My first Electrify America charging experience

[hkarthik]

I finally got my Taycan 4S this week and I decided to venture over to the nearest EA chargers to see how well they worked after the local dealer suggested that I make sure my Porsche account was setup properly.

I installed the Porsche NA app on my iPhone to find the nearest charger which was about 10 minutes away. The app isn't that great, but the coordinates were accurate and it showed all the charging stations by ID and which were 350kw versus 150kw. The location I landed at was a combination of Tesla Superchargers and Electrify America stations in Livermore, CA.

While I was there, I saw a new Ford Mach-E owner fiddling with a couple of 150kw stations trying to find one that worked for him.

Only 4 stations supported 350kw, so I started there. I fiddled with the first station for about 10 minutes and couldn't get it to work as it wasn't able to handshake correctly with my car, regardless of whether I tried to plug-and-charge or activate it via the Porsche NA app. I gave up and decided to try the station next to it.

Thankfully, the second one worked beautifully with plug-and-charge working exactly as advertised. It connected within about 15 seconds and quickly started charging. And wow was it quick! Within 12 minutes, I went from a 65% charge to a 87% charge. I panicked a bit as it went over 85% charge faster than I could react to unplug it. I also confirmed that the charging session was free, but I could see it would have cost me about $9.

As I finished and drove away, the Mach-E owner was still on the phone with EA, sounding pretty frustrated.

Overall, it was a positive experience, but I wonder if I got lucky.

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[Evpower]

I finally got my Taycan 4S this week and I decided to venture over to the nearest EA chargers to see how well they worked after the local dealer suggested that I make sure my Porsche account was setup properly.

I installed the Porsche NA app on my iPhone to find the nearest charger which was about 10 minutes away. The app isn't that great, but the coordinates were accurate and it showed all the charging stations by ID and which were 350kw versus 150kw. The location I landed at was a combination of Tesla Superchargers and Electrify America stations in Livermore, CA.

While I was there, I saw a new Ford Mach-E owner fiddling with a couple of 150kw stations trying to find one that worked for him.

Only 4 stations supported 350kw, so I started there. I fiddled with the first station for about 10 minutes and couldn't get it to work as it wasn't able to handshake correctly with my car, regardless of whether I tried to plug-and-charge or activate it via the Porsche NA app. I gave up and decided to try the station next to it.

Thankfully, the second one worked beautifully with plug-and-charge working exactly as advertised. It connected within about 15 seconds and quickly started charging. And wow was it quick! Within 12 minutes, I went from a 65% charge to a 87% charge. I panicked a bit as it went over 85% charge faster than I could react to unplug it. I also confirmed that the charging session was free, but I could see it would have cost me about $9.

As I finished and drove away, the Mach-E owner was still on the phone with EA, sounding pretty frustrated.

Overall, it was a positive experience, but I wonder if I got lucky.

Why did you panic about going over 85%? You had another 18 minutes of free charge.

 

[hkarthik]

Why did you panic about going over 85%? You had another 18 minutes of free charge.

So this is a source of confusion for me still. I read that we shouldn’t charge the Taycan battery to 100% since it’s bad for the battery. However, I have also heard from the SA at my local dealer that Porsche reserves an extra 15% of charge capacity via software so its safe to charge to 100%.

 

[schad]

So this is a source of confusion for me still. I read that we shouldn’t charge the Taycan battery to 100% since it’s bad for the battery. However, I have also heard from the SA at my local dealer that Porsche reserves an extra 15% of charge capacity via software so its safe to charge to 100%.

You're both right!

Porsche does reserve capacity in the batteries, so it is safe to charge to 100%. Nothing will explode or catch on fire, you won't permanently lose a big chunk of your battery capacity, etc.

But it is also true that frequently charging to 100% will very, very gradually reduce your available battery capacity.

My advice is not to dwell on it. There are some easy things you can do to preserve your battery life, like charging infrequently (i.e. don't plug in until you're at 20-40% charge) and to no more than 85%. You should certainly do these things for your normal, day-to-day charging.

When you need more range, though, don't hesitate to charge right up to full if that's what you need. And don't worry that you're ruining your car or anything either, because you're not. It's designed to be charged up to that level. That's why they call it "full!"

 

[RBGtaycan]

I finally got my Taycan 4S this week and I decided to venture over to the nearest EA chargers to see how well they worked after the local dealer suggested that I make sure my Porsche account was setup properly.

I installed the Porsche NA app on my iPhone to find the nearest charger which was about 10 minutes away. The app isn't that great, but the coordinates were accurate and it showed all the charging stations by ID and which were 350kw versus 150kw. The location I landed at was a combination of Tesla Superchargers and Electrify America stations in Livermore, CA.

While I was there, I saw a new Ford Mach-E owner fiddling with a couple of 150kw stations trying to find one that worked for him.

Only 4 stations supported 350kw, so I started there. I fiddled with the first station for about 10 minutes and couldn't get it to work as it wasn't able to handshake correctly with my car, regardless of whether I tried to plug-and-charge or activate it via the Porsche NA app. I gave up and decided to try the station next to it.

