BlueShoes

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Gads man, sorry your trip was a bust. I did my first roadtrip last month and it was flawless and actually turned out to be quite a bit better than nearly the same route in our Tesla. It shows that the networks are not yet mature - in the midwest Electrify America easily holds its own against Tesla Superchargers. But on any EV platform, you really can only bank on using L2 charging overnight. It's just too slow. I stayed at a place a few weeks ago on the road in the Tesla that didn't have much around there so I was trickle charging on a 120v wall plug! That was a little worrisome but since it wasn't getting driven much over the two days it was a slow fill of the tank and worked to get us to the closest L3 charger.

With respect to your RFID questions - most of the carriers that have large networks have digital cards. So I have an account with several of the key ones just so I have their "card" on my phone. This has let me have zero charging issues over my time with EV's b/c it seems most of the struggle is with the credit card readers. Since I just hold my phone up to the sensor I get to bypass that nonsense. That of course won't help you when you hit one of those little markets with their own local charging provider.
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Singularity

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This is a good thread, likely very useful stuff to learn here for many Taycaners new to EVs. I hope OP doesn't get too depressed by this experience to not try a roadtrip again anytime soon. As many have said here such a route can be driven, but it does require a bit more learning & planning to execute smoothly.

Using public chargers a bit more than just one test, is a good starting point before a major roadtrip into a difficult route (difficult as in long distances and not many fast public chargers).

Also the "how to pay for public charging" part is quite important to read a bit about. I made accounts to 4 different providers and ordered the RFID tags/cards even before getting my Taycan. These 4 in my case cover pretty much everything in my country and a lot in the neighbouring countries as well. NOTE that the tags/cards are more RELIABLE than apps, I have read about multiple cases where the app doesn't work due to internet or other issues, but the RFID tag/card does work.

So in my case I pretty much almost never use any apps, I just have the 4 tags/cards in the car and use those. The initial setup to make sure you have all the apps/tags needed is some work yes, but after you have it all set up the public charging experience is pretty good.

And yes, unfortunately you often can't just pay with a credit card. Depends on the charger but here in Finland 98% of them are not payable like that. It's either the app or the tag.

Many of the key points for an EV roadtrip were already said here. The slow chargers are good for one thing, that is the nightly charge. Just like home. This is extremely key, and I would make sure each nightly stop I make has some possibility to charge. In a "difficult" route this is just necessary as otherwise one will experience those frustrations mentioned in the OP. And yeah, on the road plan for using the fastest chargers available as much as possible.

As for issues that are unavoidable and true; the charging port location in the Taycan is problematic for many charging locations. Requires diagonal parking and silly stuff like that. For me most still work fine but probably 25% of them require some kind of shenanigans. The biggest thing that worries me are the broken chargers, which seems to be a thing everywhere. It seems no EV charging company is ever in a big hurry to fix them (OR alternatively they break down all the time). Luckily there is usually at least 1 working charger in a charging station, but that is not guaranteed to be the case.

I'm now 5000 km into my Taycan and I will be going on my first real roadtrip soon. To the Finnish & Norwegian lapland. That is a much more "difficult" area compared to where I've driven so far, but based on my initial planning it will be fine. It's all fine as long as the chargers you plan to use, are working. That's the only thing I hope for, that none of the key chargers are broken, as it's usually just 1 or 2 chargers in each stop. Wish me luck.
 
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BlueShoes

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NOTE that the tags/cards are more RELIABLE than apps, I have read about multiple cases where the app doesn't work due to internet or other issues, but the RFID tag/card does work.
Interesting - here your phone doesn't need to have any data connectivity for your RFID digital card to work. Opening an app? Yeah. But if you store your RFID card digitally (assuming your phone supports this - I only use iphone so it's all I know) you don't need any cell or data service for it to work. It just tells the physical device which RFID signature to send to the RFID transmitter.
 

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Interesting - here your phone doesn't need to have any data connectivity for your RFID digital card to work. Opening an app? Yeah. But if you store your RFID card digitally (assuming your phone supports this - I only use iphone so it's all I know) you don't need any cell or data service for it to work. It just tells the physical device which RFID signature to send to the RFID transmitter.
How do you load the RFID cards into the iPhone ? is it possible to store the Porsche Charging RFID card on the phone ?
 

