New Tesla V3 Supercharger tested

The latest Tesla V3 Supercharger stations are here – but are they any faster at charging? That’s what we set out to answer in this (hopefully) quick charging test.

Usually we test cars, but this time we’re testing the charger – albeit with a car along for the ride. And in this case we’ve put a V3 Supercharger to the test with a new Tesla Model Y to see if you really are better off making a beeline for the latest generation chargers.

The Model Y uses the same battery and electric motor as the Tesla Model 3, which is by far Australia’s best-selling EV. Many are expecting the Model Y to assume that title, although that decision will ultimately be made by Tesla because it’s the one building the cars.

The model we charged was the most affordable Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive, which uses a lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack with a capacity of about 60kWh.

The Model Y is also being sold as a Performance model and in 2023 it will be joined by the Long Range variant. Both the Long Range and Performance are expected to use a different battery chemistry and will have greater battery capacity.

Tesla forged the way with electric vehicle charging networks in Australia and its Supercharger network has become a beacon for the American EV brand.

It’s the fastest way to charge a Tesla and it previously supplied up to 150kW of electricity (Superchargers were upgraded from an initial 120kW peak to 150kW).

But the new V3 (or version three) Superchargers up that maximum to 250kW.

As with all other Tesla-branded chargers, they’ll only work with Teslas (the plug configurations are common with other chargers, but the Tesla chargers only provide electricity to Teslas, for now at least).

Of course, any EV will only charge as fast as the car allows, Tesla included. That depends on a range of factors, including the vehicle’s onboard charging capacity, the ambient temperature, how you’ve been driving and the remaining state of charge.

Most Superchargers (there are 45 locations around Australia, mostly between Adelaide and southeast Queensland) are still the older units that cater for all Teslas (excluding the Roadster) by providing two plugs.

One plug is the industry-standard CCS combo (used by new Teslas and most other new EVs sold in Australia) and the other plug is a Type 2 plug adapted to provide a high-output DC charge (the Type 2 component of the plug typically supplies AC power from other chargers, but when Tesla started Superchargers the standards hadn’t been set so it created its own faster DC solution).

The new V3 Superchargers have only the CCS combo plug. That means they’ll work with all the newer models, predominantly Model 3 and Model Y.

But some of the older Model S and Model X vehicles will need an adaptor to take advantage of the CCS combo plug. To be fair, many drivers of older Teslas will probably already have an adaptor, so it won’t be a big deal.

In terms of the charger aesthetics, not a lot has changed. There’s still a clean white surround with red highlights and an oval-shaped hole in the centre. Superchargers are one of the more stylish chargers on the streets.

The charger we chose was in a shopping centre at Kirrawee in the south of Sydney.

To maximise charging pace we entered the Supercharger destination into the Tesla’s navigation system, which then tells the car to start preparing the battery by “pre-conditioning”.

This involves adjusting the temperature of the battery so it’s ready to accept a fast charge, something that in itself uses additional electricity in the process.

We arrived at the Supercharging station with a nine per cent state of charge (SOC) in the battery.

We started charging at 8:12am. Enroute to the charger the external temperature was 10 degrees Celsius, but that increased to 14 degrees once inside the carpark.

We started logging charging stats from 10 per cent SOC. Here’s what we found:

The Model Y started charging at a high rate almost immediately and it didn’t take long for a cooling fan to kick in to assist with maintaining the optimum charge temperature.

As it crossed the 10 per cent SOC barrier it was taking on 169kW and quickly upped that to 170kW. As it turns out, that was its charging peak, but the peak was over very quickly.

Within 60 seconds the Model Y was regulating its charge back from that 170kW peak. By the time it was at 18 per cent SOC the charging power was way down to 125kW. That’s still a quick charge, but not enough to benefit from using a V3 Supercharger.

From the 20 per cent SOC point onwards there was little benefit in using a V3 Supercharger. That’s because older Superchargers can supply that much power (and a bit more).

