New Tesla Supercharger V3 Slashes Charging Time to 15 Minutes

Tesla has launched its next generation Supercharger V3 charging station whose higher charging capacity (250 kW) will reduce typical charging times to only 15 minutes.

Tesla believes V3 Supercharging will “ultimately cut the amount of time customers spend charging by an average of 50%.”

The first operational or non-beta Supercharger V3s will come into service over the next three months. V3 charging stations will first be deployed to North American sites in the second and thid quarter of this year before coming to Europe and Asia-Pacific in the fourth quarter.

The first public beta site for the Supercharger V3 charging station is located in the Bay Area of San Francisco. It will then be made incrementally available to owners in Tesla’s Early Access Program.

“We’re launching V3 Supercharging for Model 3, our highest volume vehicle, and we’ll continue to expand access as we review and assess the results of millions of charging events,” said Tesla in a statement.

“We will increase Model S and X charging speeds via software updates in the coming months. V3 Supercharging will roll out to the wider fleet in an over the air firmware update to all owners in Q2 as more V3 Superchargers come online.”

The next-generation Supercharger V3 charging station looks identical to Tesla’s existing Supercharger V2 stations, except for thinner, liquid-cooled cables on the newer units. The “all-new liquid cooled cable design” is able to deliver 250 kW of peak power. It’s significantly lighter, more flexible, and more efficient” than the current air-cooled cables found at Supercharger V2 charging stations.

Supercharger V3 supports peak rates of up to 250 kW per vehicle. This allows a car like the Long Range Model 3 to replenish 75 miles of its range in just 5 minutes. On the other hand, Tesla’s V2 Superchargers have peak rates of some 120 kW per vehicle.

Tesla said Supercharger V3 stations are currently optimized for the Model 3. It warns that Model 3 owners will have to ensure their vehicles are updated to version 2019.7.11 to get access to Supercharger V3.

Tesla said supercharger stations with V3 hardware are designed to enable any owner to charge at the full power their battery can take. Supercharger V3 does away with having to split power with another vehicle connected to a user’s cabinet.

"This combination of higher peak power and dedicated vehicle power allocation across the site enables a user to charge in half the time,” said Tesla.

Tesla also announced a new ‘On-Route Battery Warmup’ software feature. When entering a Supercharger station, the vehicle’s software will “intelligently heat the battery to ensure you arrive at the optimal temperature to charge.," said Tesla.

The new feature alone should reduce “average charge times for owners by 25%."