Porsche Take Note: Mercedes has realized fast charging is part of ownership experience

[thecoloradokid]

Instead of continually bitching about Electrify America, which we all know is not the best, why don't we post actual first hand experiences of being stranded somewhere and your life negatively affected because of it. An hour two or wait does not count, because that $hit happens all the time with Tesla charging locations along major thoroughfares.

This forum has evolved into somewhat of a joke since half the posts are by people who continually bitch about Electrify America, but never go more than 100 miles from their house in their car.

Hell, even @daveo4EV have changed from one of the most interesting posters on this forum to a shrill Tesla loving broken record on Electrify America. I hope he takes another train ride across the Colorado Rockies sometime soon because that seemed to be the last time he posted anything interesting on this forum.

Here is my new favorite picture of the Tesla Baker, CA location from a couple of weeks ago. At least no one was hurt. Tesla perfection at its finest.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Instead of continually bitching about Electrify America, which we all know is not the best, why don't we post actual first hand experiences of being stranded somewhere and your life negatively affected because of it. An hour two or wait does not count, because that $hit happens all the time with Tesla charging locations along major thoroughfares.

This forum has evolved into somewhat of a joke since half the posts are by people who continually bitch about Electrify America, but never go more than 100 miles from their house in their car.

Hell, even @daveo4EV have changed from one of the most interesting posters on this forum to a shrill Tesla loving broken record on Electrify America. I hope he takes another train ride across the Colorado Rockies sometime soon because that seemed to be the last time he posted anything interesting on this forum.

Here is my new favorite picture of the Tesla Baker, CA location from a couple of weeks ago. At least no one was hurt. Tesla perfection at its finest.

If I'm stuck at a charger waiting for 2 hrs instead of 20 min, with 2 kids in the car, does that count?
(EA between Seattle and Portland, 9:30pm - all nearby locations for food/drinks/retail were closed.)

I am expecting 20 min charges at a 350kw station based on what Porsche sold me. In that context, I don't care what some other brand does or does not do. This is not the first few months of operations, EA has been operating their network for ~5 years now.

I think it's totally fine if people vent. That won't go away until EA fixes their shit or we have a legitimate alternative for road trips. Just silently suffering doesn't make anything better either, and if anything would convince forum readers that it's better than it really is (leading them to buy a car on false assumptions, or car owners to do road trips on false assumptions).



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[Jhenson29]

I am expecting 20 min charges at a 350kw station based on what Porsche sold me.

I think that’s to be taken as a lower bound on time in ideal conditions; not what you should just always expect.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

I think that’s to be taken as a lower bound on time in ideal conditions; not what you should just always expect.

I wasn't looking for 10%-> 80%, I just needed a bit of a top-off to make the hop to Seattle.
This should have been a <20 min stop even at a 150kw.

But the charger was struggling to exceed 30kw, and was intermittently aborting entirely.
2 stalls down, one other occupied and charging just as slowly with a Nissan leaf, unclear if car or charger. It kept spiking up briefly, so always kept the hope alive that somehow maybe it would get faster - or I would have limped to the next charger sooner.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Someone shared a great article here a few months ago, explaining the tension between utility providers and the convenience/fuel operators. EV charging networks straddle the two, and as long as the legal framework governing their respective operations isn't clarified, any solution will also be a straddling one.

Tesla financed their network with unrealistic stock prices; EA was forced by a colossal settlement following the most brazen, systematic attempt at cheating regulations in modern history. That makes them both 'unicorns' (hi Jhenson29!) in that there will never be another.

Given the vastness of the US, and how sparsely populated its Western part is, reliable charging means either profitable, small-operator stations (a la gas stations), or massive federal subsidies. Given that a small percentage of the fleet is EV (and they're all mostly driving within home range), this is going to take some convincing - leaps of faith on both the part of the consumer (don't keep that ICE for longer travel), and for the service provider (do make that investment).

 

[thecoloradokid]

I think it's totally fine if people vent. That won't go away until EA fixes their shit or we have a legitimate alternative for road trips. Just silently suffering doesn't make anything better either, and if anything would convince forum readers that it's better than it really is (leading them to buy a car on false assumptions, or car owners to do road trips on false assumptions).
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[/QUOTE]

No one is advocating silently suffering, but do something more than comment on a message board if you want to see system improvements. Porsche has absolutely no control, or ability to push Electrify America to "fix their shit" unless they give EA a lot more money and actively get involved in alleviating supply chain issues to get replacement parts faster, and to hire additional service techs.

It is like yelling at Boeing because your 737 Max on United to SFO is delayed due to weather. Not Boeing's problem.

I have had Electrify America reach out to me to provide frequent network updates since I have repeatedly reached out via email to Giovanni Palazzo, the CEO at EA. I also comment on the status of chargers via Plugshare. Help be part of the fix instead of the opposite.

Also, can you elaborate why you were at a charger for two hours charging? Was the charger slow? Was it because multiple cabinets were down and there was a line to wait for working chargers? From what I see there a ton of chargers in Portland and Seattle, and then like 10 DC fast chargers between Portland and Seattle. Why didn't you explore other options? I am not judging, just curious.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Work is underway (this presumably can be used to measure and then improve the reliability of chargers): EVSE Fast Charging Network: Challenges for Calibration and Traceability | NIST

 

[Scandinavian]

How is this much if any different from EA. Merc is partnering with Chargepoint and another company. Merc will ‘own’ it like VW owns EA. And ChargePoint reliability is apparently no better than EA based on the studies out there. I’m all for more chargers, but this seems like a lot of marketing spin on top of existing ideas.

