Tesla Model S 2015 70D slow charging - CCS upgrade

[SiebePaess]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum. Recently bought a second hand Tesla Model S 70D from 2015 with free supercharging. I have two questions:

- I am getting only charging rates up to 35 kW, is this normal? It seems slow to me... I have read about lower SoC and higher charging rates yes, but still 35 kW is slow...

- Would a CCS upgrade speed up my charging?

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards

 

[DerbyDave]

There is no CCS upgrade for your year.

 

[Lasttoy]

U didn't say how low ur charge was at start?? Where r u??
The lower the battery the higher rate. Empty should start say 70. Full down to 30.
Did u select the super charger on screen so it could PRE condition before arrival??

 

[cousin_IT]

There is no CCS upgrade for your year.

He’s from Europe so yes there is a CCS upgrade but no that won’t help. 35 kW is very low but if your battery is cold and your SoC is either very low (< 10%) or very high (> 85%) this is expected. Do the following:

- make sure your SoC is between 20 and 50
- Navigate to a Supercharger that is 15 mins away

Your car will start to show “preparing for Supercharging” with a small red lightning bolt in the display when you drive to there and then you should be getting better speeds. Good luck.

 

[DerbyDave]

Thanks, @cousin_IT , I didn't notice OP was in Europe.

 

[SiebePaess]

He’s from Europe so yes there is a CCS upgrade but no that won’t help. 35 kW is very low but if your battery is cold and your SoC is either very low (< 10%) or very high (> 85%) this is expected. Do the following:

- make sure your SoC is between 20 and 50
- Navigate to a Supercharger that is 15 mins away

Your car will start to show “preparing for Supercharging” with a small red lightning bolt in the display when you drive to there and then you should be getting better speeds. Good luck.

Thanks! Indid indeed put my supercharger into the navigation. SoC was ar 40%. I'll try again though. Thanks again.

 

[SiebePaess]

U didn't say how low ur charge was at start?? Where r u??
The lower the battery the higher rate. Empty should start say 70. Full down to 30.
Did u select the super charger on screen so it could PRE condition before arrival??

Soc 40%. Europe, Belgium. I did indeed select the supercharger, it was however a rather cold day...

 

[ucmndd]

Soc 40%. Europe, Belgium. I did indeed select the supercharger, it was however a rather cold day...

How far in advance? It takes much longer to heat the battery than most people think.

If you’d like to test under optimal conditions get your battery FULLY warm - test after a long drive while navigating to a supercharger for at least 30 minutes and shoot to arrive with your battery around 20%.

 

[SiebePaess]

How far in advance? It takes much longer to heat the battery than most people think.

If you’d like to test under optimal conditions get your battery FULLY warm - test after a long drive while navigating to a supercharger for at least 30 minutes and shoot to arrive with your battery around 20%.

Thanks for the tips, I'll try that!

 

[Hamen]

The older vehicles (60, 70, 85) are nowadays very sensitive to temperature. It takes a long time to heat up the battery. If you are on road trip, you will probably may get the maximum speed at the second supercharger stop.

 

[scgaskill]

There is no CCS upgrade for your year.

There is now but..... I ordered it for my 2014 MS 60 and was anxiously awaiting for today when it would be installed. After it was installed and CCS Enabled showed in features, I excitedly went to an EVgo supercharger that has both CCS and NACS plugs. Neither worked!

I called Roadside Assistance and was first told that my MS 60 needed its 40kW battery pack upgraded to a 60kW battery pack. I pointed out that it IS a 60kW battery pack. Then I was told some nonsense that SuperCharging "wasn't a thing back then"! I called BS on that too!

I was put on hold for several minutes and then told that my car doesn't support SuperCharging, that it would require a hardware upgrade. I pointed out that ONE HOUR EARLIER I had the CCS Kit and retrofit installed. I was then told that it was some other upgrade, I believe the internal AC/DC charger (I asked the tech what was required for Tesla SuperCharging and he mentioned this but said the CCS was completely separate).

