Charging Speed at Electrify America

[GiantFan]

out of curiousity, what charging speed are you getting at Electrify America? I have been relatively consistent in getting peak speeds in the 85KW/hour range. I was wondering if that is typical or if I am seeing slower charging. I am using EA in Northern California.

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[beez]

What is your SoC when charging?

 

[PrudentOcean]

The highest speed I have seen was at my local EA — 270 kWh. It can vary significantly based on your battery’s state (SoC, temperature), ambient conditions and whether you’re on a balanced charger (one which shares circuits with an adjacent stall). It’s usually best to have no vehicles charging next to you. My local EA has twenty 350 kWh balanced chargers and typically quite busy so it's difficult to get the fastest charging speeds the Macan can achieve.

Check-ins from PlugShare:

 

[SergeyIndy]

There are two possible reasons: 1) Your battery Temp and SoC are not optimal, you should see battery Temp optimal on the left tube battery screen when the right side of the ring level is within the bracket (battery is preheated when nav is pointed to the charger) and also SoC should be low. 2) Your OBC (on board charger) or PDU (power distribution unit) is bad.

This is from Taycan, but same concept of battery indicator in ideal temp to accept peak fast charge:

 

[ColdCase]

Yeah, the vehicle controls the charging current up to the charger's limit.

I usually see in the neighborhood of 85Kw when the SoC is more than 60%.

The more recently installed/updated EA sites seem to have chargers with higher limits.

 

[dbsb3233]

I get near the Macan's max (270 kW) when the conditions are right and the charger is fully working. That means when plugging in below maybe 30% SOC and when the battery temp is in nominal range (roughly 75F-90F). The power starts to drop as the SOC rises.

Finding EA stations that are delivering full power is hit and miss. Some stations are consistently good, others notoriously bad. And specific chargers at each station are also hit & miss. If I plug in and get below 100 kW, I'm usually gonna move over to another charger and try that. Checking the most recent 5-6 comments on Plugshare is a good way to scout it out ahead of time.

 

[JohnnyRoaster]

The only way to precondition the battery is having a charger set in your nav. I did a 500 mile road trip a few weeks ago and charged twice at EA. Both times were 270 to start and then went down as the battery filled.

 

[dbsb3233]

Note too that cold weather makes a huge difference. When the temps get down around freezing, you'll almost never get close to 200 kW (let alone the 270 max). Even if you precondition. The charger itself usually slows way down too when it's that cold.

That's not to say that preconditioning isn't helpful. It is, especially in cold temps. Without it, on a 30F day you're often looking at sub-100 kW speeds. You want that battery temp up above roughly 75F. If it's only like 50F, expect seriously slower charging.

BTW, that's one of the nice things about the Macan -- the battery temp display. Few EVs have that. You can actually see if preconditioning is working by watching to see if the battery temp rises in the 30 minutes before the nav destination.

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