Just Did My First DCFC at EA - 2 Questions

[SWO]

Doesn’t matter if you end up using the 350 cause the 150s are all taken, an Ioniq 5 fanboy will still be mad at you for some reason… cause they might have to wait 7 extra minutes to charge.

I personally find that whole part of the DCFC etiquette overblown and not at all as important as people think. I still try to do it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to accommodate a 350kw vehicle

Amen, it's totally obnoxious. To make matters worse, they're all at EA because they get free charging, and 95% of them aren't going to unplug when they reach the cliff at which their charging slows to <40kw.

I was watching InsideEVs and Dave(Kyle's dad) was giving a lecture about freeing up the 350s for Taycans/Korean cars. The EA screen in the background showed his car at 94% charging at less than 40kw. I made a comment about it and to his credit he responded that I made a good point.

Bottom line...I try to be courteous but I'm not losing any sleep if I plug into a 350.

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[hybrid2bev]

Here is a conundrum for courtesy. You have 2 stalls, one Chademo and the other a 350, for whom do you consider first? I would say take the 350, the poor Chademo fellow in his leaf can only charge at the one charger. Of course I have never seen a leaf at a DCFC but that is besides the point, they are out there and we should not leave them out... Also, should we take ambient temperature into consideration. In the winter no one really gets more than a 150 can give when their batteries are cold.

I think we need a DCFC courtesy flowchart.

I have run into this scenario while road tripping, which is why I used a 350 instead of the Chademo unit (and post as such on PlugShare). So the Leaf that did show up could charge.

My EA flowchart for charger priority is this.

1. Any non-Chademo 150kW (if all taken/down then go to #2)

2. Any available 350 kW unit. (If all taken/ down then go to #3)

3. Last resort or if it’s the only open/working charger is when it’s ok to use the Chademo unit.

I’ve been forced to go into #2 and #3 at times and it’s all worked out fine. I think it’s nice to immediately note on PlugShare when you have to do #2 and especially #3.

 

[AZBill]

I haven’t yet met an EA 150 charger that actually delivers 150. Max 120 often 110. The 350 chargers definitely hit 150-160. Ymmv.

I have used a Signet 150kw with 500A and it gives me 150kw. The ABB chargers are limited to 350A for the 150kw and 450A for the 350kw units. So for ABB units, that is why the 350kw chargers are better.

For all of the EA site with 4 chargers, this is the standard layout:

1) 50kw Chademo and 150kw CCS
2) 350kw CCS
3) 350kw CCS
4) 150kw CCS

But if you are at an urban stop, they are all 150kw, but #1 has the Chademo.

 

[AZBill]

There's nothing in a 350 unit that would cause higher sustained charging. The car receives power in the form of Volts and Amps. A 150 EA station has a max amperage of 350, while a 350 EA station has a max amperage of 500amps.

You are incorrect, it depends on the charging unit vendor. All of the Signet units can provide 500A, 150kw and 350 kw. The ABB units are current limited to 350A for the 150kw units, and the ABB 350kw units are limited to 450A. It does make a difference since the MME can charge at nearly 450A.

 

[DevSecOps]

It does make a difference since the MME can charge at nearly 450A.

Prove it, don't just say it. Please show me real life charge data that the MME can sustain 450A. As for the chargers, c'mon man you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not going to go through all 10 vendors and amperage for each one, there's no need for that in the context of my statement. How come you left out BTC (500A) and Efacec (500A)?

 

[AZBill]

Prove it, don't just say it. Please show me real life charge data that the MME can sustain or even reach 450A. As for the chargers, c'mon man you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not going to go through all 10 vendors and amperage for each one.

I will get some real data for you, there are some EVGO charegers near me that will display the current and voltage.

The MME is 360V nominal and I have seen 160kw on a Signet 350kw charger. That is 440A. Many people only see about 125kw on the ABB 150Kw charegers and that also is at the 350A limit.

I have an EE degree and can certainly prove the numbers.

 

[DevSecOps]

I will get some real data for you, there are some EVGO charegers near me that will display the current and voltage.