I was then told a Service Manager would call me. Previously I had inquired about adding SuperCharging to my car but was told it was a $2500 upgrade. I don't take long road trips so held off on this. When I saw the CCS Upgrade was only $450 it looked like a great alternative for 20% the cost. Nowhere does it say the car needs to already support Tesla SuperCharging, which mine doesn't.

When the Service Manager called me back he confirmed that my car didn't support SuperCharging and when I inquired what that would cost he said $12,000!!!! I asked him if this was for a new battery pack but he said no, that it was something else. I questioned this and mentioned earlier being told it would be $2500. He double checked it and again said $12,000. That's INSANE and I told him so.

He apologized that this wasn't caught earlier and refunded my money and said he'd have a tech come out and de-install the retrofit hardware.

I went to the EVgo station intentionally with a low SOC of 15% (when I arrived) expecting to test both CCS and NACS methods and estimating a chargee rate of 75kW.

Instead I sat at a level 2 destination charger for 2 hours charging at 6kW to get enough charge to get back home all because the SC didn't check the pre-req's. The tech said I was the first person in the area to order this! Thanks Tesla!

 

[DerbyDave]

What a disappointing mess! Scary no one seems to know.

 

[scgaskill]

What a disappointing mess! Scary no one seems to know.

And the more I think about it, it could have been a lot worse! Supercharging happens at high voltage and high current which could have caused injury or death and could have led to the car catching fire or the battery pack getting damaged or even exploding if the cars firmware didn't stop it from trying to supercharge on my equipment which is apparently not capable of handling it! I even asked the tech what would be required to add Tesla supercharging to my car and that didn't raise any red flags. A complete process breakdown.

I messaged the Service Manager about my unhappiness of having 4 hours wasted at a destination charger due to the lack of supercharging I was expecting to use - he hasn't responded! Hell of a way handle an unhappy customer!

 

[MP3Mike]

Supercharging happens at high voltage and high current which could have caused injury or death and could have led to the car catching fire or the battery pack getting damaged or even exploding if the cars firmware didn't stop it from trying to supercharge on my equipment which is apparently not capable of handling it!

All the hardware to support Supercharging is there, it is just disabled on your car since it wasn't paid for when it was originally purchased. There was never any danger.

I was then told a Service Manager would call me. Previously I had inquired about adding SuperCharging to my car but was told it was a $2500 upgrade. I don't take long road trips so held off on this. When I saw the CCS Upgrade was only $450 it looked like a great alternative for 20% the cost. Nowhere does it say the car needs to already support Tesla SuperCharging, which mine doesn't.

When the Service Manager called me back he confirmed that my car didn't support SuperCharging and when I inquired what that would cost he said $12,000!!!! I asked him if this was for a new battery pack but he said no, that it was something else. I questioned this and mentioned earlier being told it would be $2500. He double checked it and again said $12,000. That's INSANE and I told him so.

Before they deinstall the CCS retrofit kit, ask them how much it would cost to enable CHAdeMO charging. In the past that cost about $1,500 and doesn't require enabling Supercharging. I think that if you get CHAdeMO enabled that that would enable CCS as well. (But I'm not sure.)

BTW: That $12,000 to enable Supercharging would likely give you Free Unlimited Supercharging. (Since that is what the vehicle would have had when it was originally purchased, if the owner had paid for Supercharging.) Not that that makes the price reasonable.

 

[cousin_IT]

Previously I had inquired about adding SuperCharging to my car but was told it was a $2500 upgrade. I don't take long road trips so held off on this. When I saw the CCS Upgrade was only $450 it looked like a great alternative for 20% the cost. Nowhere does it say the car needs to already support Tesla SuperCharging, which mine doesn't.

So you thought you found a loophole to save 80% of the previously quoted cost, was left dissapointed when your plan failed and came here to rant? Man man man...

