My 2024 Macan EV Never Seems to DC Fast Charge at its Potential

[daveo4EV]

And this is exactly why I was asking the question and the point I was trying to make. ??

you and I are in violent agreement…

sometimes the EV charging session dice negotiate a 400V session - and which point optimal charging rate are off the table…

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[daveo4EV]

I know it can be worse, but, I bought this car for its 800v charge curve. If I knew going in that the charging networks can't are not guaranteed to provide it, I might have bought something else.

TIFIFY…

can and will are two different things

the charging network can do optimal charging
any given charging stall will not always do optimal charging
that actual speed you will achieve for any given session is outside your control

it's a harsh reality no doubt and a missed expectation - but is the current state of the infrastructure.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

you and I are in violent agreement…

sometimes the EV charging session dice negotiate a 400V session - and which point optimal charging rate are off the table…

I think many of the responses that I see here don't really acknowledge the key issues:

(1) over a 3 week period, I saw 17 of 19 DC fast charging curves across 7 eastern states that were suboptimal. My experience was as if I were charging a 400v car when I was stopping with (what this forum thinks are) "optimal" car characteristics.

(2) the diagnostic information available about the car charging sessions from the car seems to be minimal to none.

It seems like driving the car around peak travel seasons like July 4 is inherently a potential non-optimal outcome for owners until the charging network improves. Prospective owners have been warned.

 

[daveo4EV]

I think many of the responses that I see here don't really acknowledge the key issues:

(1) over a 3 week period, I saw 17 of 19 DC fast charging curves across 7 eastern states that were suboptimal. My experience was as if I were charging a 400v car when I was stopping with (what this forum thinks are) "optimal" car characteristics.

(2) the diagnostic information available about the car charging sessions from the car seems to be minimal to none.

It seems like driving the car around peak travel seasons like July 4 is inherently a potential non-optimal outcome for owners until the charging network improves. Prospective owners have been warned.

yeah? and?

the CCS network in north America current sucks - that’s well understood

what is also well understood is it’s largely outside of the EV drivers control and there is a lack of information to identify problems for any given session - but even if you had that information it would not change the outcome…

none of this is a surprising outcome to myself or i’d venture most members of most EV forums

here is a pro tip - assume it's not the car 99.9% of the time - you'll be right 100% of the time.

 

[daveo4EV]

new title suggestion …

[North America] most 800v EVs will only achieve optimal charge rates rarely if ever given NAs crappy CCS infrastructure - and you will have no idea why

I thought most EV owners knew this - it’s not a secret

yeah that’s it

 

[SteveInKirkland]

new title suggestion …

[North America] most 800v EVs will only achieve optimal charge rates rarely if ever given NAs crappy CCS infrastructure - and you will have no idea why

I thought most EV owners knew this - it’s not a secret

yeah that’s it

Almost. But, pessimistically, it's even worse than that.

Because even the new infrastructure stations being built today with 400 kW Alpitronic chargers suck in NA. Don't believe those YouTube content creators. Americans have taken one of the few advanced Italian technologies that works in Europe and made it suck. It's deep fried, stuffed crust 1 mega calorie chalupa pizza.

 

[Zcd1]

Although the AVAILABILITY of EA’s network has occasionally been a problem for us, its actual performance hasn’t been (ours is admittedly a limited data set)

We’ve never tried any MB network chargers. The only non-EA stations we’ve used have been Tesla Superchargers and they immediately delivered the 97kW peak that’s possible for our EV.

The biggest difference in our experience, though is that we knew what to expect, while the OP seemingly didn’t…

 

[USMA81]

I’ve used EA exclusively and occasionally in Arizona during this “free year.” Maybe 20 sessions total so far. These sessions for me are at a limited number of EA locations because I travel one intercity route frequently. I’ve had a few, slower sessions, but mostly have been happy with the charging (and even availability). I don’t always get peak rates, but often I do, enough times that I never bothered to count the sessions when I did / didn’t get good rates. I‘m not worried about speeds because 95% of my charging is at home. Overall, I’d rate my high speed charging experience as 8/10. I have a longer road trip coming up and look forward to confirming or refuting this rating with more stations in other locations.

 

[daveo4EV]

if you choose to focus on it you can be very very upset/frustrated by CCS charging and it's speed and reliability - it clearly has room for improvement…

for me personally I contextualize it vs. the rest of the time when I'm not fast charging and mostly driving around on home charging overnight and the convenience that brings with it

the CCS experience sucks no doubt - but I tolerate because I love the EV thing the other 48 weeks of the year - and I do get the occasional awesome charging session

when it actually works it's pretty slick - too bad it doesn't work all the time…

 

[SteveInKirkland]

Although the AVAILABILITY of EA’s network has occasionally been a problem for us, its actual performance hasn’t been (ours is admittedly a limited data set)

We’ve never tried any MB network chargers. The only non-EA stations we’ve used have been Tesla Superchargers and they immediately delivered the 97kW peak that’s possible for our EV.

The biggest difference in our experience, though is that we knew what to expect, while the OP seemingly didn’t…

I lived through 9,600 baud modems that were easier to understand whether you had a connection problem than a modern EA EV charging station.

My past experience with EA charger performance has been better than this most recent trip. So, when I hit a string of 17 suboptimal charging sessions in a row, it made me wonder whether the problem was the car or the assumptions or something else. Again, if the diagnostic information told us anything useful, maybe I wouldn't have posted the initial gripe.

 

[daveo4EV]

I lived through 9,600 baud modems that were easier to understand whether you had a connection problem than a modern EA EV charging station.

My past experience with EA charger performance has been better than this most recent trip. So, when I hit a string of 17 suboptimal charging sessions in a row, it made me wonder whether the problem was the car or the assumptions or something else. Again, if the diagnostic information told us anything useful, maybe I wouldn't have posted the initial gripe.

the complete lack of any diagnostics does make this very very frustrating … in speaking with the service techs for EA - the logs from the chargers are very detailed if they are enabled - and they are very very insightful if they are enabled - EA chooses to avoid doing too much analysis of charging sessions logs to avoid them having any knowledge of how sh*tty their network is - they prefer to "not know" vs. trying to resolve issues…

 

[PrudentOcean]

My hope is that later this year we'll get a substantial software update that includes the feature from the facelifted Taycan which shows the requested vs. delivered DC current.

 

[CandianPorsche83]

I know it can be worse, but, I bought this car for its 800v charge curve. If I knew going in that the charging networks can't provide it, I might have bought something else.

Out of curiosity what would you had bought instead?

 

[strwbryfruitcake]

EA 350kW station in Orange County (Irvine Spectrum) - I've seen as low as 140kW to as fast as 270kW at the same exact charger. It's def faster when it isn't as busy but I've never seen it drop below 140kW all the way up to 80%. All charging from below ~15% to 80%+. Regardless of speed, I've always finish charging to 80% in less than 30 minutes (usually around 20-25 min) so I've just put it past me and not mind the +/- 10 minutes.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

Out of curiosity what would you had bought instead?

Our original plan was (a) 39 month lease a Tesla Model Y and my wife would use it as a beater on short trips and I would rarely drive it. We would just be waiting for something better to come along and we would buy out the Tesla lease as soon as we found a decent electric SUV. I would just keep driving my sports car and we would rent an internal combustion engine SUV for longer drives. (b) we have a Rivian R2 reservation.

Up until 2 days ago, I thought we would buy a Cayenne EV when it released for our 2nd home. But I think my wife is a hard no on new Porsche SUV EV purchases until we resolve the charging issues.

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