Electrify America 101 and Range Lessons learned on first road trip

[tomdfw1]

I made my first road trip from Plano to Conroe, Texas.; 224 miles away. I have a base Taycan 79kwh battery, which claims 210 miles but was told Porsche under promises and over delivers so I wanted to see if I can make it to Conroe with no stops! My white Taycan is optioned very well mission-E-esque. and I love this car as a daily...

A) I've learned that there are 3 levels of charging. Level 1 uses a standard 120V three prong outlet which charges at ~1kW. Level 2 uses the 240V "dryer plug type" outlet which charges at ~9kw. Level 3 is at rapid charge stations like Electrify America and some Porsche dealerships and charge between 20-270kw based on how full your battery is and surprisingly very much by the temperature...generally speaking, the more empty and warmer the battery is, the faster it charges.
B) The car will charge with pretty much any charge station/network. Taycan uses the CCS industry standard connector. All stations offer CCS connections except Tesla; which is proprietary but we can still access them in a bind with an adapter to plug into their end and changes it to a CCS connection.
C) Electrify America network includes 3 years free charge at their stations (stated 30 minute sessions). I was also told Porsche dealers as well; but they are now requiring manager approval each time. EA will charge over 30 minutes if you let it and will bill you accordingly. They charge .32/min for the fast charge in Texas.

I made a road trip planning to stop off at Electrify America, if necessary. I charged my car to 85% initially at home and went on my way. (Forgot to change to Direct Charge and bypass profile the night before so that I would receive 100% charge) At this point I knew I would be making at least one stop.

There were 3 Electrify America stopovers (NONE in DFW metroplex but enough on major highways in all directions out) at Walmarts on the way...one about 70 miles (#1 Ennis) out, another at 150 (#2 Madisonville) and another about 175 miles out (#3Huntsville).

I saw I had about 180 miles range with battery at 85% so I needed Taycan for a major over delivery of range to get there with no stops. After driving 40 miles I saw I was tracking at the stated range or LESS; but I have a heavy foot and learned if you go over 70MPH it will detract from the stated range. Wind also plays a big factor and I had 20mph headwinds.

Ok, so with this knowledge I know I won't make it...so I need to stop at one of the three. If I can make it to Madisonville, I can get a good charge and then be able to get to Conroe and back to Madisonville again to get home to Plano. But after cruising at 80-110 MPH (hypothetically) my range is questionable to make it to Madisonville, much less Hunstville or Conroe, so I opted to stop at the first EA location in Ennis 50 miles South of Plano since it might be close making it to Madisonville. I charged to 92% again and went on my way. It dawned on me I would need to stop again if I were to make it to Conroe and then back out again to get home. So I stopped in Huntsville (#3) and got a quick charge.

So it took me 2 stops to make it 225 miles...but I was driving well over speed limit with 4 people and stereo jamming and a 20 mph headwind.

I will share my experience at EA station and return trip in follow up reply.

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[Jhenson29]

I charged my car to 85% initially at home and went on my way.

Why not charge to 100% before you leave on a trip like this?

 

[Chris8536]

did his phone battery die too?! Mid post?

 

[Jhenson29]

did his phone battery die too?! Mid post?

Yeah, he only charged it to 85% also.

 

[atebit]

 

[tbinmd]

B) Electrify America network includes 3 years free charge at their stations. I was also told Porsche dealers as well; but they are now requiring manager approval each time.

Download the Charing NA app to your phone, this os the PCNA app and can be used to authorize the EA chargers. No manager approval is needed.

 

[tomdfw1]

Download the Charing NA app to your phone, this os the PCNA app and can be used to authorize the EA chargers. No manager approval is needed.

I have no problem at Electrify America....With my 22 Taycan it is already registered and I use the Connect app and it auto signs me in.

It is the Porsche Dealers I need to authenticate me AT the dealers to use theirs.

 

[Tandrup]

Level 2 is the 240V "dryer plug" outlet which charges at ~18kwh.

Huh?
Power = the rate at which we charge (or discharge). It is measured in Watts (or more commonly for EVs in kilowatts (kW)
Power is calculated as current * voltage.

Energy is a measure of how much you’ve stored in your EVs battery. It is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh). It is a measure of how much work (change) you can make happen later.

So, you can’t charge at 18kWh. That’s a measure of Energy, not power. You can say: I charged at 180kW (power) for 6 minutes and gained 18kWh (energy) (180kW * 0.1 hour).

