Indio, CA to Buckeye, AZ -- 219 miles. Charging speeds at Electrify American charger in Buckeye

thecoloradokid

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I am in the middle of a Denver to Los Angeles to Flagstaff back to Denver road trip in my 4s. The car is now working great, so I am driving the hell out of it. I drove from Riverside, CA to Flagstaff today, and wanted to share a couple of highlights. First of all, today was the first time I saw another Taycan while charging - it happened at the Indio charger, and had to share a picture. The second highlight was that after charging to 99%, I easily made the 219 mile distance from the Indio Electrify America charger to the next one in Buckeye, AZ. I pulled in with 19% left even though I was doing 70mph to 80mph the entire 219 miles. The best part was that I hit 255kw charging speeds at the beginning of my charge in Buckeye before it dropped to 160kw at 55%. I have stopped at 20 different EA locations across the western US, and that was the fastest speed I have seen to date. After getting the 12v battery replaced, and a new DC inverter, the car is working great, so I encourage everyone to get out and take a road trip in the Taycan. it is an amazing cruising car.


Porsche Taycan Indio, CA to Buckeye, AZ   --  219 miles.    Charging speeds at Electrify American charger in Buckeye IMG_0077



Porsche Taycan Indio, CA to Buckeye, AZ   --  219 miles.    Charging speeds at Electrify American charger in Buckeye IMG_0086
 

TheFutre

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thats awesome
do you have Innodrive and if so have you used it on this trip?


I am in the middle of a Denver to Los Angeles to Flagstaff back to Denver road trip in my 4s. The car is now working great, so I am driving the hell out of it. I drove from Riverside, CA to Flagstaff today, and wanted to share a couple of highlights. First of all, today was the first time I saw another Taycan while charging - it happened at the Indio charger, and had to share a picture. The second highlight was that after charging to 99%, I easily made the 219 mile distance from the Indio Electrify America charger to the next one in Buckeye, AZ. I pulled in with 19% left even though I was doing 70mph to 80mph the entire 219 miles. The best part was that I hit 255kw charging speeds at the beginning of my charge in Buckeye before it dropped to 160kw at 55%. I have stopped at 20 different EA locations across the western US, and that was the fastest speed I have seen to date. After getting the 12v battery replaced, and a new DC inverter, the car is working great, so I encourage everyone to get out and take a road trip in the Taycan. it is an amazing cruising car.


IMG_0077.jpg



IMG_0086.jpg
 

Reg

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Great to hear! I have had a lot of luck with EA here in California. I did hit 240kw at one of the chargers, but I was also down to around 15% of so when I started

At higher percentage of current charge, I do get around 80-100kw, so for going from 60-85% it goes pretty fast.

Glad you are enjoying your car so much, I can't agree with you more about encouraging people to get out and drive. I am doing a 100 mile round trip tomorrow to drive up part of the coast and hit some beaches.
 
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thecoloradokid

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thats awesome
do you have Innodrive and if so have you used it on this trip?

John : I do have Innodrive, but I did not use it much today since there was a lot of semi-truck traffic on I-10 today. I had to weave in and out of traffic for a lot of the day, which is not the best situation for Innodrive. On less busy highways like I-70 in eastern Utah or in Western Kansas, Innodrive is a great feature since it does most of the work on the drive. This is my opinion on Innodrive. Others may have a different opinion.
 

Damond

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I am in the middle of a Denver to Los Angeles to Flagstaff back to Denver road trip in my 4s. The car is now working great, so I am driving the hell out of it. I drove from Riverside, CA to Flagstaff today, and wanted to share a couple of highlights. First of all, today was the first time I saw another Taycan while charging - it happened at the Indio charger, and had to share a picture. The second highlight was that after charging to 99%, I easily made the 219 mile distance from the Indio Electrify America charger to the next one in Buckeye, AZ. I pulled in with 19% left even though I was doing 70mph to 80mph the entire 219 miles. The best part was that I hit 255kw charging speeds at the beginning of my charge in Buckeye before it dropped to 160kw at 55%. I have stopped at 20 different EA locations across the western US, and that was the fastest speed I have seen to date. After getting the 12v battery replaced, and a new DC inverter, the car is working great, so I encourage everyone to get out and take a road trip in the Taycan. it is an amazing cruising car.


