Breaking! Tesla Increases Supercharging V2 Speeds As S & X Get On-Route Battery Warmup

April 26th, 2019 by Kyle Field

Tesla reached out to CleanTechnica with news that it will be boosting the speeds of existing Supercharging V2 stations from the current 120kW max rate to 150kW instead of the 145kW the company had previously communicated, with little more than a few software updates. These speed improvements were announced alongside the rollout of Tesla’s next-generation V3 Supercharging stations last month.

Faster V2 Charging

A Tesla spokesperson said that in validating the new 145kW speeds, they were actually able to increase the speed even more and boosted the max charging rate to 150kW as a result. The higher speeds will increase the charging rates for all Teslas using the stations, with the Model 3 Long Range and S & X with 100 kWh battery packs having the capability to gulp down power at 150kW when charging solo on V2 station pairs. Tesla will continue to validate other vehicle/battery pack combinations for further optimization as it continues to assess the max charging rates of V2 stations.

On-Route Battery Warmup

Tesla’s Model S and Model X have also been getting some love in the charging world, as Tesla confirmed that it has rolled out On-Route Battery Warmup to every S & X globally. In practical terms, this tech is yet another software update that starts conditioning the battery in the car when the next destination in the navigation is a Tesla Supercharging station, resulting in a 25% reduction in charging times. This ensures that the battery is primed and ready to accept the maximum charging rate possible when it gets to the Supercharging station.

Maximizing The Value Of Existing Assets

Improving the speed of the “old” Supercharging stations is just one more example of how Tesla continues to leverage its strengths to deliver disproportionate value to owners. These updates are simply software updates that require no additional hardware at Supercharging stations or in vehicles. That’s beautiful.

As the cherry on top, these updates improve the utilization of Tesla’s existing network of Superchargers, allowing more users to charge in less time, translating to an increase in throughput. Again, this all happens without the need for any new hardware.

CleanTechnica reached out to Tesla with a few clarifying questions about the new updates and the broader rollout of V3 Supercharging and will update this article if we hear back.

Update: In response to our inquiries, Tesla reiterated that V3 Supercharging will start ramping up in North America this quarter and continue through Q3. After a successful ramp in NA, the V3 Supercharging ramp up in EMEA and APAC will kick off in Q4. That’s nothing new, but good to keep in mind as we get excited by these incremental updates via software in the meantime. V3 Supercharging must also be unlocked by software at the vehicle level, so don’t go navigating to one of the two V3 stations to try it out just yet.

For a refresher on V3 Supercharging (aka nanocharging), or if you just need a laugh, have another watch of our half-serious* discussion of the new tech on launch night in Fremont, California:

*Editor’s note: Maybe more like ¼ serious.









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