Tesla Launches Supercharger V3 With 1,000mph Charging, Better Efficiency, and More (electrek.co)

Yesterday, Tesla launched the next generation Supercharger V3 with higher charging capacity, better efficiency, and more. The biggest new feature is the ability to deliver a new 250 kW of peak power thanks to an "all-new liquid cooled cable design." Electrek reports: According to the company, the cable is "significantly lighter, more flexible, and more efficient" than their current air-cooled cable found on the V2 Superchargers. Other than the cable, the Supercharger V3 should be undifferentiated from V2 at the station. The company didn't even release new pictures for V3. The new 250 kW peak at the station is also enabled by a new 1 MW power cabinet. Instead of using onboard chargers staked together, the new Supercharger is built using technology Tesla developed for its massive grid energy storage system. With the new technology, there will be no power share between stalls like in the current version.

On Tesla's most efficient vehicles, like the Long Range Model 3, the company says that the new Supercharger V3 can add up to 75 miles of range in 5 minutes and charge at a peak rage of 1,000 miles per hour of range. A new 'On-Route Battery Warmup' software feature was also announced. When entering a Supercharger station in your navigation system, the vehicle's software will "intelligently heat the battery to ensure you arrive at the optimal temperature to charge." That's assuming you have enough charge in the battery when you come in. The new feature alone should reduce "average charge times for owners by 25%," according to the automaker. Model S and X owners may be disappointed to hear that the new peak charging rates won't be available for their vehicles at launch. Instead, they will have to wait for a software update "in the coming months." Model 3 vehicles will be the first to receive the software update to support the new speeds.

Comments

WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

You have to reach Mach 1.35 before it starts charging?

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[Anonymous Coward]

It recharges 1000 miles of driving in an hour.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It was a rhetorical question. The point is, the mile-per-hour is an existing unit (albeit one that is only used in Burma and in the US) and it does not mean that.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[theweatherelectric]

It recharges 1000 miles of driving in an hour.

Which isn't true. Overall the new system (including preconditioning the battery) reduces the charge time by about 33%. What used to take 60 minutes can now be done in 40 minutes. The 250 kW charge rate is only maintained up until about 16% state of charge.

It's still a very good improvement, but don't believe the hype.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[dgatwood]

You have to reach Mach 1.35 before it starts charging?

It's kind of like how a KC-135 can land on top of Air Force One and refuel it in the air, only in this case, your Tesla drives under a flatbed semi.

Too soon?

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[AmiMoJo]

The main advantage is that they can charge more cars simultaneously. Many people don't realize, when they see 8 Tesla chargers they can't all deliver max power. Pairs of them share 130kW at the moment.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[timeOday]

I've never heard anybody complain that a Bugatti Veyron is claimed to go 253 mph even though it can't go 253 miles in an hour.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[AmiMoJo]

MPH for charging speed is a very useful metric, because it tells you how long you will have to charge to go a certain distance. If your destination is 200 miles away and you charge at 400 MPH, you know that you need to charge for half an hour.

The main issue with it is that it depends not only on the charging speed, which varies with the battery charge level, temperate and a number of other factors, but also the efficiency of the car which varies with model, tyres and most of all driving technique. 1000 MPH is the most optimistic figure, if you drive the car hard it will be lower.

Re:WTF is 1000 mph charging?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The Bugatti Veryon can not got 253 miles in one hour. When the car is at max speed the fuel tank capacity for the Bugatti is just 20 minutes. That would be near 160 miles in 20 minutes.

Further the engines are not rated for max power for 20 continuous minutes. The coolant cant keep up, and the it is likely to flash over and the engine would seize in about 5 minutes.

Catching up

[AmiMoJo]

The latest chargers installed in Europe are 350kW, with 500kW rollout beginning.

The main issue is that most cars can't take high enough voltage to make it practical. The Audi eTron will be the first to hit 350kW most likely, at 800V.

It will be interesting to see what Tesla to to get their charging up to 250kW given the lower voltage of the battery packs.

Re:Catching up

[JaredOfEuropa]

Meanwhile, existing Tesla hardware is already capable of utilising the higher charge rate after a simple software update. That’s pretty impressive. I don’t think any of the other car manufacturers had the foresight to prepare for the 350kW chargers or even the 175kW ones. Sounds like they are playing catch-up to Tesla, not the other way around.

Re:Catching up

[whoever57]

The latest chargers installed in Europe are 350kW, with 500kW rollout beginning.

Bullshit on the 500kW chargers being rolled out.

Chademo claim to support 400kW, CCS specs go up to 350kW.

