Great Electrify America Experience

[wemct]

Today I drove 553 miles from Connecticut to Durham, North Carolina. I stopped at 4 Electrify America chargers (Wawa Store - New Castle, Delaware), (Simon Arundel Mills - Hanover, Maryland), (Walmart - Stafford, Virginia), (Walmart - Henderson, North Carolina). I have had pretty good luck at EA chargers - never stranded, but sometimes in the past a call to EA was required to connect or I had to move over to a different charger.

HOWEVER, today's experience might be a good sign that EA is getting its act together. I have used the Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina chargers on previous road trips. The Stafford, Virginia was a new stop for me. Wow, the Stafford chargers (Signet) looked new, they had cords that were long and the bump stops were low enough to avoid the front splitter (see pic). I hit 254kw. That wasn't even the fastest on this trip. At Henderson, I hit 256 kW. And the kicker was that ALL four 350 kW chargers connected on the first try with the Charging NA app without the need to call EA or to move to another charger.

 

[jhngarrison]

I have had equally good luck with EA over the past few weeks at the Target in Bridgewater, NJ and Giant in Allentown, PA. I was able to charge at up to 128 kW and connected the 1st time with the Charging NA app at both locations. I am taking a road trip to Ocean City MD next week and I was planning on stopping at the Wawa Store in New Castle, Delaware as it my half way point. Thanks for the tip on the 350 kW charger.

 

[wemct]

Fyi, the Wawa store is closed for renovations so no snacks or restrooms.

 

[Kingske]

Today I drove 553 miles from Connecticut to Durham, North Carolina. I stopped at 4 Electrify America chargers (Wawa Store - New Castle, Delaware), (Simon Arundel Mills - Hanover, Maryland), (Walmart - Stafford, Virginia), (Walmart - Henderson, North Carolina). I have had pretty good luck at EA chargers - never stranded, but sometimes in the past a call to EA was required to connect or I had to move over to a different charger.

HOWEVER, today's experience might be a good sign that EA is getting its act together. I have used the Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina chargers on previous road trips. The Stafford, Virginia was a new stop for me. Wow, the Stafford chargers (Signet) looked new, they had cords that were long and the bump stops were low enough to avoid the front splitter (see pic). I hit 254kw. That wasn't even the fastest on this trip. At Henderson, I hit 256 kW. And the kicker was that ALL four 350 kW chargers connected on the first try with the Charging NA app without the need to call EA or to move to another charger.

Hi @wemct , thanks for the encouraging update. Did you by any chance have an opportunity to track your consumption/range during this trip?

 

[wemct]

On this trip I didn't monitor the consumption too closely. The outside temperature was 36F when I left at 6:15 am and was 68F when I arrived at 4:53 pm. No rain. The consumption by the end of the trip was 36.9 kWh/100 miles (2.71 miles/kWh). I drove mostly in Range mode and kept pace with the flow of traffic (the speed limit was 65/70 mph for much of the way - so I'll leave it to your imagination to determine how FAST traffic was going ). I have the 21" Mission e wheels with all season tires that are inflated to 40 psi cold tire temp. The Taycan continues to amaze me how easy it covers long distances without any fuss. I just turn on the massage seats and listen to my Apple Music.

 

[kort]

Hi @wemct , thanks for the encouraging update. Did you by any chance have an opportunity to track your consumption/range during this trip?

when you are confident that the chargers will work well consumption becomes less of a factor.

I would use the drive the bottom of the battery technique in my teslas, the battery will charge faster at a low SOC.
you charge just enough to make it to the next charger. I would plan longer charge stops for meal times and overnight stays.

 

[Kingske]

On this trip I didn't monitor the consumption too closely. The outside temperature was 36F when I left at 6:15 am and was 68F when I arrived at 4:53 pm. No rain. The consumption by the end of the trip was 36.9 kWh/100 miles (2.71 miles/kWh). I drove mostly in Range mode and kept pace with the flow of traffic (the speed limit was 65/70 mph for much of the way - so I'll leave it to your imagination to determine how FAST traffic was going ). I have the 21" Mission e wheels with all season tires that are inflated to 40 psi cold tire temp. The Taycan continues to amaze me how easy it covers long distances without any fuss. I just turn on the massage seats and listen to my Apple Music.

Excellent! Thanks.

 

[Kingske]

when you are confident that the chargers will work well consumption becomes less of a factor.

I would use the drive the bottom of the battery technique in my teslas, the battery will charge faster at a low SOC.
you charge just enough to make it to the next charger. I would plan longer charge stops for meal times and overnight stays.

That is a fair point but I was only benchmarking.

 

[wemct]

Today I drove another 380 miles from Durham, North Carolina to Alpharetta, Georgia. I could have made the trip with 2 charging stops, but I decided to make 3 stops to try more Electrify America chargers. Yesterday, all four 350kW chargers connected on the first attempt (yesterday was an A+). Today, I will give an A-. I stopped at (Sheetz - Hillsborough, North Carolina), (Walmart - Charlotte, North Carolina), and (Walmart - Commerce, Georgia). It was a 3 hour drive between the last two stops. I was supposed to arrive with 8% SOC, but the car kept getting more efficient and I arrived with 12% SOC.