The MME is 360V nominal and I have seen 160kw on a Signet 350kw charger. That is 440A. Many people only see about 125kw on the ABB 150Kw charegers and that also is at the 350A limit.

I have an EE degree and can certainly prove the numbers.

I'm going based on the data that we have posted on the forum and data that I have obtained through my own logging. Facts and concrete data trump opinions in my mind.

Yes, 160kW on a Signet 350kW is the combined total of power delivered to the car and the cooling/charge loss. In at least 2 posts I said that myself. However, this is only for approximately 2 minutes at most before it drops. There's no need to hog a 350kW charger for only 2 minutes of above 150kW. That's rude.

You should know that you can't take the value on the screen of the unit and consider that to be the value that the car is putting into the battery. That's the value that you are being charged for, including all loses through the DCFC process. The last study I saw showed 3.5kW lost per 35kW DCFC delivered. So at 150kW that would be 15kW less that the car would get. Some even report that the number is higher.

The only way to get the amps going into the car is by logging the car data. If you look back a couple posts you'll see where I logged amps and after the 2 minutes of high amperage the amps drop significantly.

Here's a charging session I did on an EA 350kW ABB located in the Folsom Outlets in Folsom, CA post charge curve. This station was a 450A station, as you stated, and the car was requesting AT MOST 349.8A (column BK) and at minimum 215A. Even though the car requested 349.8A at max, the pack was only reporting a current of 329.6A (column CO). The car communicated to the station that maximum current it could receive was 350A (column CD). I've attached the excel spreadsheet so you can look for yourself.

 

[Fixbear]

Just a clarification, the heat is generated by the current (amps), not power (watts). That's why cable specs are in amps, not watts. A good example is the transmission lines. They need to deliver high power to a city's electrical substation. Megawatts or gigawatts of power. If they transmitted the power with the same 120 volts you use on each phase of your home electrical panel, the current on those cables would be the on the many thousands of amps, and diameter of the cables would be impractical. So they transmit the power with lines with 220KV to 500KV. This way you can have those "thin" cables you see when you look at the lines (they are still thick and heavy).

Actually, the heat is a two-part function. Amps and resistance. The current doesn't make any heat with a low enough resistance. It's the combination or R-resistance and I-current.

 

[Tampamike]

Right. So you cannot suspend an EA account by disconnecting at the charger, because you aren't using it.

Well, … actually, …

I actually had a session where P&C wasn’t working for some unknown reason. I used the app. I stopped the charge at the charger. Nothing bad happened. I still have an EA account. There were no red lights or charge fault errors. Top that.

 

[Tampamike]

Thank you.

I don’t think anyone here is trying to game the system. But with lack of real-life data, we tend to default to our gut feel or subjective experiences.

My real life experience is that no matter which EA charger that you use, 150 or 350, and no matter what it says the charge rate at any given moment is, that the total charge time between 20 and 80% is always about 35 minutes, give or take a minute or two. I stopped trying to use the 350 for a faster charge because it really doesn’t matter. My new favorite is charger #4 - not Chademo, 150kw and easy in and out usually.

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

Apparently you didn't check PlugShare. J-1772 has been broken at that hotel since at least December... https://www.plugshare.com/location/154862

Those destination chargers were installed by an electrician/firm hired by the hotel property owner.

Did you file a complaint with hotel manager? Ask for an adapter?

No, I did not check P&S. Thought I did my homework by checking the net to make sure there were chargers. It didn’t even dawn to me to ask if the hotel had an adapter. Basing on the front desk woman; I doubt it.

 

[DevSecOps]

I will get some real data for you, there are some EVGO charegers near me that will display the current and voltage.

The MME is 360V nominal and I have seen 160kw on a Signet 350kw charger. That is 440A. Many people only see about 125kw on the ABB 150Kw charegers and that also is at the 350A limit.

I have an EE degree and can certainly prove the numbers.

Ok so today I tested both an Electrify American ABB 350 and ABB 150. I noticed the following:

First of all, the ABB 350 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 500A, not 450A.
Second, the ABB 150 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 375A, not 350A.