In my mind there is one fundamental difference and that is that Mercedes seem to put their brand reputation on the line. If they launch the charging network , as shown in press release, with the Star brand on it, they will protect that.

VW might have a damaged brand name already with the emission scandals etc. But surely it would be even worse if they showed the VW brand on the chargers.

VW ”own” EA and Siemens have invested money there as well, but they do not seem very hands on at the moment.

 

[Scandinavian]

I wasn't looking for 10%-> 80%, I just needed a bit of a top-off to make the hop to Seattle.
This should have been a <20 min stop even at a 150kw.

But the charger was struggling to exceed 30kw, and was intermittently aborting entirely.
2 stalls down, one other occupied and charging just as slowly with a Nissan leaf, unclear if car or charger. It kept spiking up briefly, so always kept the hope alive that somehow maybe it would get faster - or I would have limped to the next charger sooner.

You did not state at what SoC you arrived and plugged in for your “top up”? If that was at a high SoC with a cold battery, it might be totally normal. The cars BMS takes care of the battery health and that could well be the result you have seen.
Queues because of number of chargers as well as off line chargers is a total different issue though. Only way I know of is to call EA and ask for an explanation, and document each of these events in writing to them. As suggested PlugShare reviews for each station is also useful.

This again is mainly a feature of the US! Search through this forum and you can find many long trip reports from members here. In all kind of weathers and good Charging experience, and very few Ionity, Fastned etc charging problems. Most of the time the car has charged from 20 to 80% as fast as promised by Porsche. So road tripping with an EV is easy and can be very positive.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

You did not state at what SoC you arrived and plugged in for your “top up”? If that was at a high SoC with a cold battery, it might be totally normal. The cars BMS takes care of the battery health and that could well be the result you have seen.
Queues because of number of chargers as well as off line chargers is a total different issue though. Only way I know of is to call EA and ask for an explanation, and document each of these events in writing to them. As suggested PlugShare reviews for each station is also useful.

This again is mainly a feature of the US! Search through this forum and you can find many long trip reports from members here. In all kind of weathers and good Charging experience, and very few Ionity, Fastned etc charging problems. Most of the time the car has charged from 20 to 80% as fast as promised by Porsche. So road tripping with an EV is easy and can be very positive.

I arrived with ~10-15%, after hours of driving and with the car knowing about the destination. I've done this dozens of times, this was closer to "optimal for fast charging" than the other way around.

The EA charger was crashing to console, I was calling support every 10 min to get reset so I could start again. Every time I called EA, I'd get the same person, who was clearly working from home and running laundry in the background. Either they didn't know how this works, or their system didn't tell them sh*t, because they kept asking me what the screen was saying/doing.

2 chargers were fully offline (screens on the chargers themselves clearly indicated as such, but app and plugshare didn't have that data).

I appreciate that Europe might be different, I'm only talking about my experiences in the US.

 

[Scandinavian]

Wow That is bad. Really sorry for your experience.

What I meant though is that it is solvable by a proper organisation. I look at the likes of mobile operators and the have sophisticated net work management tools and organisations to quickly address issues in the network. So do the charging operators seem to have here. There must be something broken in the approach in the US. I really hope that improves and that all of us can enjoy the EV experience as it is meant to be.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Wow That is bad. Really sorry for your experience.

What I meant though is that it is solvable by a proper organisation. I look at the likes of mobile operators and the have sophisticated net work management tools and organisations to quickly address issues in the network. So do the charging operators seem to have here. There must be something broken in the approach in the US. I really hope that improves and that all of us can enjoy the EV experience as it is meant to be.

Yeah, there's really no rocket science involved. It's also not a "US" thing (e.g., could some US specific technical constraints or regulations be messing things up?) The fact that Tesla, with all their disfunction, managed to set up a much more reliable network almost a decade ago proves that this is not only possible, but actually can't even be that hard.

But from a customer perspective, tbh, it doesn't matter to me whether due to technical challenge, financial investment (or lack thereof), or organizational incompetence. The end result is the same: I still drive longer stretches when it's just me (and I know I can tolerate the not-so-infrequent surprises), but for all family road trips, it's a non-starter.

 

[kort]

I am on an unexpected road trip from Florida to nyc and the EA chargers are FUBAR. Slow speeds and units offline are the norm. What happened to EA? The best speed I got was 88kw on a 150 unit, the 350 units that did work were even slower

 

[Genau]

I am on an unexpected road trip from Florida to nyc and the EA chargers are FUBAR. Slow speeds and units offline are the norm. What happened to EA? The best speed I got was 88kw on a 150 unit, the 350 units that did work were even slower

On recents trips between Florida and Virginia, I’ve noticed that there are more non-EA charging stations opening along I-95. Have you tried them? I have not yet, but if EA becomes too challenging, I will do so.

 

[kort]

On recents trips between Florida and Virginia, I’ve noticed that there are more non-EA charging stations opening along I-95. Have you tried them? I have not yet, but if EA becomes too challenging, I will do so.

If I can locate them on my return trip I’ll try them

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