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Tesla Limits Its Unlimited Supercharging

It looks like Tesla will be combating lengthy wait times at some Supercharger stations by putting a limit on the top State of Charge (SOC).  The fact that Tesla is adding limits to supercharging was exposed via an employee memo obtained earlier today by Electrek. 

Tesla Limits Supercharging

The automaker revealed that it has released a feature which will limit the SOC to 80 percent at select high-traffic sites.  This will ultimately affect 17 percent of all of its Supercharger stations in the U.S.  The limit will be permanently applied at 8 percent of these stations, while another 9 percent will only be enforced on national holidays and to accommodate large regional events. 

Owners should not be taken by surprise by this, however.  Tesla says that drivers planning on stopping at an affected Supercharger station will receive a notification about the limit.

Limit Not Set In Stone

Though the limit may be permanent in some places, it is not necessarily a hard limit.  Electrek reported that Tesla has a workaround for drivers on long-distance trips.  If you are using the Tesla trip planner to navigate to your destination and stop at the Supercharger on the way, you should be allowed to charge up to 100 percent of your battery.  Just do not list the station as the destination itself– in that situation, you would be forced to abide by the current station limit.

Increased Efficiency

The limit is intended to increase efficiency at Tesla’s Supercharging stations.  When combined with other Supercharger features, Tesla expects to see up to a 34 percent improvement in throughput at its busiest locations. 

One of Tesla’s newest battery-related features, the On-Route Battery Warmup, will also help with efficiency.  This allows a Tesla vehicle to automatically raise its battery to an ideal temperature for charging before the owner arrives at a charging station.  Tesla expects this feature to reduce average charge times by about 25 percent. 

The New V3 Supercharger

On March 6th, Tesla revealed its new V3 Supercharger, which is expected to cut total charge times in half by charging up to 1,000 miles an hour with a maximum rate of 250 kW.  And thanks to a new liquid-cooled cable design, drivers will always get the fastest charge available, since the station will not have to split energy between multiple cars.  This means, for example, that you could potentially charge a Model 3 Long Range with 75 miles in five minutes. 

But do not go searching for these Superchargers just yet.  It is not expected that they will be widely available in the U.S. until the latter part of 2019.

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