Image: Tesla Tom/Twitter
The first V3 Supercharger is now live in Australia’s most populous city, Sydney, and local Tesla drivers have welcomed the opening of what is the third Supercharging site for the NSW capital.
Tesla launched its first V3 Superchargers in the US in 2019. With the ability to charge at a top rate of 250kW, the sites use a utility-scale 1MW power cabinet that can charge up to four cars at a time; although this is not the case at this site as we discuss further below.
While only premium Tesla variants can reach this top charge rate, when combined with battery pre-conditioning (which activates when the Supercharger is entered into the car’s navigation) it means a significantly shortened charging time – half that of using a 120kW charger with no battery pre-conditioning.
In the case of the new site at Kirrawee in Sydney’s southern outskirts, there are six charge spots in the South Village Shopping Centre carpark.
The site has also now been added to Plugshare, with two check-ins so far – one noting that they were not able to pre-condition the battery because the site had at the time not been added to the Tesla in-car navigation.
The other check-in said: “Finally open. Worth the wait.”
A video shared on Youtube by Tesla content creator “Tesla Tom’s Ludicrous Feed” has also given some insight into the new site, where his premium Model 3 was able to achieve a top charge rate in excess of 200kW.
“This will be a very important Supercharger in Sydney for years to come because the Princess Highway … is a main thoroughfare to get from Sydney to the South Coast,” he says.
The new V3 Superchargers are located in a back corner of the car park which Tom notes are “less likely to be ICEd,” referring to when a combustion engine car parks in an EV charging spot – something that can now incur fines in Victoria and Queensland.
And while there is a large Tesla logo on the wall indicating the parking spots are for Tesla vehicles, he and partner Joy do note that painting the park spaces would further denote the spaces as for EVs only.
Plugging into one of the new chargers with a non-conditioned battery, Tom says, “It’s very exciting – so we should get past 200 kilowatts of charging today.”
He actually reaches 236kW and shares an image showing the car will reach a charge limit of 80% in 25 minutes on Twitter:
Any advances on 236kW for Model 3? Anyone? @TeslaGong @TeslaStraya @sydney_ev @DrSallyL @PaulMaric @Chargefox @EvieNetworks @Tesla @elonmusk @teslaownersau @TheDriven_io @BridieEV pic.twitter.com/YO4F4uq2RG
— Tesla Tom 🎙🎥 LIVE on YouTube🦘🇦🇺 (@_TeslaTom) February 2, 2022
“That is super quick, that is the quickest I’ve ever seen our Model 3 charge, so super excited,” he says.
While charging, Tom makes another notable discovery: instead of, as with other installations in Australia, there being two charging units on each power cabinet (unlike the four noted in Tesla’s blog post), at the Kirrawee site there are three on each cabinet.
“I’ve just noticed that the stalls are now labeled in triplets,” he says, noting later that, ” the power is reduced when more cars join the party but not as much as it did previously with the version 2 chargers.”
He explains: “With the older version 2 chargers each power cabinet was localised to a paired stall so it was common courtesy to not join another car in a pair otherwise the power was halved. However now with version 3, each cabinet supplies 350 kilowatts to a triplet of stalls plus in addition the cabinets are also linked which means both cabinets can supply all six stalls up to a maximum of 700 kilowatts for this particular setup.”
After charging for 20 minutes, Tom’s car reaches 75%. “It is still charging at 73 kilowatts, 480 kilometres an hour. So it’s still pretty good – we’ve added 41 kilowatt hours or so.”
“Very impressed,” he says, pulling out the plug. “That took about 20 odd minutes so you probably get enough time to head upstairs to the shops, go to the bathroom maybe get a quick coffee.”
The first V3 Supercharger in Australia opened in 2021 at Devonport in Tasmania.
Keyword: “Worth the wait:” First Tesla V3 Supercharger opens in NSW