Importantly, the MME maxed at 431A on the 350. Previously I had only seen it max at 380A. Last time I collected data on charging was in February of this year. Obviously there's been changes to both the car and the stations.

More importantly, the car only sustained amperage above 375 (the level of the 150) for 1 minute and 27 seconds. This is very important because it goes towards the argument that myself and @dbsb3233 have been making. Using a 350kW charger will only benefit you over a 150kW charger for a total of 1m27s at a total of 19.88kW difference resulting in 0.42kW delivered (or 1.26 miles). Therefore, your total savings in time on any charge (i.e. 20-80%, 50-100%, 60-70%) is approximately 25.2 seconds.

It would be rude and inconsiderate to use an EA 350kW charger (see final comment) to save yourself 25 seconds instead of letting someone who can consistently charge above the limits of a 150kW station.

As you can see in the below chart, the blue line is the 350 unit while the orange is the 150 unit. Where the highest point on the orange line would intersect with the drop on the blue line (right side - green line) was 1 minute and 27 seconds into the charge. Eventually both units merge to the same sustained amperage.

The voltages between the two units were different by about 5V, which over an hour amounts to about 1.5kW in difference, again very negligible. The 350kW did have the higher voltage, but I will have to do a longer test to see how this plays out. I have a feeling the voltage difference is just because of the station, not the type of station. Both stations reported a potential voltage much higher than the MME can accept. I couldn't get the 350kW to sustain a charge longer than 5 minutes before it stopped due to station error.

@RickMachE ... since I was at a DCFC. I stopped both sessions using the button on the display, which to be fair, I normally don't do. The first session I started with the EA app. The second session I used P&C (Blue Oval Charge Network). Neither time did the car report an error. The stop button worked as it should. As I've said twice, this used to be an issue, but again I can confirm that it's no longer happening. I can assure you the red hue on the camera recording was a white charge light, not red, as red is noticeably red.

See below video as proof:

Tip: use the pop-out button in the top right if the video won't play.




Conclusion based on today's data on a FULLY updated MME:

For Electrify America stations use the 150kW because the 350kW might only save you a few seconds, unless of course it's the only station open.

Final Comment (I would advise you read this):

There's many different brands of chargers and a lot of people don't understand why they see different numbers, or get different results, on different brands/units. So let me explain a little bit what that's about:

If you use a DC kW calculator like this one you can input values to figure out what the charge station is capable of.

Let's take a Chargepoint "Express Plus" DCFC unit as an example. The datasheet can be found here. The charger will have a sticker on the front that says "200kW". Being an MME owner we will immediately think "yippie! Fast charger here we come". But if we take the numbers on the 200kW charger we see that the max amps delivered is 200A and up to 1000v on the "option 1" stations. We know that the MME will charge at a max of about 360v and since the station has a max of 200A, we do that math using the calculator. We get a max charge rate of 72kW (sad face - we thought we would get at least the 150kW).

My point here is that you really need to understand the basic math around how we get kW. Yes the 200kW charger will deliver 200kW to a car that can accept 1000v, but the MME can't. It's deceptive.

So, what does that mean??? Well it means that we SHOULD be using a Chargepoint 350kW station, and NOT the 200kW station because the 350kW will deliver a sustained 350A, which means we will get the full potential from the charge station. The original conversation was based around the EA stations which is quite different than the Chargepoint stations. I wish it were simpler, but unfortunately digging up data sheets and doing the math is the only way to know what we will actually get from these units.

 

[back_at_it_19]

Ok so today I tested both an Electrify American ABB 350 and ABB 150. I noticed the following:

First of all, the ABB 350 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 500A, not 450A.
Second, the ABB 150 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 375A, not 350A.

Importantly, the MME maxed at 431A on the 350. Previously I had only seen it max at 380A. Last time I collected data on charging was in February of this year. Obviously there's been changes to both the car and the stations.

