60kWh Battery and Superchargers

I have the 60 and supercharger access, would have it no other way. No point in owning a Tesla if your not going to use (or eventually use) a Supercharger. Would have been better off getting a leaf. Worth every cent! Especially in the colder climate here in Wisconsin. The winter sucks that power when using heat, and the trip I had 50 miles to spare that I did today at 75 degrees, I would be pulling in home with Charge Now in the winter, hense the supercharger access would have given me more then enough (and has) to make it home and still have useful charge left. If you can afford to do it, just do it.

Supercharger and 60 works fine, I have used 3 of them. Takes me about 45 minutes to get 80% but I have never done a full charge, just enough to get to the next destination. Most of the time you only need about 160 RR to get to the next spot or SC. There is one trip that will require me to do a full charge to get the 173 between the SC. I recently did a 163 mile round trip from home with 20 miles left on a full charge from home. Did 70 mph using 320kpm. We are in Fla though and I think that makes it a little easier

I did a 2400 mile road trip to Santa Barbara and back from Seattle. Only had to range charge once on the way down. I drove pretty conservatively, so charged about 30 minutes each stop.

On my frequent trips from Seattle to Portland, I leave Seattle with a range charge, top up via SuperCharger to 70% (usually about 25min) top up in Portland via 40A and do the same on the return.

I have a 60kwh with supercharger access and to be honest, 85kwh is the way to go if you want to road trip using the supercharger network. Unless you're using it as a local access thing, I don't recommend people to go with 60kwh if you plan to use superchargers on road trips. The main reason is that there is a huge drop in rated range if you encounter elevation, head wind, and speed. If you want to drive normally on road trips in the non-truck lanes, then anticipate a drop of 10-20% of rated range drop. Also with a 60kwh, you'll be spending more time at the supercharger since you need to get it to 90-100% to get enough buffer. Example is Barstow to LV, I've made it on a range charge but went slow at like 40mph due to sand storms. Started with 200miles and arrived with 40miles range left.

The time I had to do a full charge was at Barstow filling up to go to Vegas. It takes over an hour to do this. Ended up with almost 40 miles left on arrival, which was good since it wasn't immediately clear where I was going to charge upon arrival. Now with the SC in Vegas it might be okay not to go absolutely to 100%.

Otherwise you just need to be smart and ride the bottom ~80% of the pack instead of the top to minimize your charging time. Average stop is still going to be more like 45 minutes (especially when others are at the SC) but that's a nice break to take anyway.

End of the day, 60 is a great roadtrip car.

Thank you for the title edit. It irked me a little to see no units in the original title (i.e. 60 Battery and Superchargers).

cwerdna said:

Thank you for the title edit. It irked me a little to see no units in the original title (i.e. 60 Battery and Superchargers).

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No problem. That and when I see MS too=)

it depends on where you are going and whether there are superchargers built. as ChriZ says, Barstow to LV can be iffy, especially with high winds.

Here is my California road trip if it helps:

Road Trip in a 60 kWh

I put together a Supercharger time table for a 60 based on my first Supercharger visit in Feb. Data was logged by Visible Tesla. The table is in the post below:

Tesla Supercharger Table - Page 3

As others have stated, going from ~10% to 80% takes about 45 min. 80-100% takes another ~35-40 min. I charged from 13 miles to 199 miles in 81 minutes that first SC visit...

Dave121 said:

I'm a rare 40 owner and am considering upgrading my battery to the 60, just to use the superchargers. I'd love to hear a few 60 owners opinions of thier use of the superchargers!

Few questions:
What % do you charge to at the start and charge to at each supercharger?
How long do you need to spend at each charger (I assume longer than the 20 mins they mention)?
Are there any charger locations you know of that push you to charge more at the previous supercharger?

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If this is helpful, I did this video about 6 or 7 months ago, Supercharging a 60kW battery from 0% (CHARGE NOW) to 90%.

Fellow 60 owners, I could really use your help. I'm having a "spirited discussion" with Tesla service about the appropriate rate of charging for my car on superchargers. I'm thinking that my car isn't charging fast enough but someone from "the engineering group" in California is saying that he has reviewed my logs and states that I'm within spec. Based on a few of the posts above, as well as other posts I've come across, I calculate that I'm 30%+ slower charging than you guys (hopefully "spec" isn't that wide).

