Electrify America Fast Chargers - Huh?

[Saghost]

I'm not clear the bolded part is accurate.

If you go to Porsche Taycan 4S - Porsche USA and pick the cheapest Taycan then build, under E-Mobility, there's a $460 option called "On-Board 150 kW/400V DC Charger". If you click on the i, it says "Optional On-Board DC Charger to increase maximum charging capacity when charging at public 400V direct current charging stations. By increasing the charging capacity to 150kW, the charging time is decreased."

He's arguing that the EA 150 kW chargers are capable of going to 800V directly. Apparently the BTC supplied cabinets that some EA sites use are capable of it.

 

[cwerdna]

He's arguing that the EA 150 kW chargers are capable of going to 800V directly. Apparently the BTC supplied cabinets that some EA sites use are capable of it.

Yes, it looks like it when looking at the label on EA BTC Power charger in my area. Would be interesting to know if the car still limits itself to 50 kW anyway w/o paying for that $460 upgrade.

Unfortunately (?), from talking to the Taycan driver I know about the dizzying amount of options available on a Taycan, he said everything is "bespoke", so it sounds like the car is typically built specifically for a customer order unlike the typical process I've seen at least at Japanese car and probably American car dealerships.

IIRC, he'd ordered his car long ago and waited months to receive it.

 

[wws]

BTC is one of the EA vendors. This page clearly shows that a 150kW configuration would support that power at either 500V Max or 950V Max. However, you have to use the 350kW capable dispenser with the cooled CCS cable to reach the current required to deliver 150kW at below 500V.

BTCPower

Interesting. In fact, there is a "150kW" (only) EA site a few miles from my house. I stopped by there today, and they have three BTC units. The decals on the two I looked at state they go up to 950V and 350A.

 

[miimura]

Interesting. In fact, there is a "150kW" (only) EA site a few miles from my house. I stopped by there today, and they have three BTC units. The decals on the two I looked at state they go up to 950V and 350A.

That just means that the dispenser has the cooled cable and it will not be the limiting factor. The cabinet connected to the dispenser would be the limiting factor and I suspect that EA paired a 150kW cabinet with only one dispenser.

Personally, I think that in an urban area, it would be more interesting to pair two dispensers with the cooled cables with a 200kW cabinet that can split the power between the stalls. In that case a single Taycan could take 200kW or two e-Trons could take 100kW each. BTC explicitly supports this configuration.

 

[kayak1]

Map is out-of-date, per Supercharge.info data on Tesla. Two more V3 200+ kW sites are in the 4-state TX, OK, AR, LA area, for a total of 4 Tesla 200+ kW sites as of 12/26/2020.

curl -s https://supercharge.info/service/supercharge/allSites | jq -M '.[] | select(.address.country == "USA" and .powerKilowatt > 200 and .status == "OPEN" )' | grep -E "\"(TX|OK|AR|LA)\"|date|\"city" | grep -E -B2 "TX|OK|AR|LA" | awk -F: '{print $2}' | grep -E -o "[a-zA-Z0-9'.-]*" | xargs -n 3

Nice script.

I was able to grab the data and this is a list with the total number of SC in the state and a total > 200KW: (I ran it via sort thus the states are in order but the V3 vs total is a little random.


AK 0
AK 0
AL 0
AL 7
AR 2
AR 3
AZ 25
AZ 4
CA 198
CA 50
CO 23
CO 9
CT 10
CT 23
DE 1
DE 5
FL 16
FL 56
GA 21
GA 4
HI 0
HI 0
IA 0
IA 8
ID 1
ID 6
IL 26
IL 7
IN 15
IN 4
KS 1
KS 9
KY 1
KY 6
LA 1
LA 7
MA 23
MA 3
MD 20
MD 4
ME 1
ME 11
MI 1
MI 21
MN 15
MN 4
MO 0
MO 13
MS 0
MS 6
MT 13
MT 4
NC 2
NC 20
ND 4
ND 4
NE 0
NE 5
NH 1
NH 7
NJ 30
NJ 7
NM 0
NM 9
NV 19
NV 3
NY 52
NY 9
OH 1
OH 18
OK 0
OK 5
OR 18
OR 4
PA 27
PA 7
RI 0
RI 1
SC 3
SC 8
SD 0
SD 8
TN 11
TN 2
TX 1
TX 50
UT 0
UT 14
VA 10
VA 28
VT 1
VT 4
WA 29
WA 8
WI 0
WI 12
WV 0
WV 8
WY 1
WY 11

 

[Jeff N]

Wow, there is a bunch of confusion here.

There are lies, damn lies, and finally EA DCFC maps.

