Magic Dock Success!

After My experience yesterday where a piece of plastic in my charge port prevented charging, I decided I owed the Magic Dock another try.

I decided to go back out to Fort Worth after work - this time with a healthy SoC to get me anywhere (including back home) if needed.

I specifically used the exact same stall I attempted yesterday.

I have to say I came away extremely impressed.
It. Worked. Flawlessly.

Managing the app and starting the charge was simple.
The dock was easy to handle.
Even the charging itself started faster, ran quieter and with less drama than an EA charge.

If I were road tripping, I would rather pay for these Superchargers than use EA's for free.

That being said, there -are- a couple things that could be improved.

1. The cables are very short. I was able to use a trailer pull-through spot that worked perfectly, but if that wasn't there I would have had to straddle two spots to make it reach.
2. Porsche's GPS seems to have no knowledge of these chargers, so I wasn't able to precondition the battery. My SoC was too high for a full-speed charge anyway so it wasn't a deal breaker, and I still got 106kW proving my 150kW/400V upgrade is working.

DerekS said:

After My experience yesterday where a piece of plastic in my charge port prevented charging, I decided I owed the Magic Dock another try.

I decided to go back out to Fort Worth after work - this time with a healthy SoC to get me anywhere (including back home) if needed.

I specifically used the exact same stall I attempted yesterday.

I have to say I came away extremely impressed.
It. Worked. Flawlessly.

Managing the app and starting the charge was simple.
The dock was easy to handle.
Even the charging itself started faster, ran quieter and with less drama than an EA charge.

If I were road tripping, I would rather pay for these Superchargers than use EA's for free.

That being said, there -are- a couple things that could be improved.

1. The cables are very short. I was able to use a trailer pull-through spot that worked perfectly, but if that wasn't there I would have had to straddle two spots to make it reach.
2. Porsche's GPS seems to have no knowledge of these chargers, so I wasn't able to precondition the battery. My SoC was too high for a full-speed charge anyway so it wasn't a deal breaker, and I still got 106kW proving my 150kW/400V upgrade is working.

Click to expand...

this mirror's my experience with both EA and MagicDock Tesla Superchargers…sorry for your original troubles, but glad you got it resolved - the pre-conditioning thing is an issue…

the fastest charge I've gotten with a Tesla Magicdock is 142 kW…but it settles into 132-136 kW for the majority of the session at my local supercharger (Scotts Valley, CA)

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

bn8959 said:

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

Click to expand...

I didn’t know that!!

bn8959 said:

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

Click to expand...

To what temperature does your car preheat the battery when you give this command?

whitex said:

To what temperature does your car preheat the battery when you give this command?

Click to expand...

Sorry, don’t know - only had my GTS for 2 days, but I tried this on a loaner - not because I needed to DCFC, but I borrowed it to test my home EVSE before delivery of my GTS and the dealer gave the loaner to me with 100% SoC, so was thinking of ways to drain the battery a bit before I got home!

bn8959 said:

Sorry, don’t know - only had my GTS for 2 days, but I tried this on a loaner - not because I needed to DCFC, but I borrowed it to test my home EVSE before delivery of my GTS and the dealer gave the loaner to me with 100% SoC, so was thinking of ways to drain the battery a bit before I got home!

Click to expand...

How did you know the battery was being preheated? What indication did you have that it was? Preheat in PCM vernacular refers to cabin/battery pre-conditioning timer, so are you sure it didn't just turn on pre-conditioning or maybe setup a timer for you?

DerekS said:

Porsche's GPS seems to have no knowledge of these chargers, so I wasn't able to precondition the battery. My SoC was too high for a full-speed charge anyway so it wasn't a deal breaker, and I still got 106kW proving my 150kW/400V upgrade is working.

Click to expand...

We are more fortunate here in Europe since we have the CCS2 connector. And Tesla have opened very many stations Open for All cars. I felt driving through Germany as well as Netherlands and Switzerland, that there were very few stations that NOT were open for all?? Might have been a lot of the older V2 stations with the Tesla original connector??? The short cables can still be an issue of course, but normally there were plenty of stalls free, so moron parking was ok. Stayed in the car of course, ready to move if needed.

I can also find the Tesla station in the navigator, but never reflected on the pre heating. My battery was at 30+ C anyhow and the TesLa charger gave me 135 to 140 kW anyway. It still gave me a charge from just under 20% to 85 % in half an hour. Faster than I could finish my lunch!! I have assumed that the lower than 150 kW was due to losses in the voltage converter?

bn8959 said:

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

Click to expand...

I have tried this on my 22 4S a couple times. All it seems to do is raise the cabin temp. Perhaps I am not using proper SW UK accent for the command?

SOC at charging start was 62%?
@DerekS is no longer da 0% Man.....

whitex said:

How did you know the battery was being preheated? What indication did you have that it was? Preheat in PCM vernacular refers to cabin/battery pre-conditioning timer, so are you sure it didn't just turn on pre-conditioning or maybe setup a timer for you?

Click to expand...