More importantly, the car only sustained amperage above 375 (the level of the 150) for 1 minute and 27 seconds. This is very important because it goes towards the argument that myself and @dbsb3233 have been making. Using a 350kW charger will only benefit you over a 150kW charger for a total of 1m27s at a total of 19.88kW difference resulting in 0.42kW delivered (or 1.26 miles). Therefore, your total savings in time on any charge (i.e. 20-80%, 50-100%, 60-70%) is approximately 25.2 seconds.

It would be rude and inconsiderate to use an EA 350kW charger (see final comment) to save yourself 25 seconds instead of letting someone who can consistently charge above the limits of a 150kW station.

As you can see in the below chart, the blue line is the 350 unit while the orange is the 150 unit. Where the highest point on the orange line would intersect with the drop on the blue line (right side - green line) was 1 minute and 27 seconds into the charge.

The voltages between the two units were different by about 5V, which over an hour amounts to about 1.5kW in difference, again very negligible. The 350kW did have the higher voltage, but I will have to do a longer test to see how this plays out. I have a feeling the voltage difference is just because of the station, not the type of station. Both stations reported a potential voltage much higher than the MME can accept. I couldn't get the 350kW to sustain a charge longer than 5 minutes before it stopped due to station error.

@RickMachE ... since I was at a DCFC. I stopped both sessions using the button on the display, which to be fair, I normally don't do. The first session I started with the EA app. The second session I used P&C (Blue Oval Charge Network). Neither time did the car report an error. The stop button worked as it should. As I've said twice, this used to be an issue, but again I can confirm that it's no longer happening. I can assure you the red hue on the camera recording was a white charge light, not red, as red is noticeably red.

See below video as proof:

Tip: use the pop-out button in the top right if the video won't play.




Conclusion based on today's data on a FULLY updated MME:

For Electrify America stations use the 150kW because the 350kW might only save you a few seconds, unless of course it's the only station open.

Final Comment (I would advise you read this):

There's many different brands of chargers and a lot of people don't understand why they see different numbers on different brands/units. So let me explain a little bit what that's about:

If you use a DC kW calculator like this one you can input values to figure out what the charge station is capable of.

Let's take a Chargepoint "Express Plus" DCFC unit as an example. The datasheet can be found here. The charger will have a sticker on the front that says "200kW". Being an MME owner we will immediately think "yippie! Fast charger here we come". But if we take the numbers on the 200kW charger we see that the max amps delivered is 200A and up to 1000v on the "option 1" stations. We know that the MME will charge at a max of about 360v and since the station has a max of 200A, we do that math using the calculator. We get a max charge rate of 72kW (sad face - we thought we would get at least the 150kW).

My point here is that you really need to understand the basic math around how we get kW. Yes the 200kW charger will deliver 200kW to a car that can accept 1000v, but the MME can't. It's deceptive.

So, what does that mean??? Well it means that we SHOULD be using a Chargepoint 350kW station, and NOT the 200kW station because the 350kW will deliver a sustained 350A, which means we will get the full potential from the charge station. The original conversation was based around the EA stations which is quite different than the Chargepoint stations. I wish it were simpler, but unfortunately digging up data sheets and doing the math is the only way to know what we will actually get from these units.

Awesome test! I’m sure I’ve only watched the kwh during the first 60-90 seconds so thx for the data. 150 it is. And fwiw anecdotally, the p&c experience on EA (with annual ford plan) has been stellar lately as compared to April 2021.

 

[AZBill]

First of all, the ABB 350 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 500A, not 450A.
Second, the ABB 150 reported to the car that it's max amperage was 375A, not 350A.

Maybe they have improved them, or upgraded them, these units were made in 2018:

This is from the new Signet units, they support 500A no matter what the KW limit.

 

[DevSecOps]

Maybe they have improved them, or upgraded them, these units were made in 2018:

This is from the new Signet units, they support 500A no matter what the KW limit.

Yes those must be old and the ones I used must be newer. Interestingly the 150s aren't even made anymore (replaced by 175kW) but EA is still throwing a 150kW sticker on them. The car data appears to be reported correctly. Here's the current datasheet:

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