Not sure what that specifically means. The maps are accurate in that the sites do exist at those locations. Does EA still have reliability problems? Yes. But I’ve charged at several dozen EA sites in the western US (many of them on multiple occasions at different times of the year) on many road trips and I’ve only failed to get a charge and had to stay overnight at a hotel unexpectedly once. I have had failures with one or two stalls and had to switch to get a charge on way too many occasions.

Go to the EA quarterly report and pull up the average number of charging stations per site. And follow that up with the usage statistics. Hint: EA chargers in middle America are covered with cobwebs. And it ain't a Halloween decoration

The same was true of many 4-stall Supercharger sites in middle America back in the day when there were many fewer Tesla cars on the road. This will change quickly as more car models from more makers hit the market in the next 2-3 years. Not having to fight over charging stalls right now is a good thing.

....As far as I know there are very few vehicles available that can use even 200kW on the EA chargers. (Is the Taycan the only one?)

I think Taycan is the only one right now but the Audi e-tron GT is happening soon and that is based on the 800V Taycan powertrain (I think offhand). I’m pretty sure Lucid is 800V. Rivian was originally 400V but that could have changed recently... I’m not sure. I assume there will soon be multiple high-end 800V models with larger batteries charging at 200 kW or more.

The only cars that can break 200 kW on EA chargers are the 800V cars, on the single 350 kW/1000V rated stall EA installs at each site.

Ironically, if that stall isn't available or isn't working, they charge slower than other cars, having to use an onboard transformer to get battery voltage from the 500V max of the other stalls. Taycan has a 50 kW transformer standard; a 150 kW version is optional.

EA does not have any single stall 350 kW sites, as far as I know. Essentially all of their highway sites have two 350 kW stalls. Some of these sites are urban locations. All EA rural locations have two 350 kW stalls and at least two additional 150 kW stalls.

Essentially all newer-generation chargers support up to at least 920V and that certainly includes all EA chargers — even their 50 kW stalls (except for the small number of EVgo-hosted units that EA paid for very early on).

So, the Taycan charges at the peak power output on 50 kW or 150 kW EA stalls. The Taycan’s onboard DC voltage booster is only used when charging on older-generation chargers that almost universally support a peak of 50 kW (a tiny number support 100 kW but none in North America as far as I know).

I wrote about this here:
Should Porsche Taycan buyers pay for the 150 kW “DC charger” option?

Even here in the SF Bay Area, EA utilization looks very low. Every time I've been to or driven by an EA charger, either I'm the only user or there is nobody there. The only exception is when I went to meet w/a Taycan driver at an EA charger. He's a Bolt driver who recently got a Taycan.

Before meeting him, I had done some digging and realized that Taycans (Porsche being owned by VW and EA being owned by VW of America) get 3 years of free EA charging (30 minute DC FC sessions at a time w/1 hour timeout in between) as long as the EA session is started from Porsche's app. That explains why I'd been seeing numerous Taycan checkins on Plugshare at EA sites in the past few months.

Also, they get discounted charging (25 cents a minute in CA) once they pass the 30 minute free charging.

Also, he mentioned that most of the EA chargers in my city are only 150 kW. He had to go to Gilroy to use a 350 kW unit.

EA has similar manufacturer pre-paid charging plans with other car makers and I assume more will be done in the future. For example, Ford includes a limited amount of “free” DC charging at EA with each Mach-e.

Of the 30-something operational EA sites around the SF Bay Area, the Novato and Livermore locations also support 350 kW. The vast majority are 150 kW and a few are 50 kW locations.

If you go to Porsche Taycan 4S - Porsche USA and pick the cheapest Taycan then build, under E-Mobility, there's a $460 option called "On-Board 150 kW/400V DC Charger". If you click on the i, it says "Optional On-Board DC Charger to increase maximum charging capacity when charging at public 400V direct current charging stations. By increasing the charging capacity to 150kW, the charging time is decreased."

Except that are basically no chargers that are limited to 500V but can supply 150 kW. They simply don’t exist. There are a tiny number of such chargers installed in Europe and that’s about it. That option is waste of money.

Yes, it looks like it when looking at the label on EA BTC Power charger in my area. Would be interesting to know if the car still limits itself to 50 kW anyway w/o paying for that $460 upgrade.

Nope, there are no artificial limitations on the Taycan.

That just means that the dispenser has the cooled cable and it will not be the limiting factor. The cabinet connected to the dispenser would be the limiting factor and I suspect that EA paired a 150kW cabinet with only one dispenser.

Personally, I think that in an urban area, it would be more interesting to pair two dispensers with the cooled cables with a 200kW cabinet that can split the power between the stalls. In that case a single Taycan could take 200kW or two e-Trons could take 100kW each. BTC explicitly supports this configuration.