OK, so many older Superchargers will split their charge rate if another car plugs into the station adjacent to yours, whereas the V3 can supply 250kW to two Superchargers side-by-side. But that’s a specific scenario.

Most of the time you’re likely to be just as well off at a regular (non-V3) Supercharger.

The Model Y is still taking on electricity at a decent pace. To get from 10 to 30 per cent SOC in around five minutes is an impressive achievement. Early in the charge the car had been taking on charge at the rate of 1225km/h. That means if it had maintained that charge rate for a full hour (which is impossible) it would have added 1225km of range.

Even now, though, the Tesla is accepting electricity at around 850km/h. But the charge soon slowed enough to mean the cooling fan was no longer required.

Ticking over at this point. The Model Y RWD is still charging swiftly but, again, there’s unlikely to be a benefit in using a V3 Supercharger. Still, if you calculate the km/h charge rate it’s still hovering around 800km/h, although gradually dropping.

That high kilometre-per-hour rate is partly helped by the efficiency of the Model Y. It uses less electricity than most of its rivals, with claimed average consumption of 14.6kWh/100km.

That’s a figure achievable in real-world driving too. By comparison, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 in single-motor guise uses 17.9kWh/100km and the Kia EV6 Air 16.5kWh/100km.

With the battery now half-charged, the charge rate dropped below 100kW for the first time. But, again, it’s still adding charge relatively quickly.

By now you’re probably noticing the trend. The higher the state of charge, the lower the charge rate (or power). But whereas some EVs can fluctuate wildly as they adjust their charge, the Model Y is gradually but consistently pulling it back as the battery tops up.

The charge rate continues to drop but in a consistent way. Plus it’s still taking on more power than the max of some EVs; a Nissan LEAF, for example, tops out at 50kW.

A 10-80 per cent charge is the benchmark for many EVs, some taking as little as 18 minutes (EV6 and IONIQ 5). But our Model Y RWD took closer to 28 minutes.

That’s still quick, but not as quick as some, although it’s good that it’s still accepting 50kW with 80 per cent of the battery topped up.

The claimed range of the Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive is 455km, although our testing suggests the real-world achievable figure is more like 380km. That means it took 28 minutes to add almost 270km of range (again, we’re talking real-world, not marketing numbers).

That compares with Tesla’s claim of being able to add 261km of charge in as little as 15 minutes. That may be possible in ideal circumstances, but it wasn’t happening on this day with this car.

Things slowed down the closer the Model Y RWD got to a full battery. It took almost as long to charge from 80 to 100 per cent as it did from 10-80 per cent (23 minutes versus 28 minutes).

That said, at the 90 per cent SOC mark it was still taking on 22kW.

As it approached a full battery the Tesla was accepting 12kW. Considering the maximum your home powerpoint can put out is 2.3kW (and most wallbox chargers at home have a 7.4kW maximum), it means there’s still a benefit to plugging your EV into a Supercharger as the charge power tails off.

But for those on a road trip and keen to keep things moving they’d arguably be better stopping at 70 or 80 per cent state of charge and searching for another Supercharger along the way, in order to reduce the total amount of time stopped.

There are certainly no downsides to using the latest generation Tesla Supercharger, which you’d expect given it’s the latest and greatest EV charging tech with the highest peak charging rate.

And if it’s peak charging period with lots of other Tesla drivers plugging in for a fast charge there are obvious benefits to having all the electricity to yourself.

But our test suggests it’s not worth going out of your way to seek out a V3 Supercharger over some of the older ones – at least not if you’re charging a Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive or a Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive that uses the same battery pack.

Yes, it will be quicker, but maybe by only a minute, tops.

But keep in mind you’re likely to get a very different result if you’re charging another Tesla, including Long Range and Performance models, because they use different battery chemistry that can accept a higher rate of charge (we’ll test that at some time in future) than the Model Y RWD we tested here.