Electrify America Porsche Taycan Trip Report (and a Humble Request)

[DerekS]

Hi folks!

I'm a Porsche Taycan driver. I recently completed a road trip between Texas and California, and I captured a lot of metrics and data about the trip.

Some key takeaways from my experience, using Electrify America for the whole route:

• I successfully charged (one way or another) at every stop. Never stranded or panicked.
• Plug-and-charge worked 100% of the time. Never had to manually initiate a charge.
• The actual charge time never exceeded 30 minutes at any stop, which made them free for my car. However, the charge time plus overheadfrequently exceeded that time. I define "overhead" as activities other than the actual charge minutes that burn time:
  • Time for the charger to get started delivering power
  • Trying a dead pump and having to move
  • Realizing the cable was too short (or the parking curb too far back) and having to move
  • Having to wait my turn for a charge, which happened once at the Lost Hills charger in CA.
• Arriving with a low state of charge and hitting the 350kW pumps yielded the fastest 260kW charges. However this was not always available due to contention for them.

My view is that all EVs are great and the more I see on the road the better. I enjoy chatting with all EV drivers at the charge stops; it's a great community of early adopters with positive energy.

Which brings me to my humble request:

Since the Mach-E maxes out at 150kW, please consider using those pumps rather than the 350kW pumps, unless the 350kW pumps are the only ones available.

Several of my charging stops were slower than they needed to be due to being blocked by Mach-E's. I'm really happy to see them growing in popularity, but I don't think many owners realize that they get no benefit from using them, and that it can slow down others.

To be fair I blame EA for this; they really should just make all the pumps run 350kW and be done with it. That would also alleviate the need for labeling them.

Anyway, if you read this far I thank you for your consideration and wish you happy driving and charging as we all navigate this new electric mobility future!

 

[Neil4Real]

Were there 150kW stations available at these locations or they were all 350kW?

 

[DerekS]

Were there 150kW stations available at these locations or they were all 350kW?

Generally speaking there were 2 350kW pumps at most, and all the rest 150kW.

It was common for at least one of the 350kW to be broken.

I don't recall seeing a single station with more than two 350kW pumps.

 

[Neil4Real]

Generally speaking there were 2 350kW pumps at most, and all the rest 150kW.

It was common for at least one of the 350kW to be broken.

I don't recall seeing a single station with more than two 350kW pumps.

But were all the stations occupied or the Mach-e's that you saw were using the 350kW stations when they could have used the 150s at that location that were completely open? If every single station was occupied, I definitely would use a 350kW if it was available, rather than wait for a 150kW to open up.

 

[bcaceres]

I did not know that the Taycan could charge at 250kw -- I only knew about the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ionic 5 taking advantage of that. Kinda surprised the upcoming Nissan Ariya is going to charge at 130kw since it is not even released yet. Nissan claims the charging curve makes up for that though.

BTW: Does the Taycan have any kind of one-pedal driving mode or does Porsche put all the regenerative braking into the brake pedal and just manage when to use regen versus actual friction via the brake pads?

 

[DerekS]

But were all the stations occupied or the Mach-e's that you saw were using the 350kW stations when they could have used the 150s at that location that were completely open? If every single station was occupied, I definitely would use a 350kW if it was available, rather than wait for a 150kW to open up.

Sometimes all were occupied - that's unavoidable and I would not expect anyone to wait for a free 150 rather than take the open 350. I'd do the same thing.

The ones that were disappointing were completely open chargers with only one 350kW pump, taken by a Mach E.

In fairness though, it's possible it was occupied when they used it, and then the other patrons cleared out before I did.

 

[DerekS]

I did not know that the Taycan could charge at 250kw -- I only knew about the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ionic 5 taking advantage of that. Kinda surprised the upcoming Nissan Ariya is going to charge at 130kw since it is not even released yet. Nissan claims the charging curve makes up for that though.

Taycan is charging beast, possibly the fastest charging EV available right now.
It has an 800 volt architecture.

The quoted metric is 5%->85% in 22 minutes, which I have personally confirmed and observed myself. Hitting that sweet spot does require a few things:

• Roll in with a low SoC (10% or less ideally)
• Put the charger into the GPS so the car pre-warms the battery
• A working, non-problematic 350kW pump

BTW: Does the Taycan have any kind of one-pedal driving mode or does Porsche put all the regenerative braking into the brake pedal and just manage when to use regen versus actual friction via the brake pads?

