GuitarESPplayer said:
Surprisingly I havent found the answer to this question online.. Since the L2 charger takes a fraction of the time to charge than the trickle charger does that make it cheaper to charge or is the L2 fast charger strickly just for convenience?
Ingineer has measured the efficiency back in 2012:
L1: 78%
L2 (3.3kW): 91%
I estimate that L2 (6.0kW) achieves about 93%
Put another way, for every kWh that goes into the battery, here is how much electricity is wasted:
L1: 28% more wasted
L2 (3.3kW): 10% more wasted
L2 (6.0kW): 7.5% more wasted
So, L1 charging wastes almost 3X as much energy as L2 (3.3kW) charging and almost 4X as much energy as L2 (6.0kW) charging.
OTOH, starting with MY2013, the L2 charger can ramp down to very low power levels (600W) to allow for full cell balancing during a single charge cycle. This period at the end of the charge cycle will be less efficient than the faster portion of the charge, so if you want to maximize efficiency with L2, don't charge to full.