I know all the variables related to charging speed (current % of charge, temperature, other people at the charging stations, age of the batter [mine is 4 months]) and I have accounted for all those issues. I have attached copies of my charging speeds on 3 recent trips to the SC. On each of these trips the weather was above 60 (so battery warm-up is not an issue), there were no other cars sharing my charging block (in 2 trips I was alone at the station), and my beginning mileage was always below 30 miles. The max rate I was able to achieve in my charging was 72Kw, which quickly fell to the 60Kw range. From IslandBay's video, I see he was at 92Kw at 51 miles while I have been about 55Kw - 63Kw at the same mileage point. I don't have the specifics from other SCs, but my speeds at the Normal, IL, South Bend, IN and Point Prairie, WI were consistent with these speeds.

What I could really use is some additional support that 60's are achieving SC charging speeds beginning in the 90Kw - 100Kw+ range and that they should be maintaining charging speeds well in excess of the 60Kw range I'm getting. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey! another MS60 in West Chicago - Ours is a grey 60 (solid color roof) We have made two trips to Minneapolis in the past 6 months and saw excellent speeds at Rockford, Madison, Mauston and Eau Claire:

I posted a pic of us charging at 111 KW here: (this was a common theme, as we arrived with about 10 to 20 miles remaining.)

Older Teslas limited to 90kW Supercharging - Page 156

JJR64 said:

Fellow 60 owners, I could really use your help. I'm having a "spirited discussion" with Tesla service about the appropriate rate of charging for my car on superchargers. I'm thinking that my car isn't charging fast enough but someone from "the engineering group" in California is saying that he has reviewed my logs and states that I'm within spec. Based on a few of the posts above, as well as other posts I've come across, I calculate that I'm 30%+ slower charging than you guys (hopefully "spec" isn't that wide).

I know all the variables related to charging speed (current % of charge, temperature, other people at the charging stations, age of the batter [mine is 4 months]) and I have accounted for all those issues. I have attached copies of my charging speeds on 3 recent trips to the SC. On each of these trips the weather was above 60 (so battery warm-up is not an issue), there were no other cars sharing my charging block (in 2 trips I was alone at the station), and my beginning mileage was always below 30 miles. The max rate I was able to achieve in my charging was 72Kw, which quickly fell to the 60Kw range. From IslandBay's video, I see he was at 92Kw at 51 miles while I have been about 55Kw - 63Kw at the same mileage point. I don't have the specifics from other SCs, but my speeds at the Normal, IL, South Bend, IN and Point Prairie, WI were consistent with these speeds.

What I could really use is some additional support that 60's are achieving SC charging speeds beginning in the 90Kw - 100Kw+ range and that they should be maintaining charging speeds well in excess of the 60Kw range I'm getting. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

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I posted some data here:

Supercharging on 60kWh - Page 3

But 72kw sounds right if you using a 90kw supercharger. It should be about 105kw at a 120kw supercharger, assuming you are not sharing with another car, and you have a low SoC.

markb1 said:

But 72kw sounds right if you using a 90kw supercharger. It should be about 105kw at a 120kw supercharger, assuming you are not sharing with another car, and you have a low SoC.

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Mark, how do you know if the SC is a 90Kw or a 120Kw supercharger?

JJR64 said:

Mark, how do you know if the SC is a 90Kw or a 120Kw supercharger?

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You know it's 120 if you see it charge at more than 90kw. Really, the best way is probably to look for reports on this forum. I would think that the newer superchargers are all 120, but I'm not really sure.

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Here's a post that says Normal is 120kw:

List of 120kW Superchargers - Page 2

And charging speed is greatly affected by temperature.I can safely say my car charges at the higher rates for much shorter period of time now that summer is upon us, then it did in the dead of Winter. Now, a Cold soaked pack would start slow, then as it warmed increased in speed then began to taper, my hot pack, after driving a long distance with AC on, at 70+ MPH, saw the high charge rates for only a short period of time, and tapered much quicker.

I did my charging experiments on days with temps between 60 - 70 degrees after driving the car about 15 minutes pre-charge. I would think that would bring the battery to a pretty nice place (not too hot, not too cold, just riiiiiiight!).

My frustration is that I see people with pictures/videos with charging rates well about 80kw for 30, 40, 50 miles of SoC. I maybe hit 80 at the first 10 miles of SoC and then drop into the 50kw - 60kw range by the time at 20 - 30 miles of SoC. Tesla keeps responding that I'm charging at the right rates. I guess I have no choice other than to tour the area and hit up other chargers, and record my experience. I still don't think my charging rates are typical.