But more importantly, a Model 3 charging at 250kW will add range faster than any other car you can buy today. Even when the Taycan is actually being delivered, the 350kW charge rate will add range slightly slower than a Model 3 at 250kW.

Re:Catching up

[AmiMoJo]

It's quite impressive, yes.

Having said that I don't see it as being vital like some people do. Consider that in a car with 400km range it saves you about 25 minutes over an 8-9 hour 800km drive. For some people that's useful, for me other things about the car are more important.

Re:Catching up

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

While you are obsessively calculating these winter ranges, I avoid the gas station trip every week. Every day I leave home with a "full tank of gas", and never have to squeeze in a fuel break in the middle of running errands, I dont have to watch the fuel gauge to judge whether to fill in on the way home today or while during grocery tomorrow. All that time saved put it in the "time bank".

When I go on a long distance trips, the second fill up will be on a super charger. Somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes more than a comparable gas stop.

Till you actually own and drive battery cars you wont "get" this point.

Congratulations

[mrwireless]

Tesla is more than Musk.

Congratulations to the engineers working on this stuff. It sounds great!

My car needs a software update

[Kargan]

Words that I hope to never utter.

Re:My car needs a software update

[olddoc]

I think the hardware will be a big reason why Tesla cars get scrapped. What happens 15 years down the road when the motherboard that controls the charging system blows a capacitor and Tesla says they aren't made anymore? Will there be an aftermarket supply of major electronic components for old Teslas?

my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[goombah99]

I think it refers to the rate of power delivery compared to the rate of power draw a vehicle woul duse to go 1000Mph.

example, suppose that sustaining 100Miles per hour in air drag were to require , to pick an approximate number, 25KW of engine power. Noiw scale this by 10. that's 250KW and 1000Mph. I'd actually say that the real number is about half that for most cars. so really this is 550MPH charging that someone rounded up.

Now this is wonderful in the sense that it's actually the unit you care about. If you are using your car sustainably on a drive across the country then if you have to recharge it every 5 hours for 5 hours then you aren't going to get far. it it takes 5 hours to recharge 5 hours of drivine then the rate of charging is equivalent to your rate of travel when moving. e.g. 60MPH. so if you can do it ten times faster then it takes ten times less long. It's a convenient unit as perplexing as it sounds.

One the other hands it's fundamentally insane. Asking a member of the public to make connections that carry megawatts is Bonkers. And in fact it never will be anything but bonkers... ever. The only form of dense energy storage that we've come up with that is not so explosive is in fact gasoline. It's redicluously safe when you consider the crazy amount of energy you are transfering when your hand is on the gas pump handle. Electricity isn't that safe. I don't think it can ever be. Megawatts of power just burns holes in things at the slightest resistance. Even a 1 ohn resister would melt metal instantly and probably spray plasma.

there's a reason why our houses have 110 volts. It's the transition point between air gap jumping plasma arcs that are self sustaining st elmos' fire death and spakes that just damp out. Get up to 480 and you are wielding plasma torches. Likewise 20 amps is where things like small resistances in connections start to just matter but can usually be managed.

megawatts is just bonkers. no way will this ever be safe as this fleet ages.

Re:my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[whoever57]

I think it refers to the rate of power delivery compared to the rate of power draw a vehicle woul duse to go 1000Mph.

I assume you are joking.

To clarify, 1000 mph means that the battery in the car will charge such that the rate of adding range is 1000 miles (of added range) per hour (assuming you then drive at some normal speed).

there's a reason why our houses have 110 volts

My house in the USA has 240 volts (nominally 220V, but actually 240 - 245V).

Re:my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[goombah99]

yes 220 will easily kill you. 110 can kill you but with high probability you will survive because you are below the let-go-point for normal human skin resistance and shoes. the 220 you have in your house is normally 3 phase 110 which means only 110v drop between any pair of connections making it slightly safer.

Re:my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[whoever57]

the 220 you have in your house is normally 3 phase 110 which means only 110v drop between any pair of connections making it slightly safer.

Wrong.

US houses are fed with +110V, -110V and neutral. The + and - are 180 degrees out of phase (the term normally used is "split phase"). There is 220V between the two sides.

Electric ovens, dryers, EV chargers, etc. all use 220V.

Arguably it is slightly safer than other 220V systems because there is only 110V between a live wire and ground. However, most of the world uses 220/240V single phase systems in houses and no one seems to think it is too dangerous.

