Tesla will limit its Supercharger stations to provide just 80% of a battery’s charge at some of their busiest locations.
So far, it takes roughly 30 minutes to charge a Tesla’s battery to 80% power and up to an hour to get that remaining 20% for a full tank. The great bulk of Telsa’s drivers don’t have the time to wait for a full hour to top off their battery, so most just limit their time at a Supercharger station to just achieve that 80% amount.
However, at some of Tesla’s busiest stations, those that seek the full charge are causing a traffic problem. Long wait times just to get hooked up are inflating that 30-minute-to-80%-charge figure into something approaching an hour or more.
It’s gotten bad enough that Tesla is now taking action at their busiest Supercharger stations to limit customer’s battery charge to just 80%.
In an internal memo obtained by Electrek and confirmed by a Tesla spokesperson, 17% of all Supercharger stations nationwide will have an 80% charging limit imposed on them. Roughly 8% of these stations are so busy they’ll have that 80% limit imposed all the time, while the remaining 9% will just have the 80% limit during peak hours.
Tesla drivers who approach a station that has the 80% charge enforcement will be notified when they approach.
“When combined with the recently released On-Route Battery Warmup feature and V2 Supercharger upgrades (to 150 kW), we expect 80% SOC Limit enforcement to result in a 34% improvement in throughput at our busiest Supercharging locations – creating a better, more efficient Superching experience for our owners,” Tesla said in their memo.
There is one situation where the 80% limit can be overridden, however. If a Tesla vehicle is on a long journey and is directed to a Supercharger station with the 80% limit but needs the full 100% charge to complete the trip, then the navigation software will override that limit and give the battery the full 100% charge it needs.
Since the vast majority of trips can be completed on an 80% charge, this limit will hardly be a sticking point for most owners. This will really just annoy those with range anxiety and enough free time to wait around for an hour as their battery charges to full.