IMG_0077.jpg



IMG_0086.jpg
Funny you should have driven this particular route. Last July I wrote an article for my local PCA chapter on how the range of the Taycan with the 93.4kW batter, and the limited number of reliable DC Fast Charging stations made it impossible to drive from Tucson to Las Vegas via I-10/US-95/I-11/I-215. I challenged the three dealerships in Tucson/Phoenix/Scottsdale to do a range test drive using a Taycan, any Taycan with the Performance Plus battery, the 219 miles from Buckeye to Indio and back only charging it at the EA station in Indio. My stipulation was that this test be done when the daytime outside temperature was the normal 105-115F along this route in the desert Southwest during the summer time. None of them took up the challenge. If a Taycan could do the 219 miles on I-10 with 75mph speed limit (80-85mph normal driving speed) and full AC, then it might make it the 209 miles from Blythe CA to Las Vegas IF the only unnetworked 50kW charging station at the Hampton Inn in Blythe worked, and one wanted to wait the several hours in the heat to charge close to 100%. All my research said that at the 105-115F one would be lucky to get only 180-190 miles . Sooo I am supposing that the outside temperatures were not over 105F when you drove from Indio to Buckeye, and when you charged up at the EA station in Buckeye it wasn't over 105F. I would still be interested in what temperatures you did experience, and if the drive was made completely during daylight hours. Thanks .
 


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thecoloradokid

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Funny you should have driven this particular route. Last July I wrote an article for my local PCA chapter on how the range of the Taycan with the 93.4kW batter, and the limited number of reliable DC Fast Charging stations made it impossible to drive from Tucson to Las Vegas via I-10/US-95/I-11/I-215. I challenged the three dealerships in Tucson/Phoenix/Scottsdale to do a range test drive using a Taycan, any Taycan with the Performance Plus battery, the 219 miles from Buckeye to Indio and back only charging it at the EA station in Indio. My stipulation was that this test be done when the daytime outside temperature was the normal 105-115F along this route in the desert Southwest during the summer time. None of them took up the challenge. If a Taycan could do the 219 miles on I-10 with 75mph speed limit (80-85mph normal driving speed) and full AC, then it might make it the 209 miles from Blythe CA to Las Vegas IF the only unnetworked 50kW charging station at the Hampton Inn in Blythe worked, and one wanted to wait the several hours in the heat to charge close to 100%. All my research said that at the 105-115F one would be lucky to get only 180-190 miles . Sooo I am supposing that the outside temperatures were not over 105F when you drove from Indio to Buckeye, and when you charged up at the EA station in Buckeye it wasn't over 105F. I would still be interested in what temperatures you did experience, and if the drive was made completely during daylight hours. Thanks .
Damond:

on the day of that drive from Indio to Buckeye the temperature maxed out at 95 degrees or so, and I did not run the AC, I just cracked the windows. So, yes it was not summer temps during my run through I-10. Also, I have 20' wheels on my 4s, so more efficient than the 21's on a Turbo or Turbo S.

The good news is that by next summer there will be no issues driving through Arizona and heading to either Vegas or to LA. Electrify America has AZ on its radar for builds in the immediate future - the Quartzsite location will be completed by next summer, as will new sites on I-40, including Kingman.

I am looking forward to sneaking out of Colorado during breaks in the weather this winter and heading down to AZ. I do like the Westin resort in Tucson. I used to ride my motorcycle down there often.

Cheers
 

Damond

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ColoradoKid. Thanks for getting back with me. I envy your ability to do long trips. I too had motorcycles here in Tucson...a Harley Streetglide (FLHX), and a Suzuki M50. Sold them to buy my first 911 in 2013 and then sold it to get the 991.2 911 in 2017. Was looking to buy a Taycan 4S but alas my research revealed I could not "get there from here" when the there was Las Vegas and the here was Tucson...even a trip to San Diego was questionable! Couldn't see selling the 911 and plunking down over $100K for a Taycan and not do what you are doing...taking it for long distance drives. This inability to drive from Tucson to Las Vegas was particularly true during the extreme heat here in the desert Southwest when combined with the lack of reliable DC Fast charging stations along any route to Vegas from Tucson/Phoenix. The extreme heat affects both the Taycan's range (most likely less than 200 miles on even a 100% SOC) and charging (both long times and even the ability to charge). I found out from one of the area Porsche dealerships that at 108F it could not charge its Taycans using the customer J1772 7kWh charging stations it had. The Taycan cooling system sucked all of the juice just trying to cool down the battery! At the time, the only DC Fast station was in their maintenance garage. So even the fallback/emergency position of using any of the public J1772 AC charging stations along any route to Vegas was out of the question when the outside temperature gets to be much over 100F. In the case of the only currently feasible route to Las Vegas from Tucson, Tucson-Buckeye-Blythe-Las Vegas, there are only J1772 AC stations in Needles and in Boulder City along the 209 mile Blythe-Las Vegas segment. And its dangerous to drive the US95/I-11/I-215 from Blythe to Las Vegas in the extreme heat because there isn't any cell phone service along parts of this segment! NOTE: Even with a EA DC Fast charging station in Kingman, it is around 205 miles from the DC Fast charging stations in the Phoenix area to Kingman. Again, there aren't any DC Fast charging stations along the route from Phoenix area to Kingman. This route also involves temperatures of 105F-115F during the summer. The EA DC Fast charging station in Quartzite doesn't really help since it is 213 miles to the EA charging station in Las Vegas. The only DC Fast charging station along the route is the Terrible Herbst gas station in Henderson, 205 miles from Quartzite. EA, EVgo, or EVconnect need to put DC Fast stations at least in Needles CA, and Wickenburg AZ to make it comfortable (if not safe) to drive to Vegas from Tucson (or even Phoenix) during the summer time. Alas, none of these networks have even mentioned putting in DC Fast charging stations in these locations. My guess is that it will be several years before the desert Southwest sees the number and location of DC Fast charging stations necessary to support long distance trips in any EV during what is becoming the norm for extreme summertime temperatures. That's my story and I am sticking to it. :-(
 
