Confused by low DC charge at public charger

JC2021

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I’m new to EVs and have only done a handful of fast charges so far - yesterday despite the charger claiming to be 120kw (Gridserve) I only got charge at about 40kw speed. I have the on board DC charger and performance battery plus. It was cold outside but the battery was at 20 degrees when I pulled in and I had approx 40% SOC. I know the charging rate can fluctuate a bit but wasn’t expecting it to flow at a third of the claimed speed. Probably naively I assumed public chargers were either out of service or delivered close to the claimed charging rate. Wasn’t amused as I had deliberately gone a bit out of my way to seek out the 120kw charger rather than settle for a 50kw?. The other cable on the same charger was not being used so I switched cables after 5 mins but no real difference.

I don’t think it’s the car as I did get
120kw from an Instavolt a few weeks ago.

Is this relatively normal and just the lottery of unreliable charging infrastructure or was I unlucky ? Grateful for any explanation (especially if I may be doing anything wrong).
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Is this relatively normal
Its normal. The charge rate is a bell curve, where a cold battery gets a low charge rate and then it increases until you hit around 80%, at which point the charge rate decreases. This is done to optimize the battery life.

The advertised maximum charge rate of 350kw is based on a warm battery between (I seem to remember) 40% and 80% state of charge. if you start out a charging session at 40% with a cold battery, the charge rate will stay low until the battery gets to its optimum temperature.

If you watch the screen in your Taycan or on the charger display, you'll see the charge rate change from a low rate to a maximum rate and then back to a lower rate as the battery gets 'full'.

The maximum charge rate is limited by the capacity of the power at the charging station and the number of cars being charged at the same time. The charging stations do not have unlimited power and the power it has is spread over all the cars being charged. While the Taycan can take up to 350kw, the charging station and your car may not be able to provide/accept that rate.
 

Alex74

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You can see that the graphics from Inside ev is incorrect.
as you’ll see on the pics below

Porsche Taycan Confused by low DC charge at public charger A015E100-1429-4023-BD59-9BAB69E18B1C


Porsche Taycan Confused by low DC charge at public charger A7543062-BDF2-46E3-A7F6-51CFCEE9761A


Porsche Taycan Confused by low DC charge at public charger C9CC2CB1-C4A7-4CBC-B545-6A3281FAF848
 


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I’m new to EVs and have only done a handful of fast charges so far - yesterday despite the charger claiming to be 120kw (Gridserve) I only got charge at about 40kw speed. I have the on board DC charger and performance battery plus. It was cold outside but the battery was at 20 degrees when I pulled in and I had approx 40% SOC. I know the charging rate can fluctuate a bit but wasn’t expecting it to flow at a third of the claimed speed. Probably naively I assumed public chargers were either out of service or delivered close to the claimed charging rate. Wasn’t amused as I had deliberately gone a bit out of my way to seek out the 120kw charger rather than settle for a 50kw?. The other cable on the same charger was not being used so I switched cables after 5 mins but no real difference.

I don’t think it’s the car as I did get
120kw from an Instavolt a few weeks ago.

Is this relatively normal and just the lottery of unreliable charging infrastructure or was I unlucky ? Grateful for any explanation (especially if I may be doing anything wrong).
..also there is no guarantee that the EVSE you used was on a dedicated source supply and could be sharing with other units serving other vehicles OR the device was deliberately throttled by the service provider for what ever reason.

Check also within you PCM that you don't have the battery saving option enabled when using ultra fast charging units / EVSEs as this may also be throttling.
 
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JC2021

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..also there is no guarantee that the EVSE you used was on a dedicated source supply and could be sharing with other units serving other vehicles OR the device was deliberately throttled by the service provider for what ever reason.

Check also within you PCM that you don't have the battery saving option enabled when using ultra fast charging units / EVSEs as this may also be throttling.
thanks, that’s really helpful. I hadn’t appreciated the throttling possibility - suspect that is it ??
 

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If your battery was at 20F, that really isn't very warm. I had a case the other day where my battery was about 10F, and I could only charge at about 4kw at first. The battery soon warmed up to 50F and I could pull the 50kw that the charger offered. Battery temp is key.
 


notsofast

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You can see that the graphics from Inside ev is incorrect.
as you’ll see on the pics below
Do you remember at which SOC you started these charging sessions? For my car the charging behavior is pretty much fitting the insideev graph. I am starting to wonder whether there is a difference in charging behavior between earlier and later cars.
 
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JC2021

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Battery was actually 20C not 20F. Not quite optimum but I thought close enough not to explain a big difference in charging rate
 
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JC2021

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Was about 45% SOC so vaguely in the sweet spot for a decent speed. Think I must have just been unlucky with a throttled charger as Winge said or power was being shared.
 

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Do you remember at which SOC you started these charging sessions? For my car the charging behavior is pretty much fitting the insideev graph. I am starting to wonder whether there is a difference in charging behavior between earlier and later cars.
I have those results with a MY 21 saloon and a MY 22 CT.
soc around 9% sometimes , much between 9-17%
 

Alex74

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Also, when you put in gps that you want to charge at Ionity or AE, the battery heats up. But other ultra chargers they don’t recognise yet, so disappointed that Porsche not yet does this. Asked them several times, no feedback so far. Result battery is not always pre-heated automatically.
 

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Also, when you put in gps that you want to charge at Ionity or AE, the battery heats up. But other ultra chargers they don’t recognise yet, so disappointed that Porsche not yet does this. Asked them several times, no feedback so far. Result battery is not always pre-heated automatically.
What is so infuriating is that all this would be easily solved with just a simple button or checkbox in the navigation or even just a button.
 

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Also, when you put in gps that you want to charge at Ionity or AE, the battery heats up. But other ultra chargers they don’t recognise yet, so disappointed that Porsche not yet does this. Asked them several times, no feedback so far. Result battery is not always pre-heated automatically.
Are you sure about this? I have used several chargers like Allego, CircleK and EnBW that the car found under Porsche charging and navigated to them. Then the battery has been nice and toasty when staring to charge. You need to make sure you really find the charging station though and can make that input.
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