• Sheetz - connected 1st attempt - peak was 240 kW
• Walmart Charlotte - connected 1st attempt - peak was 254 kW
• Walmart Commerce - the 350kW charger was ready to connect and start the session, but the charger was grayed out on the Charging NA app so I had to call EA to start the session
  • the EA rep said the charger was fine (no need to reboot) - the session started and the charger was AWESOME - new personal record - peaked at 259 kW
  • I am confident that if the Charging NA app had the correct information it would have connected without a problem (Commerce, GA has two 350kW towers - app only showed one and it was grayed out - the other 350kW tower was occupied by a Chevy Bolt)

Today my consumption got down to 36.0 kWh/100 miles (2.78 miles/kWh). At the last stop, I went into Walmart to grab some lunch. By the time I got back to the car the SOC was at 94%. So naturally, I had to shed some charge - I drove the 50 miles from the charger to the house in Sport Plus Drive Mode - riding in a pack with two Dodge Chargers (no pun intended). Let's just say the speed limit became irrelevant. Somehow I still have 71% SOC and my license.

I used Waze to navigate to the address of the next charger that I picked using A Better Route Planner. When I was within 30-50 miles of the charging location, I used the Taycan nav to find the charger under the Porsche Charging Service Point of Interest and selected it as the destination in the Taycan Nav. The car preconditioned the battery to 85F using that method.

All in all, the EA chargers performed very well. (I gave today an A- because of the issue with incorrect information on the Charging NA app - the charger itself worked well as demonstrated by the 259kW it fed to the Taycan). Things are continuing to have improved with EA.

 

[WalterG]

I also went to the Sheetz - Hillsborough EA location today and tried the 350s. I arrived with 24% SOC and got 150kw from the 350 station. I called EA and they reset it and then I got 100kw (I was at about 55% SOC at that point). I moved to the other 350 stall there and got 64kw (argh). The agent said that the handshake I was getting on that connection was low (75kw) but that the other connections looked like they should support 350. I wonder if something in my Taycan hardware is not functioning properly and that is causing me to not get above 150 on the 350 chargers?

 

[TYKHAAAN]

Today I drove 553 miles from Connecticut to Durham, North Carolina. I stopped at 4 Electrify America chargers (Wawa Store - New Castle, Delaware), (Simon Arundel Mills - Hanover, Maryland), (Walmart - Stafford, Virginia), (Walmart - Henderson, North Carolina). I have had pretty good luck at EA chargers - never stranded, but sometimes in the past a call to EA was required to connect or I had to move over to a different charger.

HOWEVER, today's experience might be a good sign that EA is getting its act together. I have used the Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina chargers on previous road trips. The Stafford, Virginia was a new stop for me. Wow, the Stafford chargers (Signet) looked new, they had cords that were long and the bump stops were low enough to avoid the front splitter (see pic). I hit 254kw. That wasn't even the fastest on this trip. At Henderson, I hit 256 kW. And the kicker was that ALL four 350 kW chargers connected on the first try with the Charging NA app without the need to call EA or to move to another charger.

Good to hear. On a road trip myself to Orlando (got in yesterday) and did 3 charging stations. Two worked more or less fine, pretty good charge speeds, one locked up on initiation of charge and locked the charging cable in my car. Could not unseat it and called in to EA and they had me try a couple things before rebooting the station remotely, which released the plug. Wasted about 20 minutes on that. Hoping for better results on the way back next weekend.

BTW, I used to live in Stafford Virginia, nice to see they have charging stations there now, so if I need to go back and visit, I’d be set.

 

[wemct]

@WalterG - do you remember if the battery was preconditioned? My best charging sessions are when the battery is preconditioned to 85F. If the battery temp was low, 150kW at 24% SOC isn't bad. As you know, the rate tapers down as the battery gets to capacity. I usually see above 100 kW until about 80/85% SOC unless the battery temp is low.

 

[TheFutre]

@wemct
Great info, thank you
Would you mind sharing the steps taken to start charging using the Charging NA app ?
Ive read so many conflicting stories of what steps to take and since you’ve had such consistent success it would be great to follow your lead
TY

Fyi, the Wawa store is closed for renovations so no snacks or restrooms.

 

[WalterG]

@wemct - thanks!
I did not precondition. My drive to the station was about 15 min and I did it in sports+ hoping to get a little heat into the battery. The battery was 72F when I started charging. i was thinking that the low soc of 24% would give the battery time to warm up. It actually got to 85 during the charge but the charge rate didn’t increase unfortunately.

 

[wemct]

My charging routine with the Charging NA app:

• Identify the 350 kW charger
• Verify that the charger screen is on (if not it is probably out of order)
• Position the car in between chargers in case you need to use the adjoining charger
• Plug cable into Taycan's DC port
• The screen on the EA charger should show a spinning circle with a message that says Initializing Charging
• Launch Charging NA app on my phone
• Click on EA charger location
• By this time the screen on the EA charger should present the price screen while waiting for you to initialize the session
• On your phone after you click on the EA location, it should give you a list of the available chargers
• Select the 350 kW charger (if that is what you are using) - select the 150 kW charger (if that is what you are using)
• Identify the particular charger number
• Press the Start Charging button on the Charging NA app
• You should hear some clicking and whirling on the EA charger
• The lower PCM screen should turn from gray to green
• Click on the Miles/minute on the PCM screen if you want to switch to see the kW
• When finished, press the green button on the Taycan DC port
• After the button turns from green to white, you can unplug

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Plug and Play will be available through the EA network and for both 2021 and 2020 Taycans.

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