Thankfully, the second one worked beautifully with plug-and-charge working exactly as advertised. It connected within about 15 seconds and quickly started charging. And wow was it quick! Within 12 minutes, I went from a 65% charge to a 87% charge. I panicked a bit as it went over 85% charge faster than I could react to unplug it. I also confirmed that the charging session was free, but I could see it would have cost me about $9.

As I finished and drove away, the Mach-E owner was still on the phone with EA, sounding pretty frustrated.

Overall, it was a positive experience, but I wonder if I got lucky.

My first EA charge (about 5 months ago) went swimmingly until I tried to disconnect...took a half hour of playing and even talking to EA. Hint: if this happens to you the most reliable "disconnect" in my experience is in the PCM | Charging | ..... I suggest you try it in case you need it some day.....welcome to the (sometimes) wonderful world of fast charging! Good luck w/ your Taycan - they are fun.

 

[andrewket]

So this is a source of confusion for me still. I read that we shouldn’t charge the Taycan battery to 100% since it’s bad for the battery. However, I have also heard from the SA at my local dealer that Porsche reserves an extra 15% of charge capacity via software so its safe to charge to 100%.

Charging to 100% isn’t that bad for the battery. Charging to 100% and letting it sit at high states of charge (above 95% ish) is what degrades Li-Ion cells. Letting it sit at high SOC in the heat is particularly bad.

The primary reason it is advised not to charge above 80-85% at a public charger is that the charge rate significantly slows down. It’s usually faster to charge again further down the road vs sit to get from 80-100%. It’s also better for public infrastructure as it frees up the stall for the next person. It’s more efficient use of shared resources.

 

[andrewket]

My advice is not to dwell on it. There are some easy things you can do to preserve your battery life, like charging infrequently (i.e. don't plug in until you're at 20-40% charge) and to no more than 85%. You should certainly do these things for your normal, day-to-day charging.

Not to cause more confusion, but one thing you said isn’t correct for Li-Ion cells. Shallow charging is better than deep charging. Said a different way, more frequent short charging sessions is better than less frequent longer charging sessions.

The EV community uses the mantra “ABC: always be charging”. Don’t treat it like a gas car. Charge every night, not when you’re “low”.

 

[schad]

The argument in favor of frequent shallow charging, as I understand it, is that your batteries don't heat up as much, and heat is the enemy of batteries. But that should not be a problem with L1/L2 charging on a modern EV (apologies to Leaf owners).

But with that said, the argument in favor of less-frequent and deeper charging is to ensure that all the cells get some demand, and that's probably even less of a concern on EVs. So I will retract that suggestion.

 

[Chris8536]

I finally got my Taycan 4S this week and I decided to venture over to the nearest EA chargers to see how well they worked after the local dealer suggested that I make sure my Porsche account was setup properly.

I installed the Porsche NA app on my iPhone to find the nearest charger which was about 10 minutes away. The app isn't that great, but the coordinates were accurate and it showed all the charging stations by ID and which were 350kw versus 150kw. The location I landed at was a combination of Tesla Superchargers and Electrify America stations in Livermore, CA.

While I was there, I saw a new Ford Mach-E owner fiddling with a couple of 150kw stations trying to find one that worked for him.

Only 4 stations supported 350kw, so I started there. I fiddled with the first station for about 10 minutes and couldn't get it to work as it wasn't able to handshake correctly with my car, regardless of whether I tried to plug-and-charge or activate it via the Porsche NA app. I gave up and decided to try the station next to it.

Thankfully, the second one worked beautifully with plug-and-charge working exactly as advertised. It connected within about 15 seconds and quickly started charging. And wow was it quick! Within 12 minutes, I went from a 65% charge to a 87% charge. I panicked a bit as it went over 85% charge faster than I could react to unplug it. I also confirmed that the charging session was free, but I could see it would have cost me about $9.

As I finished and drove away, the Mach-E owner was still on the phone with EA, sounding pretty frustrated.

Overall, it was a positive experience, but I wonder if I got lucky.

Livermore is one of the most dependable banks of turbo chargers around.

 

[kort]

Charging to 100% isn’t that bad for the battery. Charging to 100% and letting it sit at high states of charge (above 95% ish) is what degrades Li-Ion cells. Letting it sit at high SOC in the heat is particularly bad.

^^^
this is the ONLY correct answer

The primary reason it is advised not to charge about 80-85% at a public charger is that the charge rate significantly slows down. It’s usually faster to charge again further down the road vs sit to get from 85-100%. It’s also better for public infrastructure as it frees up the stall for the next person. It’s more efficient use of shared resources.

this is also spot on.

 

[kort]

Not to cause more confusion, but one thing you said isn’t correct for Li-Ion cells. Shallow charging is better than deep charging. Said a different way, more frequent short charging sessions is better than less frequent longer charging sessions.

The EV community uses the mantra “ABC: always be charging”. Don’t treat it like a gas car. Charge every night, not when you’re “low”.

the prophet Elon once said that a plugged in tesla was a happy tesla, I believe that could be extrapolated to any EV. in other words it is his opinion that the car should always be at a higher state of SOC (80% or so) than be allowed to sit at lower SOC levels.

 

[Evpower]

My Bolt says the same thing. My garage gets extremly hot during summer months. The A/C for the battery will run a few times a day.

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