EA does not implement power splitting even though BTC and perhaps other equipment theoretically supports it. Tesla is moving away from power splitting as well. It’s urban 72 kW stalls and I’m pretty sure it’s 250 kW V3 stalls (oops, I was wrong about V3) all have dedicated charging cabinets up to their full capability.

 

[MP3Mike]

I’m pretty sure it’s 250 kW V3 stalls all have dedicated charging cabinets up to their full capability.

Actually they don't. A single V3 cabinet supports 4 stalls and only has ~350kW of AC input power to split between them. However, it also has a ~575kW DC bus to share power between cabinets and/or battery packs. So a standalone cabinet can supply 4 stalls ~90kW each on its own, or ~230kW per stall if it can take full advantage of the DC bus.

 

[Jeff N]

Actually they don't. A single V3 cabinet supports 4 stalls and only has ~350kW of AC input power to split between them. However, it also has a ~575kW DC bus to share power between cabinets and/or battery packs. So a standalone cabinet can supply 4 stalls ~90kW each on its own, or ~230kW per stall if it can take full advantage of the DC bus.

Thanks for that info. I haven’t had a chance to closely inspect the charging cabinets yet in person although I have seen the V3 stall dispensers.

 

[Jeff N]

A couple of clarifications...

EA does not have any single stall 350 kW sites, as far as I know. Essentially all of their highway sites have two 350 kW stalls. Some of these sites are urban locations. All EA rural locations have two 350 kW stalls and at least two additional 150 kW stalls.

All EA Highway sites have at least 4 stalls — so two are 350 kW and at least two others are 150 kW. On popular highways near urban areas there can be as many as ten stalls (although I think there may be a 12 stall location somewhere).

Urban sites typically have three 150 kW stalls although some early installations have 50 kW stalls. Some newer urban sites may have up to six stalls.

Except that are basically no chargers that are limited to 500V but can supply 150 kW. They simply don’t exist. There are a tiny number of such chargers installed in Europe and that’s about it. That option is waste of money.

The tiny number of chargers limited to 500V that support greater than 50 kW only support 100 kW. I’m not aware of any 150 kW chargers that are limited to 500V.

 

[Candleflame]

You've got some weird expectations - when I heard there were supposed to be 8 spots at the charger pictured above, I thought that would mean 8. Not 4.

A 4 stall charging station is pathetic compared to SCs.

in aus we are lucky to have 1 stall 50kw chargers.

 

[FlatSix911]

Lets take a look at a map of the 200+kW chargers-Tesla and EA

Tesla: View attachment 621100

EA:View attachment 621101

The critical question... how many EA chargers are currently working on any given day?

 

[RubberToe]

The critical question... how many EA chargers are currently working on any given day?

And along the lines of: If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, did it really make a noise...

If an EA charger is not working, but there is no one actually trying to charge, did it really fail?

RT

 

[Billyk24]

The critical question... how many EA chargers are currently working on any given day?

Critical question also-how many Superchargers are working or outputting what they claim to do?

 

[Feathermerchan]

Well if you have a Tesla, you can see on the screen. If you're navigating the car will tell skip any non-functional Superchargers. And if you're navigating (driving), across the country for instance, the car will tell you in real time that a Supercharger has quit working and re-route you.

 

[jerry33]

Critical question also-how many Superchargers are working or outputting what they claim to do?

Having taken over 75K miles of Tesla road trips during the past eight years. I have had one instance of where they were not working. In that case the entire town's electricity was out so gas vehicles also lined up. Electricity came back online about an hour after we arrived. This is just a non-issue.

 

[Billyk24]

Critical question also-how many Superchargers are working or outputting what they claim to do?

 

[Feathermerchan]

Uh Troll

 

[Big Earl]

Critical question also-how many Superchargers are working or outputting what they claim to do?

I just got back from a 13,000 mile road trip. Nearly all of them.

 

[alloverx]

Now whether the older Tesla's get a high charging rate is another question but its clear that that Tesla have the best and simplest charging network in the world.

 

[cwerdna]

Here's another problem with SAE Combo/Combo1:

Look at the current 1st pic at PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You and the check-in by BarBoltEV on 1/8/21. He says:

While charging today I noticed that three of the four CCS plugs [fixed his typo] have broken clips. I have reported this to Electrify America but I want to warn others of the danger. Do not attempt to unplug if the charger is actively running, serious damage to the vehicle could occur. I’m also not sure who is breaking these plugs like this but I wish people could be more considerate

I actually know him from charging station encounters when he only had a Bolt. He now has a Taycan so he's enjoying his free 3 years of 30 minutes at a time sessions on Electrify America (since EA is VW of America owned and VW owns Porsche).