Fast Charging at Electrify America: Lessons learned

ChasingCoral

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Yep. In other words, so flat that it's not even worth worrying about (up to 80%). Which I like because it simplifies things. We can prioritize peace of mind that way rather than being a slave to perfection.

Also, that initial 90 second 160 kW boost happens starting (somewhat) later in the curve too.
Yes, as Kyle Connor points out in his videos, the 160kW initial boost is unique to Ford. It happens in the start of the charge independent of SOC. However, the SOC may influence how long it stays there -- really not sure about details of that relationship.

Before you think about unplugging and plugging back in to get that boost over again, it's about a 50% increase over ~90 seconds. Cycling the charger off and handshake for a new connection can take more than a minute. It's not worth it. However, it's good to know that if your charge is interrupted you get that boost again.
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ChasingCoral

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Or more to the point, a PRACTICAL 300-400 ICE miles.

300 mile range in a BEV really means a practical leg max of around 150 miles at interstate speeds. Which is often further limited by charger spacing. For us the charges averaged 117 miles apart.
Agreed. More frequent stops can mean shorter charges, though. You often don't have to charge all the way back up. That's a great advantage of the Ford navigation. It will tell you what level you need to charge to based on your minimum SOC at recharge preferences.
 

dbsb3233

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It's the initial 90-120 seconds that's really unusual. You get that 160 kW peak almost no matter where you plug in (below 40% anyway). Then it tends to settle in to a more fixed pattern. That's the part they deemed "complicated". As well as the 80% cliff that they obsess with.

It can also vary more if it's quite cold. But if charging at reasonable temps (40F+), it's usually been a pretty consistent pattern.
 

dbsb3233

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Before you think about unplugging and plugging back in to get that boost over again, it's about a 50% increase over ~90 seconds. Cycling the charger off and handshake for a new connection can take more than a minute. It's not worth it. However, it's good to know that if your charge is interrupted you get that boost again.
Exactly. It would lose more time than it gains to try and game the system by continually unplugging/restarting to get that 160 kW.

It's also likely better for the battery to just let it level off in the 80-110 kW area too.

Kyle & Co sometimes get too obsessed chasing that kind of perfection. I get it, they're trying to fill video time and make it interesting, but from a practical sense most people should just ignore that part.
 

ChasingCoral

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It's the initial 90-120 seconds that's really unusual. You get that 160 kW peak almost no matter where you plug in (below 40% anyway).
It even happens at higher SOC. I had a charger fault somewhere between 50-70%. When I restarted the charge it spiked to around 165kW again.

Kyle & Co sometimes get too obsessed chasing that kind of perfection. I get it, they're trying to fill video time and make it interesting, but from a practical sense most people should just ignore that part.
That's why I think Tom's DCFC video is much more realistic and his opinion is more fitting normal users. In his experience he found the Mach E charging sufficiently fast and reliable. That's what the normal person cares about.
 


dbsb3233

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Agreed. More frequent stops can mean shorter charges, though. You often don't have to charge all the way back up. That's a great advantage of the Ford navigation. It will tell you what level you need to charge to based on your minimum SOC at recharge preferences.
True. Or the mostly flat curve can simplify it even further by just treating it more like an ICE drive, by "filling up" each time. Except "filling up" in this case means filling to 80%. That's pretty much what we did. It was hardly any slower in total just to charge to 80% each time rather than messing with the predictions for arriving at 10%. Which meant we were often pulling into the next charger anywhere from 25% to 50%. Added a lot of peace of mind that way too. You never know if there will be a detour, or a headwind, or even a last-minute diversion from the route we decide to do. Leaving more buffer in the tank just adds more options. The charger spacing dictated where we had to stop anyway so it really didn't change that.
 
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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.
 

dbsb3233

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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.
EA customer service is EXCELLENT. They often call back with followups like that. And they're super helpful when calling. Also good responses on Twitter.

They may be the only big business I've encountered that I'd give an A+ to for customer service. It's very impressive.

Of course, that doesn't mean they can always put chargers in where people request them, or be able to fix chargers next week when they have hardware problems. That's different than customer service.
 

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Or more to the point, a PRACTICAL 300-400 ICE miles.

300 mile range in a BEV really means a practical leg max of around 150 miles at interstate speeds. Which is often further limited by charger spacing. For us the charges averaged 117 miles apart.
Either that or improve the charge curves to the point that recharge times are not really an issue so the BEV ends up feeling similar to driving an ICE with a small gas tank.

For the pottering around town and your daily commute if you can charge at home the time to charge is somewhat irrelevant as an overnight charge will typically be ample to cover a lot of peoples needs since we have had 200 mile range BEVs for a while now

For those people living in apartments a BEV can work if you just need to make a trip to a charger once or twice week to charge as it can probably can be timed with doing some other errands so the slow charge times is again less of an issue and it becomes more about having chargers in convenient locations.

It is really the road trip that is currently the Achilles heel for a lot of BEVs, sure you can road trip any BEV if you have patience and plan accordingly, but the current hit and miss in charge stations working and charge times will leave most mainstream owners transitioning from an ICE feeling very frustrated, especially if your advertised as 150kw fast charging ability turns out to be a very disappointing 2 minutes worth of 150kw :(

I really would not be surprised in time to see the DCFC curve having to be provided upfront by manufactures and published as another mandated set of figures to go along with EPA / WLTP range figures to enable consumers to compare as using a single headline peak figure is meaningless.
 

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They spent like 20 minutes discussing the MME charging. They seemed pretty sure that it charges faster starting from 20% than 10%.

I just am curious about the experiences of owners and if folks' sessions mirror InsideEVs.
 

silverelan

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Also, that initial 90 second 160 kW boost happens starting (somewhat) later in the curve too.
Kyle and Tom Moloughney were saying the 150kW+ peak is sustained for longer at a higher SoC. Since you're at 30%, you'd probably know how much of that is true.
 

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By 2050 a lot or our complaining days will be over. ☠
By 2050 I will probably be too old and messed up to drive.
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