should simply leave the neutral on the 14-50 receptacle not hooked to anything.

dauger · Jan 23, 2014

PhilBa said:
great work. Now could some one capture this in an app? Then you can factor in other things like weather and actual route (for terrain and head/tail winds).

Thanks! I have been thinking about how one would write an app to apply this. It could use Map routing data to calculate the optimal charging times for each Supercharger, given parameters for margin of error (a minimum allowed Range, etc.), as well as how many Superchargers you'd actually need. During the charge could notify you once your needed Range has been reached. If you deviate from the original plan it would recalculate needed charging times at later stops. Even better if it used the Tesla APIs to link to the car to query if the state of charge was reached.

I've written a couple iOS apps myself, so I'm tempted. On the other hand, it might get Sherlock-ed if Tesla itself added this capability to their app. Do we think it'll happen if we make this a feature request for the Tesla Model S app?

InTheShadows · Jan 24, 2014

Another feature if it hasn't been mentioned (which I have already tried to figure out from your chart) is the fastest time between two points and optimum speed. Also using other charging options.

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