 

[scgaskill]

Thanks Mike. The tech has come and gone now. Ye the $12K would include unlimited SuperCharging but there is no way I'm spending $12K for a feature I'll rarely use. I don't drive cross country or long road trips - ever. Supercharging for me would just be "an insurance policy" in case I am out and have to make unexpected stops running down the battery more than expected, and don't want to wait 1-3 hours at a destination charger in order to get home. The $485 for the CCS Upgrade was an acceptable "workaround" that unfortunately didn't work.

I'll look into CHAdeMo more, but when I last looked on eBay, used CHAdeMo adapters were going for approx. $750 or more, plus the cost of enabling the feature, now I'm back to the $2500 I didn't really want to pay in the first place for a god-awful monster adapter and maybe 50kW charge rate? ( Admittedly much better than the 5-6kW rate I've experienced at several destination chargers).

I appreciate the info, thanks, my options are very limited at this point, so CHAdeMo may be the best of a bad situation!

 

[scgaskill]

So you thought you found a loophole to save 80% of the previously quoted cost, was left dissapointed when your plan failed and came here to rant? Man man man...

WTF? So Tesla should not have known prereq's before selling a feature for high speed charging at high voltages and high current, right? After all, what's the worst that could happen, maybe someone gets electrocuted or my battery gets destroyed or it causes a fire because I don't know the cars charging circuitry like an electrical engineer and Tesla didn't think to check if my car was capable of using CCS?

When I first went to the Tesla website to check on this there was NO MENTION of requiring SuperCharging being enabled, and the website advised me to login to confirm compatibility, WHICH I DID! Tesla showed my car was compatible and let me order the upgrade, but yeah, it's my fault for trying to save some money. If I was made aware that my car was in fact NOT compatible w/o first enabling Supercharging then I wouldn't have pursued it further.

BTW - The mobile tech came this morning and de-installed the upgrade and apologized and again told me I'm the first person in the area to order this. Tesla has a terrible process breakdown here selling option an option w/o confirming it's compatible and wasting hours of a techs time installing and reinstalling it, and jeopardizing my safety and car.

And the previously stated cost was $2500 for Tesla SuperCharging, not CCS Supercharging, and now the Service Manager is saying, oops, not $2500, it's actually $12,000!!! I guess you're ok with that too!

But go ahead and continue to defend Tesla.

 

[MP3Mike]

I'll look into CHAdeMo more, but when I last looked on eBay, used CHAdeMo adapters were going for approx. $750 or more, plus the cost of enabling the feature, now I'm back to the $2500 I didn't really want to pay in the first place for a god-awful monster adapter and maybe 50kW charge rate? ( Admittedly much better than the 5-6kW rate I've experienced at several destination chargers).

I appreciate the info, thanks, my options are very limited at this point, so CHAdeMo may be the best of a bad situation!

My point of mentioning CHAdeMO was to get the "other fast charging" enabled on your car, which would likely allow CCS charging as well. So, it would cost ~$1,500 to enable CHAdeMO plus the $485 for the CCS retrofit. (So just under $2,000.) It would be nice to know if that actually worked.

 

[MP3Mike]

BTW - The mobile tech came this morning and de-installed the upgrade and apologized and again told me I'm the first person in the area to order this. Tesla has a terrible process breakdown here selling option an option w/o confirming it's compatible and wasting hours of a techs time installing and reinstalling it, and jeopardizing my safety and car.

While I think Tesla should do better, there aren't that many cars that are in the same situation as you. (They didn't sell very many Model S 40s/60s without Supercharging.)

 

[scgaskill]

I don't think I'd need the CCS option at that point but I obviously need the CHAdeMO adapter, so that's an additional cost. But still a lot better than the $12K the service manager told me it would cost to enable Tesla Supercharging, that's not happening, or going without any Supercharging option. This seems to be the only potential viable option left! Thanks again!