[TotallyKyle]

I can't find anything about being limited to the 30-32kw charging rate so has anyone here ever had this problem? I posted this in r/boltev but I think I'll get better answers from this forum.

Took a weekend trip with a full Bolt a few weeks ago now from Tampa to Atlanta in my '20 with less than 3000 miles on the odometer. I planned the trip using ABRP and other than the EA chargers everything went smoothly. Note there are no other providers other than EA on the route.

The recurring problem was that I would arrive at the EA chargers with 10-25% in the pack and a majority of the chargers would either not give the car more than 30kw or not charge at all giving a connection error. Pretty frustrating since that basically doubled the amount of time I was spending at charging stations. Doubly frustrating when all the chargers in GA charge by the minute. I called EA at one of the stops and described the problem but their only suggestion that I was too hard on the battery and it needed to cool down. That didn't make sense to me since we were doing 70 in the slow lane the whole way up.
So I jumped on another charger at the same location and that one went up to the full 53kw. I noted that all the chargers were rated for at least 150kw and there didn't seem to be a difference between the lower and higher rated chargers when it came to my luck getting full speed. This became the norm at every stop where I would try to charge, either get an error or only 30kw, disconnect and move to another one, repeat until getting full speed or out of chargers. Most stops required me to try all 4 chargers until one would give up the goods.
Needless to say everyone in the car who were thinking about getting EVs before are no longer considering them now.

When talking to the other owners charging there were two mach-e's and one bolt owner that said they were having problems with charging slow (not sure how slow). I also noticed that VW products like E-trons and Porches would connect and get the full juice on chargers I was limited on when I peaked at the charger screen.

 

[GeneL]

There is one particular charger that I have used a few times that does this (won't go above 30 kW). There are 3 other chargers at that station and I just use one of them. I have reported the problem to EA a couple of times, but last time I tried it, it was the same.

 

[GJETSON]

I also noticed that VW products like E-trons and Porches would connect and get the full juice on chargers I was limited on when I peaked at the charger screen.

What were they getting? How do you know that was their normal expected charge rate?

 

[TotallyKyle]

What were they getting? How do you know that was their normal expected charge rate?

Not sure what you mean by that but the Etron was getting the full 150kw from one that gave me 30. Porche was at a different location getting 100+ from a 350 that would also only give me 30.

 

[GJETSON]

Porche was at a different location getting 100+ from a 350 that would also only give me 30.

That is not good for a Taycan.

350Kw charging success rate??

Curious on those of you who have owned a Taycan for a while on your success rate for charging on a 350kw charger? My vehicle was supposedly fixed to accept a 350kw charge. Tried 3 different chargers today using the Porsche (less than intuitive app) to charge and no luck until I it was paid for...

www.taycanevforum.com

 

[GJETSON]

I can't find anything about being limited to the 30-32kw charging rate so has anyone here ever had this problem?

I tried a 350 kW EA charger for the first time since the start of the pandemic, a few weeks ago. It got all the way to 14 kW.

Did much better at a 50 kW EVgo.

 

[TotallyKyle]

Sucks for anyone coming or going from Florida as there is no EVGo stations on I75.

 

[KTVul]

Needless to say everyone in the car who were thinking about getting EVs before are no longer considering them now.

I still think the Bolt is really great for day to day travel. But with about 25% of my EA charging experiences having troubles of some kind, and to a lesser extent, the slow Bolt charge speeds, long distance trips are not for me. My Bolt long trips all worked out in the end, but it would just be a matter of time/luck before I got stranded.

I hope EA improves their reliability. But to be fair to them, they have grown very fast, and are the only non Tesla charging network that is designed for long trips. From what I can gather, they have improved, but as of today they are not close to meeting my reliability requirements.

 

[40808]

I feel your pain. Especially, the per min charges for GA. And, here in Milledgeville, there's only 2 EV stations (one on the Nissan Dealership (not a good idea to take my Bolt there ), and a ChargePoint.

And, since the car came with ChargePoint, I use that. But, the one station will only deliver a few watts (yes, watts, not kW), then quit Charging (happened 2x). But, I moved to the next station, and it works great (at least until I get to 80%,then it slows down; and at $0.25 per/min, that adds up).

See, Anyone else overcharged / experienced excessive billing... for another CP experience.
(I'm use to it now. But, still negates the benefit of low cost vs ICE ($2.66/gal vs $3.23/kW. But, for sure, I'll take my S-L-O-W Level 1 Home Charger over CP as much as possible.

 

[cwerdna]

Not sure what you mean by that but the Etron was getting the full 150kw from one that gave me 30. Porche was at a different location getting 100+ from a 350 that would also only give me 30.

2021 Volkswagen ID.4 range and road-trip charging: Some first impressions encountered this problem w/EA:

The estimated charge time inside the ID.4 fluctuated between 25 and 30 minutes for the target 80%—a good rate—and stuck there for 7 minutes, quickly reaching 27%. After that, it was all downhill. Within a minute it had dropped to 120 kw, then over the course of the next 5 minutes it dropped to 32 kw (corresponding to 38%). During that time it revised its estimated time to reach an 80% charge an additional 55 minutes.

I’ve seen DC fast-charging sessions in some EVs slow momentarily while the battery-cooling system catches up. And I know plugging in with a higher state of charge is seldom likely to speed things up. Meanwhile, no errors displayed on the charger screen. So I stuck with it.

The situation didn’t get any better, and I aborted the plan at a 50% charge, opting to finish charging at home.

The issue, verified with Electrify America’s charge logs, was with EA’s hardware, not the ID.4. The sudden drop of power was due to a fault thrown by the thermal sensor for the high-voltage charging cable, which the charging network is systematically replacing on all their affected chargers.

 

[krkobel]

I’ve experienced exactly the same issue 3 different times at the Bellmead Texas EA site. They occurred on two different cars - first on our 2018 bolt and then twice during a day trip to Austin on my 2020 Bolt. There’s definitely something with the site/charger because on the same trips I had no issues at other EA locations in Round Rock 0r ChargePoint locations in Austin. I submitted issue reports to EA but received no feedback. All three times, the SoC of the car was in the zone for max charge rate and the ambient temperature was not extreme. I do recall that it was raining during 2 of the charging sessions.