Re:my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[chuckugly]

Typical houses in the USA don't have 3 phase. Typically we have a single phase and split it with a ground potential center tap on the transformer. This yields two legs that are nominally 240v apart and each leg is also nominally 120v from ground potential. The intentionally grounded current carrying conductor is commonly referred to as neutral. The only way to get a 240v shock in a typical USA house is to somehow get connected to BOTH legs of the service, which would almost take intent.

Re:my answer and the death ray plasma arc

[rtb61]

Have fun with this story, https://darwinawards.com/darwi.... Amps kill more than volts and alternating current is far worse than direct current, just ask a certain elephant, well, you can't because, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., just proves you can't believe anything were money is involved.

What Tesla should have done, was do a deal with nearby residents, to put in a solar powered charging grid adjacent to those charging stations, well, at least a few stations of them for marketing purposes. How many residents would depend upon location and sun exposure and not too hot or not too cold, as that would consume a lot of energy. Create a competing grid for marketing purpose and possibly considerably more.

V2 was no slouch either.

[mikeiver1]

Having installed one of the supercharger locations I can tell you that they are not exactly light weight on the power. Each charging cabinet was fed with 480Vac @ 175Amps, 3 phase. About 145KW. Each cabinet had a pair of chargers. The units were water cooled too. Pretty nicely engineered affair to be honest. I really would not want to put my car on one of the V2 units, Lithium batteries prefer to be charged at a more sedate rate. I can only imagine just how bad the V3 would fuck them up!

Re:V2 was no slouch either.

[chill]

No. Tesla's, and the various batteries that Tesla sells, all come with warranties. The quicker they screw them up, the quicker *Tesla* has to pay for more.

Re:V2 was no slouch either.

[chill]

According to the article, this was part of the software upgrade. When you or the car is navigating to a charging station, the car starts pre-heating the batteries to optimal charge temperature.

miles?

[baker_tony]

Please convert miles to hogs heads so the metric community can understand.

Re:10 minutes for 100% charge

[chuckugly]

Pretty much, although I'd much rather have 600 miles in 15 minutes, your scenario would at least be useable.

Good point, gas cars don't have any electronics.

[Brannon]

So this is only an issue for Tesla.

Meant for the roadster and the truck

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The charge rate depends on how full the battery is. Starting from zero, it can absorb 1000 miles/hr in V3 or 480 miles/hr in V2. But as the battery gets full, the rate drops. Once it is 50% it drops the rate nearly linearly to 12 kW by the time battery is full.

Given that for some one going from 0 to 100%, the net savings will not be some eye popping number. But for those who drive in with 30 miles on the battery and fill 200 miles per session might see significant savings, from 35 minutes to 20 minutes, may be.

But the real winners are the yet to be made pickup truck and the roadster. Their battery capacity is very high and they can soak up power at 1000 miles/hr for 15 minutes or so, picking up 250 miles in 15 minutes.

Re:Meant for the roadster and the truck

[swillden]

But for those who drive in with 30 miles on the battery and fill 200 miles per session might see significant savings, from 35 minutes to 20 minutes, may be.

When driving a Tesla on a long road trip, the car tells you which superchargers to stop at, and how long to charge at each. And it's clear from watching it that it's optimizing for total time -- which means stopping at each supercharger along the way and charging only enough to get you to the next one (with a comfortable safety margin). This keeps the battery at a lower state of charge, because it can charge faster at that rate.

So on a long road trip, what's going to matter is the "75 miles in five minutes" figure, because superchargers are about 75 miles apart.

Of course in practice you don't stop at every supercharger along the way even though that would minimize drive time, because every third or fourth supercharger it's time to take a break to stretch your legs and eat a meal, so you stop for an hour. When you get back to the car, it's close to full (if not full). But if you push it and minimize your break time you'll eventually get to where if you charge the way the car tells you, you'll never charge much more than is necessary to get to the next charger.

Re:Meant for the roadster and the truck

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is possibly true. But with an active map of all super chargers within range, with how many bays are free/occupied shown, I usually dont follow the optimized route Tesla has planned. I prefer relaxed driving, and taking breaks.

Last long trip I did was an airport pickup at Dulles, Washington, DC from Pittsburgh. I planned to be at Washington supercharger 20 minutes before ETA. By the time she disembarked, finished immigration and collected baggage, I had 50 minutes or so. Had enough to return. But still decided to return via Breezewood, PA. Charged again there before going over the mountains, while having dinner. Because, I know all the energy spent climbing will be recovered while descending. But missus would be disconcerted by the battery meter readings along the way. So plugged in, to avoid anxiety. Tesla software does not make these adjustments.