Every other DCFC network is mounting massive losses and has huge reliability issues, so I’m not surprised Tesla is doing things differently, but still wondering. First 800V deployments started 5 years ago. How come Tesla never decided to future-proof their hardware?
Is the higher voltage contributing to the high fault rate of other chargers? Arcing problems?
Is it significantly more expensive to deploy, because silicon carbide or whatever?
The cybertruck just splits its 800V pack into 400V in parallel to charge off 400V. They must have anticipated that backward compatibility won’t be an issue, so they’re in no rush, but I assume they’d prefer to deploy 800V if it wasn’t for some downsides. What are they?
They did. The V4 Supercharger pedestals they started installing last year support up to 1000V. This is also the pedestals they're selling to third parties like Ford and BP.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrSEb8FWwAIUEZE?format=jpg&name=...
This is "future proofing" because they're currently installing them with the older power cabinets that don't provide that voltage. But V4 power cabinets have been spotted/leaked, so that's coming soon too. They can retrofit the existing V4 sites to support 800-1000V charging at any time.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrSFAnMWwAIjQrS?format=jpg&name=...