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thecoloradokid

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ColoradoKid. Thanks for getting back with me. I envy your ability to do long trips. I too had motorcycles here in Tucson...a Harley Streetglide (FLHX), and a Suzuki M50. Sold them to buy my first 911 in 2013 and then sold it to get the 991.2 911 in 2017. Was looking to buy a Taycan 4S but alas my research revealed I could not "get there from here" when the there was Las Vegas and the here was Tucson...even a trip to San Diego was questionable! Couldn't see selling the 911 and plunking down over $100K for a Taycan and not do what you are doing...taking it for long distance drives. This inability to drive from Tucson to Las Vegas was particularly true during the extreme heat here in the desert Southwest when combined with the lack of reliable DC Fast charging stations along any route to Vegas from Tucson/Phoenix. The extreme heat affects both the Taycan's range (most likely less than 200 miles on even a 100% SOC) and charging (both long times and even the ability to charge). I found out from one of the area Porsche dealerships that at 108F it could not charge its Taycans using the customer J1772 7kWh charging stations it had. The Taycan cooling system sucked all of the juice just trying to cool down the battery! At the time, the only DC Fast station was in their maintenance garage. So even the fallback/emergency position of using any of the public J1772 AC charging stations along any route to Vegas was out of the question when the outside temperature gets to be much over 100F. In the case of the only currently feasible route to Las Vegas from Tucson, Tucson-Buckeye-Blythe-Las Vegas, there are only J1772 AC stations in Needles and in Boulder City along the 209 mile Blythe-Las Vegas segment. And its dangerous to drive the US95/I-11/I-215 from Blythe to Las Vegas in the extreme heat because there isn't any cell phone service along parts of this segment! NOTE: Even with a EA DC Fast charging station in Kingman, it is around 205 miles from the DC Fast charging stations in the Phoenix area to Kingman. Again, there aren't any DC Fast charging stations along the route from Phoenix area to Kingman. This route also involves temperatures of 105F-115F during the summer. The EA DC Fast charging station in Quartzite doesn't really help since it is 213 miles to the EA charging station in Las Vegas. The only DC Fast charging station along the route is the Terrible Herbst gas station in Henderson, 205 miles from Quartzite. EA, EVgo, or EVconnect need to put DC Fast stations at least in Needles CA, and Wickenburg AZ to make it comfortable (if not safe) to drive to Vegas from Tucson (or even Phoenix) during the summer time. Alas, none of these networks have even mentioned putting in DC Fast charging stations in these locations. My guess is that it will be several years before the desert Southwest sees the number and location of DC Fast charging stations necessary to support long distance trips in any EV during what is becoming the norm for extreme summertime temperatures. That's my story and I am sticking to it. :-(


Damond:

I appreciate the response. I think the ability to drive around Arizona in a Taycan during the summer will be very different by next summer. I would recommend you take a look at the Electrify America network and see the new locations where there should be new chargers opening within the next year. You easily will be able to get from Tucson to Vegas on the 93. Even at high temps requiring AC, the drive can be done since speeds are low due from Wickenburg to Kingman. I am positive charging speeds will be throttled at a EA charging location when it is 110 or 115 degrees, but potentially getting 75kw is better than nothing.

I have put 8,000 miles on a Taycan since May, so outside of Don, who drove across Canada and the US in winter, I think I have put more miles on the vehicle than just about anyone. I have driven in 25 temps, 105 degree temps, ridiculously humid temps in SE Texas, at Colorado mountain altitudes, at sea level. I honest can say the vehicle is more efficient than advertised, especially if the speeds are kept under control - which is very hard to do.

