Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned

guyofthesky

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Just so you know Electrify America just called me this morning after the feedback I left them on the app yesterday.
They said they’ll send a team to those chargers to fix them up.

I don’t know it sounds to me that they wanna help.
Agreed. EA has called me more than once, even when I just left a minor comment about a charger requiring two tries to start. No big deal to me, but their customer support over the last 18 months has been excellent. fwiw.
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guyofthesky

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I've posted this in a few other threads, but here's the log of my charges for a recent Denver-Vegas trip in my AWD ER. You can see how elevation severely affected MPK. It was even more dramatic than I expected.

UT speed limit is 80 so that was a bigger hit too. CO and NV it's 75. And a few of the mornings were cold (30F-40F).

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Great chart! Thanks.
 

Not Stang E

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Were you getting 150kW? Because they were working all right, just very slow.
I saw positive charging experiences on plug share at the end of April on those chargers so maybe I just got unlucky.
So I got like 52KWH charged in 32 mins which was not bad at all. I don't remember the exact putput I was getting but it was around 120 at some point I think.
I am sure if I had started at a lower SoC my peak would have been higher and probably longer.
 

dbsb3233

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So I got like 52KWH charged in 32 mins which was not bad at all. I don't remember the exact putput I was getting but it was around 120 at some point I think.
I am sure if I had started at a lower SoC my peak would have been higher and probably longer.
That's 97.5 kW average. That's right in the range I and many others are reporting. Pretty good.

By most accounts, you'd have only saved a couple of minutes starting at a lower SOC. The charge curve in the MME is fairly flat, and holds fairly high up to 80%, which is good. It means we can treat it more like an ICE vehicle, i.e. just fill it up (to 80% in this case), rather than playing the usual EV game of trying to run every road trip leg down to 10% (and sweating bullets if there's any detour) and only filling up to the minimum needed for the next leg-to-10%.

In other words, we can live in the upper part of the charge curve rather than constantly living on the edge in the lower part. Adds a lot of peace of mind knowing we have more juice in the tank as backup, and offers more flexibility. Only costs maybe 2 extra minutes per charge.
 

rhougey

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New BEV owner here. I've replaced my 2017 Volt Premier with a new MME Premium Extended RWD two weeks ago today. On Monday we will be making our maiden voyage to our second home 235 miles north between Lake Shasta and Mt. Shasta, almost entirely at 75 mph. It's a round trip we make a couple times a month. With an EPA rated range of 300, I am having a bit of range anxiety. I know where we can stop (ElectrifyAmerica) if necessary for a KW bump both directions. It is my hope that we will find we can usually make the trip without topping off , even if I have to slow down a bit. We will see, I guess.
We made the trip from Concord, CA to Lakehead, CA last Monday, and returned today (Monday).
I aired the tires up to 41psi (cold) before we left.
I decided to just entirely drive my normal speed and see how it goes.
So in areas where the limit is 65, I set the cruise at 73 mph, and when limit was 70, I set it to 76 mph.
Last Monday, there was a 19-20 mph headwind between Vacaville and Anderson.
So, for about 150 miles of the 235 mile trip, the wind was as if I was driving 95-96 mph.
In addition, temps were 84-90, so we were running the A/C.
Our elevation in Concord is 175, and elevation at out destination is 1350 (uphill).
Today, on the way back down, there was very little wind except in the Fairfield area, I drove the same speeds in the same areas, and of course it was downhill.
On the way up, we managed an overall average of 2.7 kw/mile, and on the way back we got 3.0 kw/mile. These numbers are actual calculations from actual kw's used (according to the car) and actual miles covered, not from the in-car real-time screen. Electrify America stations seem to work well as far as I can tell. We "pumped" a little bit in Anderson on the way up, and a little bit in Dunnigan on the way down.
I added a 50 amp circuit, and installed a Grizzl-E Classic EVSE at the Lakehead house.
We are liking the MME a lot. 1309 miles on the odometer.
 


SnBGC

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Just completed a trip to Tucson and back. 220 miles round trip. Set the cruise at 75 mph there and back. Upon my return, I decided to DCFC at the EA station near my offices. GOM said 17% charge remaining with estimated range of 49 miles. So it appears my range at that speed is about 265 miles (First Edition AWD EX).

Plugged into EA and it started charging on it's own. Charged for 10 minutes. For the first three minutes it showed 124kW. Minutes 4 thru 10 it showed 110kW. Total energy delivered per the machine is 18kWh but FordPass deducted 19kWh from my 250kWh balance. (what is 1kWh between friends anyway?)

Got back in the car and range increased from 49 miles to 115 miles which is estimated 66 miles of range added in 10 minutes. Didn't Ford say around 60 miles in their literature? Once again, they exceeded the expectation.

Around here, DCFC stations are around 50-70 miles apart. I wonder if it would be quicker to just hop from station to station and charge for only 10 minutes vs charging all the way to 80% at a single stop? Hmmm???

Doubt I will ever try that out. I didn't even need to charge on this trip....just wanted to see what it was like. First time using DCFC on this car (excluding the few moments I plugged in on that day when it was free....)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_112608


Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_111419


Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_112316
 
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gnaark

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Just completed a trip to Tucson and back. 220 miles round trip. Set the cruise at 75 mph there and back. Upon my return, I decided to DCFC at the EA station near my offices. GOM said 17% charge remaining with estimated range of 49 miles. So it appears my range at that speed is about 265 miles (First Edition AWD EX).

Plugged into EA and it started charging on it's own. Charged for 10 minutes. For the first three minutes it showed 124kW. Minutes 4 thru 10 it showed 110kW. Total energy delivered per the machine is 18kWh but FordPass deducted 19kWh from my 250kWh balance. (what is 1kWh between friends anyway?)

Got back in the car and range increased from 49 miles to 115 miles which is estimated 66 miles of range added in 10 minutes. Didn't Ford say around 60 miles in their literature? Once again, they exceeded the expectation.

Around here, DCFC stations are around 50-70 miles apart. I wonder if it would be quicker to just hop from station to station and charge for only 10 minutes vs charging all the way to 80% at a single stop? Hmmm???

Doubt I will ever try that out. I didn't even need to charge on this trip....just wanted to see what it was like. First time using DCFC on this car (excluding the few moments I plugged in on that day when it was free....)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_112316


Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_112316


Ford Mustang Mach-E Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned 20210518_112316
Nice! When EA works as designed it's great and it's our best charging option.
I am glad you got a good experience!
 

dbsb3233

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Around here, DCFC stations are around 50-70 miles apart. I wonder if it would be quicker to just hop from station to station and charge for only 10 minutes vs charging all the way to 80% at a single stop? Hmmm???
No. There's churn time just getting off and back on the interstate, and to/from the charger. And time to park & plug in. Even for a charger just a block off the interstate, that churn time has gotta be at least 5 extra minutes. Often up to 10.

Plus the MME typically only drops from 110 kW to around 85 kW around that 40% SOC mark, and stays there to 80%. That's not enough of a taper to save more than about 2 minutes.

We averaged about 120 miles between charges. That would be every other charger based on your 50-70 mile spacing.
 

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Range (miles) varies wildly depending on how you drive the car, weather, payload etc. A better metric would be charging from 10% - 80% capacity at room temperature.
 

shadowsjc

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If I drive on the highway 99% of the time, my 50 to 200 mile charging time will be completely different than the "as tested by Ford engineer" time. But my driving habits will have no impact on the 10 - 80% charging time - it will more or less match the posted specs by Ford engineers.
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