Tesla S With 85 kWh Pack - Charging Speeds.

Good Day Ladies and Gents.

I worked out the following calculations for a Tesla S with an 85 kWh battery pack and would appreciate confirmation that they are correct.

The Tesla S comes standard with a 10 kW on-board AC charger or an optional dual AC charger capable of drawing 20 kW of electricity.

The S has a car side IEC62196 Type 2 (Mennekes) socket that will accept a Type 2 connector. The standard AC charger will add around 56 km to the range of the Tesla S per hour of charge and will fully charge the Tesla S from "flat" in around eight hours. The dual AC charger will add around 112 km to the range of the Tesla S per hour of charge and fully charge the Tesla S from "flat" in around four hours.

The range of the Tesla Model S with an 85 kWh battery pack at freeway speeds (100 km per hour) is around 450 km. This assumes that 95% of the battery (80.8 kWh) is available before the car goes into power saving mode.

Are these figures accurate. Thanks in advance :smile:.

Dborn said:

I believe the realistic range is less than that. 390 to 420. I have read somewhere that only about 75Kw are available, bearing in mind other losses including air con and the electronics. The car uses about 1KwH for 5km. There are also losses with charging due to heat etc. The wall connectors are not 100% efficient. So your figures are close but very optimistic.

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The standard in most electric cars is that the usable kWh is around 70/80% of the total battery pack capacity but some of the S drivers in the States have reported 80.1 kWh availability which is around 95% of the battery pack. I don't think Tesla have reported any figures for this. The information comes from unofficial sources.

By way of comparison the Holden Volt has a 16.5 kWh battery pack of which 10.5 kWh is usable. This gives a range of 60-70 km at freeway speeds.

The attached photo shows a journey which took place mostly on the freeway consisting of 60.9 km on the battery and 14.2 km on the petrol range extender. This gives average petrol consumption of 1.1L for the trip. This car is averaging 2.9L per 100 km because it is used mostly in urban areas and is charged frequently.