FIrst time supercharge

[slindell]

Howdy, all. Today I went to Gilroy to top-off my Model S Sig for the first time using a supercharger.

1. The highest rate I got was ~75 miles of charge per hour. That seems low.
2. When I returned about 1.5 hours later, all four spots were full, and another Model S was waiting. This is the most Model Ss I've seen in the wild...

 

[AMPd]

Was anyone else charging when you plugged in?

 

[efusco]

Was anyone else charging when you plugged in?

That's what I was going to ask, if so, that's what caused your slower rate. It will ramp up once the other car ramps down on charge rate as it approaches full.

 

[ckessel]

Was anyone else charging when you plugged in?

Even so, 75/hour is like 1/3rd of the amount needed for 1/2 charge in 30 minutes.

 

[Elshout]

Did you purchase Twin Chargers for a $1,500 extra when you spec'd your car? From TMC's specification page "without Twin Chargers, the High Power Wall Connector will charge at a maximum rate of 31 miles of range per hour...". I'm guessing the same reduced charging rate would apply for Supercharging without Twin Chargers. When I spec'd my car I didn't even know what Twin Chargers were but as I was buying every other option, why be stingy for this "relatively" cheap option.

 

[ChadS]

The twin chargers in the car are only used when you plug in to an AC outlet (or an EVSE, which is a fancy safe AC outlet). Superchargers are DC chargers, so they don't use the built-in AC chargers.

 

[AMPd]

Did you purchase Twin Chargers for a $1,500 extra when you spec'd your car? From TMC's specification page "without Twin Chargers, the High Power Wall Connector will charge at a maximum rate of 31 miles of range per hour...". I'm guessing the same reduced charging rate would apply for Supercharging without Twin Chargers. When I spec'd my car I didn't even know what Twin Chargers were but as I was buying every other option, why be stingy for this "relatively" cheap option.

Thats inaccurate, twin chargers have nothing to do with supercharging.

 

[Banahogg]

Twin chargers are completely independent of supercharging. The supercharger stack basically has 9x chargers in a separate box.

You'll only get the peak rate if you're in the bottom half of the battery. If you were nearly full when you got there, which is what it sounds like from "topping off", then you'd expect slower. This is why they advertise the charge rate as "half a charge in half an hour". The top half takes longer.

Charging up to full takes even longer to protect the battery - I've seen <10kW from a supercharger (~30mph) when going all the way to a range charge.

 

[stopcrazypp]

To put everything together, it depends on the SOC of your car and the SOC of the car next to you. The one with the lower SOC will get most of the power.

If they are the same, then both will charge at the same rate. It'll be slower at higher SOC, faster at low SOC. And in this case at most each car will get 45kW (if at a 90kW station) or 60kW (if at a 120kW station).

75mph is about 25kW.

 

[slindell]

When I arrived there was one other car plugged in. I had 90 miles rated in my car when I connected to the supercharger.

 

[Elshout]

Thank you for advising that Twin Chargers have nothing to do with Supercharging. Learn something new every day!

 

[wraithnot]

When I arrived there was one other car plugged in. I had 90 miles rated in my car when I connected to the supercharger.

The four Gilroy supercharging bays are labeled 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B. 1A and 1B are a pair and share a single 120 kW stack of chargers. The first person to plug in to either charger bay in a pair gets as much current as the state of charge in their battery will allow and the second person to plug in to the pair of charger bays gets what's left over. 2A and 2B are also a pair. When I plugged into bay 1A and no one was plugged into 1B, I charged at over 200 mi/hr. When I plugged into 1A when someone was already charging in 1B, I started charging at about 60 mi/hr and this slowly ramped up to 122 mi/hr until my battery was mostly full and then the charging rate ramped back down.

 

[slindell]

The four Gilroy supercharging bays are labeled 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B. 1A and 1B are a pair and share a single 120 kW stack of chargers. The first person to plug in to either charger bay in a pair gets as much current as the state of charge in their battery will allow and the second person to plug in to the pair of charger bays gets what's left over. 2A and 2B are also a pair.

That could be it. Looking at the picture, the first car was in 2B, and I parked in 2A. I'll try it differently next time.