Tesla have detailed the third version of their Superchargers. The new high-powered chargers can deliver an additional 120km of range in just 5 minutes.
The new peak rate of charge available on V3 infrastructure, is as high as 1,609km/hr, given the range of Tesla’s to date is around 500km, it’s easy to see that while it’s not a linear curve, charging will take considerably less time than today, by a large margin.
This continues Tesla’s leading investment in a global recharging infrastructure and over a number of years, they have amassed an impressive 1,441 Supercharger Stations with 12,888 Superchargers.
Traditionally Tesla Superchargers would provide power at up to 120kW, however the latest technology seen some providers like Chargefox, use new liquid cooled cables to deliver as much as 350kW chargers. Here’s the gotcha, there’s currently no EVs capable of charging at that rate in Australia.
Tesla’s V3 Supercharger features recharging rates of around 250kW+ which is a significant upgrade on their current offerings. Tesla maintains that their solution is the fastest recharging available for vehicles sold today.
V3 is a completely new architecture for Supercharging. A new 1MW power cabinet with a similar design to our utility-scale products supports peak rates of up to 250kW per car.
At this rate, a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour.
Combined with other improvements we’re announcing today, V3 Supercharging will ultimately cut the amount of time customers spend charging by an average of 50%, as modeled on our fleet data.
Tesla.
The reason for increasing the rate of charging is beneficial in two important ways. Firstly it helps the customer as they need to spend less time stopped and get closer to the experience they’re used to with ICE vehicles.
The second reason helps Tesla and that relates to the number of superchargers required to power the tens of thousands of cars they’re producing. If each car is at the charger for a short period of time (Tesla expects the typical charging time at a V3 Supercharger will drop to around 15 minutes), more people per day can charge their cars at existing locations.
Starting today, Tesla are opening the first V3 charging locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. V3 Supercharging is coming to Model 3 owners first.
Model S and X charging speeds will also get V3 Supercharging in the coming months with OTA software updates.
The first non-beta V3 Supercharger site will break ground next month, which will be a site built with the new standard from the start, rather than retrofitting existing locations. We assume the display in your car will inform you of the capabilities of nearby superchargers and what version of charging is available.
Expect to see V3 Superchargers across North American sites ramping in Q2 and Q3 before coming to Europe and Asia-Pacific in Q4. That means before the end of 2019, Australia should be able to achieve the much faster charging rates (at some locations).
I’ll be keen to try it out with the Model 3.
Update
@Privater on Twitter uploaded a copy of the invite to users in the Bay Area.