When you give that command, the lady replies 'The Battery will be warm soon'.
Temperature did increase on the HV battery to around 34 degrees (c).

bn8959 said:

When you give that command, the lady replies 'The Battery will be warm soon'.
Temperature did increase on the HV battery to around 34 degrees (c).

Click to expand...

Interesting. I will give it a try next time I travel using non-Porsche navigation. I've been using Sport+ which has a similar battery thermal profile to DCFC. I wonder if battery pre-heat actually heated it up to 34C (which is the point where battery cooling for fast charging kicks in) or did it just let the battery get there (no active heating above ~12C while DC charging.

bn8959 said:

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

Click to expand...

Really? Wow.

Beats having to trick the car in the PCM into thinking it's going to a charger on the car's map, when you're in fact going to a better one that isn't in the car's satnav!!

bn8959 said:

Remember you can say ‘Hey Porsche, preheat the battery’ - one option if you know you’re headed to a SC not in the Nav.

Click to expand...

Hmm, not convinced this is a command. More likely to adjust cabin temp etc which in turn uses more energy which in turn heats the battery due to the natural chemical reaction.

Happy to be proved wrong but 'preheat' command I can see working but specific to the battery not.

I used two Magic Docks yesterday. And this was after reading your original account the prior evening, eek!

Overall, even though the speeds did not hit 150, far better than any other DCFC session we’ve had with either of our household’s CCS1 EVs (unless you count the FAST ABB R&D session, but the security guard arrival was also pretty fast).


Adapter Deployment:

Amazingly clever! I must have been behind in my Social Media Influencer video viewing, since I didn’t realize that a Magic Dock is essentially just an entirely separate CCS1-P<>NACS-R adapter that automatically attaches to the NACS-P cable depending upon the user profile in the Tesla app. Which makes the existence of the A2Z aftermarket prototype even less surprising since the Magic Dock adapter is the same thing, just releasable only within the Magic Dock stall, not by the EV driver.

And the app functionality is already ready to go for CCS1 drivers. The only missing element is some way of verifying that the EV model is from one of Tesla’s partners. Although perhaps Tesla won’t bother, and will instead open it up to VAG and also BMW (please pretty please!).


App Fiddling:

From when I opened the app to when charging started, still faster than EA with Taycan Plug & Charge.


Cables:

Short! Makes sense given how the Tesla charger port location is so far back as to be part of the tail light assembly. I measured my wife’s i4 port location at ~36” back from the rear bumper. The Taycan location, although on the correct side of the car, is ~54” back from the front valance. And although the i4 rear bumper would be fine hanging over the curb, the Taycan front valance, not so fine!

At the Brewster NY Magic Dock, I pulled straight in, wasn’t close enough. Tried again, still not close enough. Notice that the eighth stall was set up for parallel parking only, so switched over to that. Although since nobody else was there at first (Monday morning, ~10:25), I could have taken up multiple parking spaces. Eventually a couple other cars arrived. Still though, only three out of eight spots were occupied. Then again, had this been an EA station, would have had only four chargers, one of which would have broken, so me plus two other cars would have been a full house!

At the Enfield CT Magic Dock, out of twelve chargers, a Tesla was at one end, with nobody else (Monday night, ~8:55), so I just parallel parked to take up two spots.

I’m sure that eventually I could have parked head-in and gotten the cable to work, since I was very close on my second try at Brewster, but the research curiosity wasn’t worth a few extra minutes.


Speed:

Had been hoping to hit 150 kW (or 149.9999999999), but no such luck. Although still better than any EA sessions we’ve experienced, unless you count one session that took 26 minutes to initiate, or what the i4 thought was EA but turned out to be a restricted-access ABB R&D facility.

Brewster was recognized by PCM as a charging location, and displayed battery temp reflected that. Started at 128kW w/ 52% and stayed around then until eventually decreasing (since I was charging to 99%).

Enfield is not known even by Google, since it opened only at the end of last month. But with Sport Plus drive mode, battery temp was at 82F, so I didn’t bother trying to trick with the PCM with another charging location. SoC started at something like 9%, and almost immediately reached 132kW. I was tempted to stay longer to see if the speed might increase, but I barely needed much to get home, so didn’t bother.


Plug Release:

Maybe just my imagination, but seemed like a tighter fit and required more wiggling to release?

And I think the correct sequence is to first press the Taycan release button then the Tesla release button. Or maybe the sequence makes no difference?

Insertion had seemed normal. Although that Taycan DC flap does not inspire confidence. By contrast the i4 has both AC and DC flaps, and they’re really nifty. By that’s also a byproduct of a shared ICE/EV platform, so the charge port has lots of extra space since it’s also the gas fuel filler.


Pricing:

Compared to the total ownership cost of any Taycan, such differentials are lost in the rounding, even with free EA charging.

But given that we pay 37 cents at home (and despite our solar, with net metering, even that isn’t free, given the opportunity cost of any charging), it was pretty trivial. I paid way more in tolls. Or even just a large cup at the Lego Pick A Brick wall after skiing at the Meadowlands mall.