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Interesting - here your phone doesn't need to have any data connectivity for your RFID digital card to work. Opening an app? Yeah. But if you store your RFID card digitally (assuming your phone supports this - I only use iphone so it's all I know) you don't need any cell or data service for it to work. It just tells the physical device which RFID signature to send to the RFID transmitter.
Yes, this concept of an RFID tag stored digitally in the phone, is actually a new one for me. Didn't know that is possible. Interesting. That is probably just as reliable as using the tags, and perhaps a bit more convenient as you always have the phone closeby. So essentially this means there are three ways to do it, either using the app or using the actual physical RFID tags/cards or using the digitally stored RFID tags from the phone.
 


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I completed my first public charging session at the EA station nearest my house. As seems to be typical of EA, three out of four charging points were down including the one 350 KW unit. I charged off of the only working charge point which was 150 KW. I used the Charging NA app to initiate the charge after being terrorized by the inoperative card reader message. The car went from 60% to 98% in about 30 minutes. I left the car off while charging which I read you are supposed to do but it was 90 F.
Start the charge session with the car off. You can turn the car on after the session starts and then sit in a comfortable air conditioned or heated car. You can also press the Pre-Cool/Heat button in the car or on your Connect app, lock the car and walk away. Without fooling with any timers it will cool or heat the interior for an hour. We do it from the Connect app at home about 30 minutes before we plan to leave (garage is very well insulated but in direct sun so it holds the heat).
 

BlueShoes

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How do you load the RFID cards into the iPhone ? is it possible to store the Porsche Charging RFID card on the phone ?
The app itself does it. Sadly, I don’t think the Porsche charging app supports it. When I’ve used it I had to open the app and tell it what charger I was going to plug in. Pretty outdated approach. Compare that to the native Electrify America app which gives me a digital card.

EDIT: wow those are big images! sorry



Porsche Taycan Taycan roadtrip for newbie EV owner was a bust DCCCAFE6-900B-4DBC-9DFF-EED5E64E5C48


Porsche Taycan Taycan roadtrip for newbie EV owner was a bust 2949F4F1-AF1A-4F8B-81AC-AD50D65F368F
 

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Gads man, sorry your trip was a bust. I did my first roadtrip last month and it was flawless and actually turned out to be quite a bit better than nearly the same route in our Tesla. It shows that the networks are not yet mature - in the midwest Electrify America easily holds its own against Tesla Superchargers. But on any EV platform, you really can only bank on using L2 charging overnight. It's just too slow. I stayed at a place a few weeks ago on the road in the Tesla that didn't have much around there so I was trickle charging on a 120v wall plug! That was a little worrisome but since it wasn't getting driven much over the two days it was a slow fill of the tank and worked to get us to the closest L3 charger.

With respect to your RFID questions - most of the carriers that have large networks have digital cards. So I have an account with several of the key ones just so I have their "card" on my phone. This has let me have zero charging issues over my time with EV's b/c it seems most of the struggle is with the credit card readers. Since I just hold my phone up to the sensor I get to bypass that nonsense. That of course won't help you when you hit one of those little markets with their own local charging provider.
[/QUOTE\]
Is there an app you use to keep them on your phone, or do you have each one's separate app?
 


BlueShoes

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Is there an app you use to keep them on your phone, or do you have each one's separate app?
It's just the Apple Wallet feature on an iphone. I don't know what android options are. The app itself has to support it... more and more do from my experience. I just keep the ones handy that I actually use when traveling. They are stacked below your payment cards. See my other post with a screenshot of my phone.
 

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I was able to do the EA charging session through the Charging NA app, no card. The app has a "plug and charge" option that was checked.
 

BlueShoes

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I was able to do the EA charging session through the Charging NA app, no card. The app has a "plug and charge" option that was checked.
Yes there there should also be a CC on file with Porsche for any overages beyond the included charging. But the app doesn’t have a digital card option that I’ve found. Which means the app has to be opened and you confirm the charger you’re at. Ideally it’d let you setup a card for NFC so you just hold your phone against the NFC reader at the charger.
 

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Yes in My Porsche I have a CC setup.
 

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It's just the Apple Wallet feature on an iphone. I don't know what android options are. The app itself has to support it... more and more do from my experience. I just keep the ones handy that I actually use when traveling. They are stacked below your payment cards. See my other post with a screenshot of my phone.
Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm on Android. Will see if Google Pay does the same (as Samsung does not). Sigh. I may have to get an iPhone after all. Ugh.
 

BlueShoes

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Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm on Android. Will see if Google Pay does the same (as Samsung does not). Sigh. I may have to get an iPhone after all. Ugh.
Man I would really be surprised if there wasn’t something equivalent! It’s a great feature to be honest.
 

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Man I would really be surprised if there wasn’t something equivalent! It’s a great feature to be honest.
I'm only given the choice of either credit cards or loyalty cards, none of which have an Evgo option, for example (or an RFID option).
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