Kinda. It has an "accelerator pedal regen" feature which can be toggled from a button on the steering wheel. It is not enough slowdown to use as a brake.

On this trip I experimented with turning it on while going downhill, but the recuperation was too low and the drag too high.

It's kind of a useless feature; turning it on slows things down too much, but not enough to make it a one-pedal experience.

The actual braking action is something they finely tuned to combine regen and friction when the pedal is applied. The first couple of stops per day use 100% friction to clean the brake discs, from there it's primarily recuperation with friction added as needed.

At 18500 miles my front pads were only down 1mm and the rears 2mm so the regen braking seems to do the lion's share.

 

[sotek2345]

To be fair, Mach-e's with the larger ER battery do get some benefit from the 350kw chargers. I have seen mine go up to almost 170kw on the 350kw chargers, but never go above 130 on the 150kw chargers due to the Amperage limit.

Not a big difference though, maybe a minute or 2 on the overall charge.

 

[jhalkias]

So what do you do if the only two open stations are a 150 that also has a ChadEmo plug and the 350? Personally, I would leave the ChadEmo open for those who have no other choice. At least that is what I have done on my trips. The 800 architecture cars can still charge on that - the Nissan Leaf can't charge on the 350 without their plug.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Using the smaller 150 kW dispensers is polite when the station is busy. But use the first one available if you are waiting. The Mach-E does need the larger 350 kW dispenser to achieve more than about 120 kW charge rate due to the 350A current limit on the 150 kW dispensers.

I wish EA would label stations by their max amperage since that’s what’s always limiting.

 

[DerekS]

Using the smaller 150 kW dispensers is polite when the station is busy. But use the first one available if you are waiting.

I agree, that's all I'm asking.

The Mach-E does need the larger 350 kW dispenser to achieve more than about 120 kW charge rate due to the 350A current limit on the 150 kW dispensers.

Thank you for pointing that out, I was not not aware there was any benefit at all for Mach-Es on them. With that in mind I'll just hope for the best and not harbor any grudge.

 

[ZuleMME]

ER Mach-E's actuallly max out closer to 165kw as seen in the wild; although it appears often the 150kw stations can hit that as the real limit will be on the amps delivered. But understanding the math on that is well beyond most users.

 

[DerekS]

So what do you do if the only two open stations are a 150 that also has a ChadEmo plug and the 350? Personally, I would leave the ChadEmo open for those who have no other choice. At least that is what I have done on my trips. The 800 architecture cars can still charge on that - the Nissan Leaf can't charge on the 350 without their plug.

I think I'd take the 150, but hang out while charging and free it up for the Leaf if I saw it.

As you say, they literally have one option - it's not a choice between faster/slower, it's literally all they can use.

 

[DerekS]

ER Mach-E's actuallly max out closer to 165kw as seen in the wild; although it appears often the 150kw stations can hit that as the real limit will be on the amps delivered. But understanding the math on that is well beyond most users.

I believe it, some of the 150kW pumps managed to deliver ~175kW in my experience.

 

[roamtheworld]

On the first day of ownership while driving home from the dealership we stopped in Waco (Bellmead) to use our first DCFC. We tried the 150 and it didn't work so we moved to 350 and everything worked as expected. They had a total of 6 chargers 4 150kw and 2 350kw. I did not use the CHAdeMO charger as I knew that was for Leafs. Only one other vehicle showed up during the 30 minutes we charged. We maybe had 10 minutes of overlap.
Now that we know the difference I would not use the 350kw unless the other 150kw chargers are broken or all others are taken and we are sure we can complete our charge in under 45 minutes.

ER Mach-E's actuallly max out closer to 165kw as seen in the wild; although it appears often the 150kw stations can hit that as the real limit will be on the amps delivered. But understanding the math on that is well beyond most users.

We saw 165kw during our single EA DCFC session.

We have a 900-mile road trip coming up and both my wife and I know how to check for availability before arrival now.
I didn't like it when gas pumps were blocked by people buying food or taking a really long time doing something other than pumping gas. I don't want to do the same for my fellow EV owners.

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