Macan EV owners get special preference at EA chargers with 85% limit

[SteveInKirkland]

It appears that Macan EV owners within 1 year of ownership get 30 minute charging sessions even if they are at an Electrify America station that has an 85% limit. During a session today, I pulled to 89% without interruption from the 85% limited charger.

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[PrudentOcean]

It appears that Macan EV owners within 1 year of ownership get 30 minute charging sessions even if they are at an Electrify America station that has an 85% limit. During a session today, I pulled to 89% without interruption from the 85% limited charger.

That's not universally true. All of my charging has been done at a EA station that has a 85% limit, and I have the car set to 90%. The charging stops automatically as soon as the car reports 86% SoC to the charger.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

That's not universally true. All of my charging has been done at a EA station that has a 85% limit, and I have the car set to 90%. The charging stops automatically as soon as the car reports 86% SoC to the charger.

Interesting!

I set mine to 100% today and just let it go. I manually stopped it at 89% when the limit was supposedly 85%. The more interesting part (to me) is that EA claims that chargers with the limit always have the limit, regardless of whether the entire station has one 1 car for 6 stalls. But we both saw different results on a 85% limited charger.

 

[PrudentOcean]

The station I have been using only has four chargers, but one of them has been down for weeks, so effectively it's a three charger station. I have never gone there and not had to wait at least ten minutes.

Even if the 85% limit only applied if all chargers are in use, it wouldn't ever come into play at that location.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

The station I have been using only has four chargers, but one of them has been down for weeks, so effectively it's a three charger station. I have never gone there and not had to wait at least ten minutes.

Even if the 85% limit only applied if all chargers are in use, it wouldn't ever come into play at that location.

It's sort of amazing to me that we have such low expectations of software engineers. Of course they can't do something like write software that takes a condition "like EVSE 1 of 4 is down" and use that in a computation!

EA's app (and the Porsche app) reported that 2 of the 5 stalls at my charging location today were not available. So, sometimes EA knows the stalls are not working. Which makes the situation even sadder that "complicated" logic that any one of us can perform in an instant isn't being done by the software.

 

[PrudentOcean]

To their credit, the My Porsche app and in-car navigation system know that it’s effectively a three charger station — they have access to the realtime (or near-realtime) status of the Electrify America chargers. EA’s own website doesn’t show that charger #4 is broken, nor does it show that all three working chargers are currently in use.

EA is about the worst charging network Porsche could have partnered with. I understand why they did it, but there are better options.

 

[ColdCase]

I've not had a problem charging to 90% using EA plug and charge, but tappered to ~60kw. I've seen at a couple 350w stations routinely charging at only 75kW where an iconic pulls in at another identical charger and receives 145kW (we are the only two charging as a four station site). Perhaps EA derates the Porsche (or they want us to go over the 30 minute free charge period). I did see 125 kW at a distant 350w EA site. Not that I'm cynical but I don't see that behavior at other provider stations like Shell. I usually receiving at least 175kW until the Macan starts backing off as it approaches 80%.. I'm not often charging under ideal conditions.

 

[PrudentOcean]

The 85% limit only applies at select EA locations to prevent congestion that can occur when people charge to 100%, which is much slower than charging to 85% due to the taper.

 

[flowerman]

I've reached the 30 minute free limit several times when the charger slows down above 80%. I just unplugged (no one was waiting) and plugged back in for another free charging session.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

I've reached the 30 minute free limit several times when the charger slows down above 80%. I just unplugged (no one was waiting) and plugged back in for another free charging session.

Yes, most EA EVSE stations are not subject an 85% limit. I was at a station yesterday that is subject to an 85% limit and it let me charge past 85% and it appeared to be letting me go for 30 minutes. This is unusual but some of my friends have reported this happening on Volkswagen ID.4s (which are also getting free 30 minute charging sessions for the first year) too.

Yesterday was my first visit to an 85% limited charger that was included in the expansion of the program.

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