Tesla Model 3 puts Tritium’s new 75kW fast charger to the test

The first publicly available RTM75 electric car charger – designed and developed by Australia’s Tritium – was installed at Queensland’s Broadbeach last week and has now been put to the test by a Standard Range Plus Tesla Model 3.

The owner of that vehicle is the Tesla shipping tracker known to the Twitterverse as VedaPrime, who shared his experience with The Driven of using the new innovative and scalable 75kW electric car charger.

While the Tesla Model 3 has a top charge rate of 170kW, the maximum rate available from the RTM75 is a very respectable 75kW. It’s 25kW faster than the standard 50kW fastchargers, and VedaPrime says it hits the sweet spot in terms of charge stop time.

A well-travelled electric car owner, having recently driven from Brisbane to Canberra in his Tesla Model 3, VedaPrime’s opinion of the new RTM75 charger that: “This new Tritium charger feels just right. With a much lower upfront cost than the 350kW this is the charger well suited to much of the global market.”

Rated to output up to 75kW, 920V, 188A according to its listed specifications, it can operate between -35C and +50C.

“The unit has a much longer cable option than previous versions. The smaller information screen is in the style of the 350kW charger and provides more information than the Tritium 50kW charger,” he says.

“I did try nose in with my Model 3 to see if the cable would reach the rear left charging port. It did not. It was a bit short and not by much.

“The car was at 10% state of charge and the session was to 100% in this test. The car battery was warmed up with an extended drive up to this point to ensure the best speeds. It was 8am in the morning on a summer morning at about 26 Celsius. I was running the car air conditioning set at 21 Celsius during the test.”

The RTM75 charger is also unique in that it is Tritium’s first 75kW solution and can be used with its world-first “plug and charge” technology that uses ISO 15118 standard to enable the electric car and charger to communicate seamlessly, authorizing payments directly from the driver’s account.

“To activate the charger I used a Chargefox RFID card,” VedaPrime says, noting that while instructions on the unit advised downloading the Chargefox app, it was not listed in the app at the time of use.

For those interested in the numbers, here is charge curve after charging loss:

“The charger started at 65kW,” he notes adding that the charge rate ramped to 73kW at 33% after 10 minutes.

“This ramp-up is going to be normal behaviour for my Model 3. The pack voltage it can take is under 400volts early on and the max of this charger is 188amps,” he says.

“This charge rate was maintained at 73kW until 61% after 23 minutes. The charge rate then started ramping down. At 80% the charger was outputting 40kW after 31 minutes. This is about 250km of range added for 70% charge added in 31 minutes. At 90% the charger had throttled to 22kW as expected after 40minutes. 100% was achieved at 60 minutes.”

VedaPrime’s overall impression was that the charger is “excellent”.

“On a long trip, a 30-minute break hits the sweet spot in my opinion,” he says.

“Having completed long distance road trips I feel a typical 10-80% charge – adding 250km on a 50kW charger is too slow (49minutes) and a 350kW charge feels too fast (23 minute – SR+ max is 170kW) – means the car is ready before you are.”