Tesla Supercharger Issues, Problems, & Slow Charging in Los Angeles - Average Speeds and Charge Time

This video is a follow-up to my recent video where I drove my 2021 Model 3 Standard Range Plus (RWD) from the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles on a single charge (meaning, only 1 supercharger stop). While that was a stressful drive, when I got to LA things became even worse. EVERY supercharger station I encountered was either broken or had very slow max charge speeds (~60KW) leaving me stuck while praying I could add 20 miles of range to at least make it to a "good" supercharger somewhere. Easier said than done.

Learnings:

- The Los Angeles supercharger network is nowhere near as fast and reliable as the Bay area's
- Avoid the Glendale Americana supercharger at all costs - very slow, and you have to pay $3 to park, then drive to the 7th floor to access the VERY SLOW supercharger. Huge waste of time. Also, don't be fooled by the Tesla charging station on the ground floor when you pull in, it's a Level 2 charger and half the stalls don't even work! Skip it
- Driving from LA home to the Bay area on the 5 freeway, Buttonwillow, CA was a good supercharger stop. BUT, at around 50-60% battery charge the speed dropped drastically to about 50KW. Ugh
- Firebaugh, CA was my second stop. Good station, but like Buttonwillow it started fast (150KW) and then got slow (50KW) once I hit 50-60% battery charge
- Making two supercharger stops was heading north was faster than making just one stop, which I did on the drive down to LA
- The Long Range Model 3 can make the trip to LA with only one supercharger stop (with range to spare), but I don't like the extra weight of the LR (400+ pounds), it hurts the handling agility too much
- Get to know the supercharger stations on your route; which are fast, which are crowded, etc. You can do this by mapping your destination and examining all the superchargers on the way
- In general, go with the superchargers Tesla recommends to you, Tesla's navigation system is very good at calculating a stress-free route for you
- Consider charging only to 50-60% and moving on to the next supercharger, it's actually faster this way; getting from 60-80% can take longer than getting from 0% to 50%! Knowing how to use superchargers effectively will save you time and stress!

I still love my Tesla Model 3! Best car ever!

[foleyk]

That's the charge profile for a Model 3. 250kW to 40% and then it tapers fast. If you can go from 250kw to 250kw station on 30% range, then that's max trip speed. Chargers are decent in Tennessee, but the rate works out to about 34 cents/kWh when residential is 8.7 cents. Part of it is due to Tesla being forced to time-based billing. The other part of it is demand charges. Half the country bills by kWh and half bills by time. It's really screwed up.

[MegaNimis]

Same thing happening to me. I am told 40 minutes charge time. It’s starts off off high then lowers. At 25 minutes my time goes back up to 45 minutes. Wth! I’m at a v3 station that is empty.

[michaeli]

I’d just chill and watch a Netflix, or YouTube, or take a nap. No point stressing.

[bommaritohawaii]

Just rented a Tesla Model 3. Drove from San Diego to San Francisco and back in the past couple days and my charging experience has been terrible. The throttling, the wait time, more throttling, charging stations having different speeds in different capacities. Very disappointed. The car is amazing but the overall experiences bad. Until infrastructure is properly built out there’s no way I can purchase one of these

[ReggieRailSystems]

God almighty, GET TO THE POINT OF CHARGING ISSUES!