Also, if you are new to EV's then I get the range apprehension. I bought my first Tesla in 2015, so I am comfortable with EV's, and long distance driving in an EV. But, if the only reason you are not getting a Taycan is because you can't currently drive to Vegas from Tucson up HWY 93, then you are missing out on a phenomenal vehicle. I mean, really missing out. I drove from Denver to Los Angeles in a Taycan and from Denver to Houston, but I still enjoy a 5 minute drive to the Safeway!
 


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ColoradoKid.
I hope you are correct in that the charging infrastructure will change in the year to come. I don't have the same optimistic view when it comes to driving and charging EVs here when its 105F-115F. :-(

Just to let you know I have been researching the issue of Taycan range, Taycan charging, and the charging station infrastructure for almost a year now. I've looked at every aspect of the Taycan's functions & features and the "official" & unofficial range estimates. In the absence of a real world driving range test for 104F (40C), I used the Porsche Taycan 4 "range indicator" for Dubai since Porsche doesn't make one available for the US or Canada. Its available at the following URL.

https://www.porsche.com/middle-east/_dubai_/models/taycan/taycan-models/taycan-4s/

I even did some research into lithium ion battery recharging. Plus actually read the Taycan users manual to see what it said about charging system functions/features & limitations. And all things that need to be done when charging at elevated temperatures. Both the batteries and cabin require air conditioning at these extreme temperatures...all of which takes electric energy. I was able to download technical information from various Porsche and non-Porsche sites. I looked at all the things one could do with the Range setting, and using the Navigation Systems Charge Planner. I did a test drive and navigation system - charge planning demo with a Taycan at a dealership to see what it would do relative to driving to Las Vegas from Phoenix. It basically said "you can't get there from here." I have continued to have discussions with folks on this forum about this since March 2020. I learned a lot from someone who drives his Taycan from San Jose to Salt Lake City. Lots of lessons learned relative to the planning necessary to make such drives, and what to do when one has to resort to some alternate things to do to make it; i.e., drive a lot slower. I am actually a card carrying member of several charging networks, and have kept up with their planning.

I used all I have learned in creating a "drive story"/simulation drive from Tucson to Las Vegas on the Tucson-Phoenix-Blythe-Henderson-Las Vegas route. In it I detailed all the planning decisions and things that would (most likely) happen along the way & at each stop. This was relative to what was needed to keep the batteries charged and to also keep the cabin temperature from exceeding 100F when the outside temp was over 110F. I ran this simulation on a day when it was actually over 110F in Buckeye, Blythe, Needles, Henderson, and Las Vegas.

The only thing I was not able to do was to get my hands on a Taycan and drive it from Tucson to Las Vegas...or attempt to do so.

Just a note about the "normal" speed of traffic on US 95 from Blythe to Henderson, or on US60/93 from Phoenix to Kingman, it isn't 65mph...more like 75-80mph...except for when passing through Needles-Searchlight, or Wickenburg-Wickieup. Have driven both in recent years and one gets passed even by semi's when driving those non-interstate roadways. And I am an old fart that only drives 10 over the speed limit ! :)

Unfortunately, the results of my research not only apply to Taycans but almost all EVs. (well maybe not Teslas. However, the inspiration for my "Can I get there from Here?" question actually came from a Tesla owner who had experienced the same thing!) The recent posting in this forum about someone in a Chevy Bolt who almost got stranded in Death Valley is similar to what one would experience if they tried to make it between Blythe CA and Henderson/Las Vegas when it is 105F +.

If you wish I can send you a copy of my article to read.

I recognize you have driven a lot of miles in your Taycan 4, and it appears have been fortunate enough to not experience range anxiety. And I would agree that for an increasing number of EV drivers it is possible to take long distance trips. This is not yet true for some of us in the desert Southwest during the summer months. BTW This past summer set all time records for high temperatures here in Tucson. We broke the 1994 record of 99 days of temperatures 100 or higher for the year with 109 days. July and August set the record for the hottest recorded months. The long term forecast is that here it will be as bad as it was in 2020 in 2021. So the issues associated with range, battery charging, and charging station infrastructure for EVs here will not go away during our summer months.

I do appreciate your comments. Your recent 219 mile drive from Indio to Buckeye at 70-75mph when it was below 100F are encouraging. It is nice to know that a Taycan 4 can get over 219 miles on a 99% SOC. Sincerely, Damond
 
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thecoloradokid

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Damond: No worries, you do you. It seems to me that you have surpassed analysis paralysis. If you don't want to buy a car for whatever reason, that is on you. All I can tell you is that you are missing out.

Good luck with whatever decision you make in the future. As for me, I will continue to enjoy my Taycan.
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