Hacker News Reader

Comment by Phlarp | Hacker News Reader

Curious they don't catch more coverage on this fact as it seems to directly contradict the narrative of a "super-charger". What prevents them from being able to charge all ports at full power?

This seems like another notch on the long list of hidden caveats with a Tesla. Other examples being constant surveillance/telemetry and the thermal battery throttling (0-60 in 2.xx seconds but good luck maintaining that!)

View on HN

To be fair, "very low" is like 220 mi/hr compared to standard 360 mi/hr based on my experience.

They do have a disclaimer on charging rate: "Charging from 10% to 80% is quick and typically provides ample range to travel between most Superchargers. Charging from 80% to 100% doubles the charge time because the car must reduce current to top off cells. Actual charge times may vary."

https://www.tesla.com/supercharger

>What prevents them from being able to charge all ports at full power?

Capacity of the substation or the cable linking the supercharger to it.

Not sure why this isn't possible. I learned this the hard way last time I spent 8 hours driving to LA from the bay area during the holiday season. If I was in a hurry on holiday to get to socal I'd much prefer driving a regular car with gas. The capacity at each charging station is visible from the map though.

You can opt out of them storing data about you. Even if you are the only car at a supercharger, it slows down the rate as your battery fills to protect it. It charges as max power (120kwh) when your battery is pretty low. However, the net effect is vastly faster than all other battery charging systems. Leafs lose range quickly if you charge them with chademo a lot, because they never cool the battery down to keep it from overheating during charging.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com