Similarly, if the 18kWh was a typo and you meant 18kW, we can calculate that you need a current of 75 Amps at 240 Volt to get 18kW of power. (75 A * 240 V = 18,000 W).

Most of us have 40A or 48A available for L2 charging at home. So we would typically get 9.6kW or 11.5kW of power.

 

[Tandrup]

Also: I really don’t see anything surprising here.
A) I would charge to 100% before I left if I knew I would be cutting it close.
B) Energy consumption is related to velocity (let’s just call it speed) and increases with the square of the speed. So if you’re going 110mph, you will never get close to the rated range that the car is estimating. Let’s take an example: if you spent 20 kWh going a distance at 55mph, you would spend 4 times as much (80kWh) going that same distance at 110mph. The speed doubled and the energy consumption quadrupled.

 

[whitex]

B) The car will charge with any charge station/network. All stations are standard except Tesla; which can still be used with an adapter at the end of their plug.

With an adapter, you can only use Tesla Level 2 chargers (up to 20KW, most are 10KW, but could also be limited by your onboard AC charger capacity). There are no fast charging (DC) adapters for USA Tesla Supercharger to CCS1 at this time. Also, I am not sure if you could charge a Taycan using ChaDeMo DC chargers, should you encounter one, but perhaps you found an adapter for that.

 

[ericj320]

I’m confused by what lessons you learned. Just based on the stated facts it gives me the impression you haven’t fully figured out how EV’s work, or at least how to most effectively and efficiently use them. Like others have stated, not starting the trip at 100% and still hoping to make it non-stop is baffling, again, it gives me the sense that you are misunderstanding the 85% recommendation in the user manual. Also, the fact that you seem disappointed that you didn’t even get the estimated range when you are driving exceptionally fast. That gives me the sense you viewed battery capacity as a fixed distance, when it’s actually just the amount power available. How fast that power is depleted, and a resulting distance achieved, is a direct function of the rate of consumption.

As @Tandrup posted it’s not linear, power required is an exponential function of speed. To piggy back on his post, I’ve attached a sample speed/drag curve to help you visualize how much extra power you are consuming with your chosen driving speed. This is no different than an ICE vehicle, EV’s are generally more range limited than the ICE’s you are used to, so it emphasizes those limiting factors. You really have to look at an EV trip as an overall time, not just how fast you are driving to get there sooner. 225 miles at 65mph will take you 3 hours and 28 minutes. At your average speed of 95 it would take 2 hours and 22 minutes, but it took two stops to charge. You didn’t mention how long those stops were, so it’s hard to say which would take longer, but you can’t realistically be too disappointed with the Taycan’s range when you executed this trip in just about as an inefficient manner possible. If efficiency was secondary to the driving experience and enjoyment at 80-110, well that’s ok too, but you have to know to expect significantly reduced range.

 

[Jhenson29]

That gives me the sense you viewed battery capacity as a fixed distance, when it’s actually just the amount power available.

Energy; not power. ?

rate of consumption.

That’s power. ?

 

[Windpower]

Again, no surprise that you needed to charge twice on a 225 mile trip when driving over 80mph.

From Wired magazine:
https://www.wired.com/2011/04/what-will-an-85-mph-speed-limit-do-to-your-mileage/

While this chart is from a gas car, the calculation of increased drag and resultant loss in efficiency is similar to what you would see in an EV: at 100 mph you only get 55% of the range as you would at 75mph. I would say the Taycan would do better due to its lower drag, but there will still be a loss in efficiency.

Drive fast, but expect to charge more often.

 

[Jhenson29]

I would say the Taycan would do better due to its lower drag, but there will still be a loss in efficiency.

Depends on drag relative to rolling resistance. While the Taycan may have a low drag relative to another car, the relative change in resistance for a change in speed is the same, so the relative effect on consumption from drag is the same as well. What’s possibly different is the drag relative to other resistive forces which will affect the overall curve and what the final relative change will be.

 

[Mikegrr]

Again, no surprise that you needed to charge twice on a 225 mile trip when driving over 80mp:
https://www.wired.com/2011/04/what-will-an-85-mph-speed-

Still, it’s an interesting story. So how long was each charging stop?
we took a road trip in a friends Tesla, took perhaps 20-30 minutes to charge it, I’m not sure what. % that got us too.

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