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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Supercharging does measurable damage to batteries. If you're on a long distance road trip and need to use it, okay, but if you regularly supercharge your car WILL have poorer battery condition by the time it reaches 80,000 to 100,000 miles.

This is not a problem for most owners who charge overnight at home.

The battery chemistry and heating / high amperage damage issues are unavoidable with current lithium ion chemistry.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-sp...

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/09/tesla-limiting-supercha...

I don't think you will find this information anywhere on Tesla's website. It's kind of bullshit in my opinion that they don't have at least a medium sized disclaimer saying "hey, don't supercharge all the time... or this will happen". I'm sure it's buried deep in the sales contract terms and conditions.

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Yes and no.

Anytime a li-ion battery is charging, discharging, or even just sitting there the chemistry is breaking down slowly. Charging at higher speeds, charging at higher temperatures, etc. all speed up that break down.

> Supercharging does measurable damage to batteries.

However, I'm calling bullshit on this statement, unless by "measurable" you mean you will maybe lose 1% more battery capacity (which would be maybe 3 miles of range) than someone who coddled their battery. Measurable? Barely. Meaningful? Not really.

My Model S is 5 years old and at 80,000 miles, and I supercharge regularly. My battery has gone from 265 miles to 260, which is inline with what is expected.

I supercharged an S a few times and noticed that you could throttle the charging if you want. Seems reasonable to balance changing rate with how much time you have. For similar reasons I recommend avoiding the natural inclination to get the more powerful charger possible at home.

Most powerful home charger is going to charge at 19kW, not much compared to the rate of a supercharger (250kW). your car will be fine.

I was going to reply "unless your home has 3 phase 480V service you don't know about, you're not going to be able to charge anywhere near supercharge amp flow rates..."

I don't think there's real-world data showing that supercharging within the limits Tesla has programmed leads to very significant degradation.

Yes, it will happen, but then there are several factors that can affect battery degradation. If you don't care, it's not so bad that you're going to ruin your car. If you do care, it's like 5min Googling to find tips on how to care for your battery.

There’s mostly anecdotal, like this: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-400k-km-250k-mi-7-pe...

400k km, supercharging a lot, 7% degradation, that’s better than anybody expected.

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