Superchargers/non Tesla

[NDA]

I used a supercharger for the first time in a year or so this morning and was interested to see non Tesla’s blocking two chargers per car because of their charging point locations. I was lucky not to have had to wait, but there were empty unusable bays because of this and, after a few minutes, a queue.

[RobbyJ]

In the nicest way this is old news. It can be a pain but at least for me rarely is and over 50% of my 15,000-20,000 miles a year is supercharging.

The location I've found it to be the biggest PITA is at the Eurotunnel on both sides as there are only 8 charges and they are only V2. If only all manufactures could settle on a charge point location on their cars. Back left or front right, done.

[somouk]

Yeah, well known problem at the sites where other cars can use them. That's why they changed the location of the newer chargers in the bay and made the cable longer.

[Gone fishing]

The latest V4 superchargers are designed to address this with longer cables. They’re also easier to use for non Tesla owners. The supercharging USP is coming to an end

[andrewburton]

When I bought my Tesla back in April I tried out the supercharger at Tesla Birmingham and it was flying at 250kwh. Took no time to get from 20-80%
Since then I have charged at work. But my charger is kapput so i have had to revisit the superchargers both in Birmingham and at M5 J2.
They are now trundling along at 50kwh as they are full.
They will only get more full and slower.
This was their big USP.
I like the car but others have now caught up and there is no real point of sticking with Tesla.

[JustGetATesla]

andrewburton said:

When I bought my Tesla back in April I tried out the supercharger at Tesla Birmingham and it was flying at 250kwh. Took no time to get from 20-80%
Since then I have charged at work. But my charger is kapput so i have had to revisit the superchargers both in Birmingham and at M5 J2.
They are now trundling along at 50kwh as they are full.
They will only get more full and slower.
This was their big USP.
I like the car but others have now caught up and there is no real point of sticking with Tesla.

Birmingham St Andrews? That is a site with v3 chargers, so there should not be any slow down in charging rate when the superchargers are all in use.

You say you are getting 50kW? What is your state of charge when getting that speed? The fuller the battery the slower the charge? And did you navigate to the supercharger so that it could precondition the battery for rapid charging? Battery needs to be warm for the fastest speeds.

[andrewburton]

Birmingham St. Andrews.
On Wednesday I put in 39kWh which took me from roughly 40% to 90%. I was there 45 -60 mins.
Battery had been preconditioned for about 15 mins before.
Nothing like the 250kWh that I got earlier in the year.
The Tesla next to me started charging as I arrived and was still charging when I left so his was not fast either.

[RobbyJ]

There's something wrong with that (or those) Superchargers or your car. That is not a typical experience, I've used Superchargers all over the UK and Europe and very rarely have I had a problem and only once at a site level. Even the one at a site level just reset itself and started working again a couple of minutes later.

I've had the odd issue with bad stalls here or there but if it's not doing what it should I just move to another. Broadly speaking I've found the Supercharger experience excellent and am very happy to rock up to a Supercharger at less than 5% state of charge and be certain it will work.

One of my issues about considering a non Tesla is that I wouldn't place the same faith in other networks, I'd always want enough in the battery to get to a plan B charger which requires planning and keeping a battery reserve which is just a waste of the range you do have.

[andrewburton]

It'll be interesting to know if anyone else has had similar experiences.
If not then there could be a problem with my car.

[JustGetATesla]

andrewburton said:

Birmingham St. Andrews.
On Wednesday I put in 39kWh which took me from roughly 40% to 90%. I was there 45 -60 mins.
Battery had been preconditioned for about 15 mins before.
Nothing like the 250kWh that I got earlier in the year.
The Tesla next to me started charging as I arrived and was still charging when I left so his was not fast either.

Good - a site fault then. It happens. I had a one-off at Ferrybridge in the summer with me. Absolutely trundled along. But that hasn't happened any other time. Its a bit like getting a petrol pump that endlessly clicks off no matter how many times you change position...

[CheesecakeRunner]

On Wednesday the average temp in Birmingham was just under 2c. So an extremely cold battery, and relatively high SoC, I’m not at all surprised it crawled along. 15 minutes preconditioning is nowhere near enough in these temps, it needs to be hours.

[TheDeuce]

Gone fishing said:

The latest V4 superchargers are designed to address this with longer cables. They’re also easier to use for non Tesla owners. The supercharging USP is coming to an end

Indeed. Also the other charging networks seem to have grown exponentially over the last year, fantastic new chargers are popping up all over the place. Even the once bewildering selection of apps is now more or less a thing of the past thanks to legislation requiring new chargers to all accept contactless payment and also apps like elctroverse that cover pretty much all chargers and allow centralised payment.

I used to be slightly envious of Tesla supercharging and wished it would open up to everyone years ago... Now it has, it doesn't really matter anymore tbh, there seem to (finally) simply be enough high speed chargers by whatever network that all generally work and are dead easy to use.