this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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72
Tesla charging stations become ‘car graveyards’ as batteries die in subzero temperatures, abandoned cars left in the lot after cars wouldn’t charge (www.kansascity.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Tesla charging stations become ‘car graveyards’ as batteries die in subzero temperatures, abandoned cars left in the lot after cars wouldn’t charge::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It was a domino effect. When a car with a cold battery tried to charge, it had to wait for the heaters to get it up to a working temperature. This meant a 20 minute charge became 20 (initial) + 10 (heating time) + 10 (replacing extra power lost to heating). A 20 minute charge then takes 40+ minutes. The next car has the same issue. Once this happens a few times, even cars that were warm have cooled down, while queueing.

It's the EV equivalent of the petrol panics that happen to ICE cars. They idle in the queue until they run out of fuel. It's an infrastructure problem combined with people learning the limits of a new technology.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

And don't forget that this constant charging means that the supercharger's own batteries are probably depleted, limiting them to what they can pull from the grid, which IIRC is 350kW per 4 stalls. So instead of 250kW max per stall, they can now only do ~90kW.