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When charging is as fast as this, a charging stop is not a problem.
I still remember the feeling when I moved into the student suite and gained access to something that changed backwards in everything that had previously been involved.
At home, we only had the usual internet modem, but suddenly it was connected to 100 megabytes in the student suite. Things that took several hours before suddenly took only minutes or seconds. It was a paradigm shift.
In fact, it was so fast that he encountered new types of restrictions that he had never thought of before.
And you get the same feel when testing Tesla’s third-generation Supercharger v3 charging infrastructure.
250 kW actual charging speed: 1644 kilometers per hour. It appears as a paradigm shift.
Photo: Magnus Blaker (Nettavisen)
The world’s best charging network has improved
One of the strongest arguments for choosing Tesla has been that, in addition to building electric cars, they have also been at the forefront in terms of fast quick charging and easy to use.
The 120 kW charging speed was available early, while competitors struggled to achieve 50 kW at charging stations, which are much more difficult to use.
They recently upgraded this to 150 kW.
Lead was still being consumed, since there are now chargers that, in theory, can deliver 180 kW in any case. In practice, it has turned out to be quite far from reality.
But Tesla has been unable to live with the passage of others, if only on paper, and they are now rolling out their third-generation supercharger.
The changes are essentially triple:
- You are no longer sharing capacity with another charger
- Maximum charging speed increases to 250 kW
- Tesla has officially stopped offering the Type 2 connector on the supercharger. Now it’s just CCS contact.
Good and bad news
The first point is perhaps the most important. The time is up when he started to curse and curse if another Tesla driver came and parked next to him and stole half of his carrying capacity.
It is no fun to discover that the loading speed is halved when more thirst for loading arrives at the site.
The Supercharger v3 only has a CCS connector, and will not fit it into the charging port of a Model S or X.
Photo: Magnus Blaker (Nettavisen)
The last point, on the other hand, is to the extreme annoyance of anyone who has purchased the Model S and X. You cannot connect to the best Tesla models in the new Tesla chargers without using an adapter, and for many also do a update in the workshop.
Tesla has often been compared to Apple, and this with clunky, easy-to-use adapters, something Apple is increasingly known for.
Watch the video: Here’s how to charge a Tesla Model S into a V3 charger:
What is the actual charging speed?
But the big question is: how fast does the car actually charge in practice?
We picked up a Model 3 Performance in Tesla. According to the company, this is the most suitable model to test the new chargers. For best results, we recommend emptying the car to less than 5 percent of the battery capacity.
The trip then went to the Liertoppen shopping area, which is the first in Norway to have the new superchargers. After depleting the battery to 1 percent, we parked in the charger.
Charging begins. Provides 55 minutes for the fully charged battery.
Graph of the effect of the actual measured load speed and the trend line.
- 1 percent: The load immediately jumps to 118 kW
- 5 percent: Within a few minutes it increases noticeably, first to 150 kW, then to 187 kW.
- 7 percent: Speed melts up to 250 kW. It gives one kW per minute. We now load at over 1600 kilometers per hour.
- 11 percent: Now things are going fast. Occasionally, the indicator will be up to 251 kW. The fans in the car are running at full speed. Sometimes it seems that someone is hitting a hammer on the ground.
- 24 percent: We have been charging for just over five minutes and have received an additional 18 kWh of battery power. But now we are above. Speed has been reduced to 240 kW.
- 28 percent: The speed continues to drop, slowly but surely. 229 kW
- 33 percent: Speed drops significantly to 182 kW; we are now at the theoretical maximum speed of common chargers.
- 40 percent: 9 minutes have passed, we have 29 kWh of power. It’s as much as the updated first-generation Leaf.
- 47 percent: Speed continues to decrease. We have dropped to 151 kW and, according to the counting system, it is no longer a speed equivalent to a four-digit number of kilometers per hour.
- 48 percent: We are at 146 kW, which is below the theoretical maximum speed of a normal Supercharger v2. We have been charging for less than 12 minutes and receive 36 kWh of battery.
- 50 percent: The battery is half full in just over 12 minutes. The speed is now 141 kW.
- 66 percent: The speed is reduced to 85 kW. Less than 19 minutes have passed. But according to the car, it still takes 40 minutes for the battery to be fully charged.
- 70 percent: Speed continues to drop to 75 kW. We have charged 70 percent of the battery in 21 minutes. The last 30 percent is supposed to take 35 minutes.
- 95 percent: Fast charging is no longer fast. 12 kW is now the power. With a standard charging cable, the Model 3 can charge 11 kW.
- 96 percent: Depending on the car, a full charge should take 55 minutes. Now we have stopped for more than 56 minutes. Calculate that it will still take 9 minutes before obtaining the last four percent
The last percentages are extremely difficult, and here we have long since spent the time that the car thought was necessary to fill the entire battery.
Crazy fast – with limitations
There is no doubt that Tesla’s new superchargers are currently completely outperforming their competitors. Tesla markets 250 kW, and that is what we experience in practice.
But as with the Internet: when the capacity is so great, everything must be perfect so that everything applauds. You get the maximum top speed only if you are almost completely without power and have some temperature in the battery.
If you use the chargers for a quick charge on your way from A to B to get the little extra range you need to reach, it’s perfect. That’s exactly what we needed when we drove Oslo-Bergen with the Model 3 a while back.
Also read
We haven’t tested the long-range version of the car yet, which is what people actually buy, but since Tesla recommends performance for testing, we suspect it will give somewhat worse results.
It also doesn’t help showing up at a charging station without the right car. We sincerely feel sorry for the people who have spent a million or more on a Model S and Model X, and are now being told that they cannot use the new chargers without upgrading their car and using an adapter.
This is the price customers must pay for Tesla to invest in the wrong charging solution.
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