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My first, absolutely freezing, road trip

Duke95

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Well, it is not done yet but I am halfway...traveled from Chicago to Des Moines, and been here a few days. Temps plummeted...12 F right now.

So how did the Macan do? As a first time ev owner, well, good and bad. Will share what I saw here and post again I hope at the end of the trip.

Driving here, about 5.5 hours, was at 38 F. Got 2.4 miles per kwh..a 230 mile range. Drove 80 mph gps (was 83 according to the car). So yeah, combo of speed and temps killed range by probably 35 percent.

On the way I hit up a shell recharge station 150 kw, saw 80 peak when going from about 18 to 65%. Both the car and plugshare said there were two available working chargers. When I got there there was only one and it was occupied. Luckily the guy left in about a minute but then it would not take my credit card. I called the 800 number and they hooked me up thru the phone but then halfway through charging it stopped with a charging error. I reconnected tried my card and somehow it worked that time. This happened three more times before I finally gave up as I realized I could make it to the next station. By the way, shell charged me $60 for the first session and $20 for each new session so I got banged up for $140! I'll be calling them on Monday to complain and try and get a reasonable refund.

Overall driving was great. Smooth, quiet, powerful, just great. My only complaint would be the inno drive. Kyle and others say is pretty spot on in tracking. I found that at least at over 80 mph with straight nicely painted roads, but some crosswind, it would fishtail a bit. Less than the Tesla I drove a couple of years ago on a rental, and certainly not annoying. It's there for sure. It seems to like to choose to lean onto one side of the lane or the other and it always seems to want to lean into the side of the lane that has another car! Getting too close for comfort! So I had to tug it back to center quite a bit.

My second stop was at a 350 electrify America. While my plug and charge does not work, and trust me, I have tried every trick in the book on these forums as did my dealer, with no luck. I found how on a forum to use EA through the my Porsche app and it worked perfectly. Got 230 peak.

Then the fun began. The weather plummeted down into the teens. The car got 2 mi per kilowatt on two half hour highway drives. That is a whopping 185 mile range folks. Again doing 80, and driving in perhaps 20° weather. I went to a local electrify America charging station 350. I charged for 20 to 60% with the battery at a starting temp of 30°. My 50% it had gotten up to 75°. But I never saw more than 100 kilowatts going in. The charging session had one error and I needed to replugnin.

With such terrible range, I had to charge again the next day. And that is where I am now. Staring at again 100 kilowatts going into the car which started a 20% and is now at 64% with an 81° battery. Pretty disappointing that I'm not getting more kilowatts right now. Had one charging error a long the way had to reconnect at a different charger.

So thoughts so far? Wow! Does cold weather and high-speed kill range! And wow charging is an adventure out here! Between not having accurate data on which chargers are working and which are not occupied to having charging errors at every single stop so far, And at this one electrify America station at least not being able to get over a hundred or so on a 350, well it's not what I expected it to be. Let's just leave it at that. But love the car!
 

daveo4EV

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public charging is hit/miss with CCS1 vehicle's in North America - this is frustrating no doubt - I have been personally impacted by this many times - but it is getting better (cold comfort when you're the one at the bad site, trust me I know) - that doens't hlep you right now I know that- but having driven EV's since 2011 and a Taycan since 2020 - and a Macan 2675 miles just this month - all I can say is you would've had a worse experience 18-24 months ago - I think it will be all good in 3-4 years if they keep building it out…

I'm hoping access to the Tesla supercharger network will make things better - more stalls, more reliability - charging speeds should be the same - battery temperature is a key requirement for fast charging - so yeah cold temps…will affect it greatly…supercharger access should happen sometime in 2025…

here is great post from the Taycan community about charging speeds, battery SOC, and temp

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/t...my-taycan-charge-as-fast-as-i-want-it-to.779/

I can also report that once you get home and start using an at home charger your use of the public charging network will plummet and EV's are much easier to live with if you have your own home charging.

great write up - and I also experienced inno-drive with x-winds on my 2675 mile trip…it could do better.

speed is a huge range killer - if you can drive less than 80 mph you'll extend your range by quite a bit - even with the colder temps…come spring your range will be much much better - this is a common cycle for EV ownership - cold months less range, it all comes back once jack-frost leaves for a while…
 
Last edited:

daveo4EV

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Well, it is not done yet but I am halfway...traveled from Chicago to Des Moines, and been here a few days. Temps plummeted...12 F right now.

So how did the Macan do? As a first time ev owner, well, good and bad. Will share what I saw here and post again I hope at the end of the trip.

Driving here, about 5.5 hours, was at 38 F. Got 2.4 miles per kwh..a 230 mile range. Drove 80 mph gps (was 83 according to the car). So yeah, combo of speed and temps killed range by probably 35 percent.

On the way I hit up a shell recharge station 150 kw, saw 80 peak when going from about 18 to 65%. Both the car and plugshare said there were two available working chargers. When I got there there was only one and it was occupied. Luckily the guy left in about a minute but then it would not take my credit card. I called the 800 number and they hooked me up thru the phone but then halfway through charging it stopped with a charging error. I reconnected tried my card and somehow it worked that time. This happened three more times before I finally gave up as I realized I could make it to the next station. By the way, shell charged me $60 for the first session and $20 for each new session so I got banged up for $140! I'll be calling them on Monday to complain and try and get a reasonable refund.

Overall driving was great. Smooth, quiet, powerful, just great. My only complaint would be the inno drive. Kyle and others say is pretty spot on in tracking. I found that at least at over 80 mph with straight nicely painted roads, but some crosswind, it would fishtail a bit. Less than the Tesla I drove a couple of years ago on a rental, and certainly not annoying. It's there for sure. It seems to like to choose to lean onto one side of the lane or the other and it always seems to want to lean into the side of the lane that has another car! Getting too close for comfort! So I had to tug it back to center quite a bit.

My second stop was at a 350 electrify America. While my plug and charge does not work, and trust me, I have tried every trick in the book on these forums as did my dealer, with no luck. I found how on a forum to use EA through the my Porsche app and it worked perfectly. Got 230 peak.

Then the fun began. The weather plummeted down into the teens. The car got 2 mi per kilowatt on two half hour highway drives. That is a whopping 185 mile range folks. Again doing 80, and driving in perhaps 20° weather. I went to a local electrify America charging station 350. I charged for 20 to 60% with the battery at a starting temp of 30°. My 50% it had gotten up to 75°. But I never saw more than 100 kilowatts going in. The charging session had one error and I needed to replugnin.

With such terrible range, I had to charge again the next day. And that is where I am now. Staring at again 100 kilowatts going into the car which started a 20% and is now at 64% with an 81° battery. Pretty disappointing that I'm not getting more kilowatts right now. Had one charging error a long the way had to reconnect at a different charger.

So thoughts so far? Wow! Does cold weather and high-speed kill range! And wow charging is an adventure out here! Between not having accurate data on which chargers are working and which are not occupied to having charging errors at every single stop so far, And at this one electrify America station at least not being able to get over a hundred or so on a 350, well it's not what I expected it to be. Let's just leave it at that. But love the car!
also I've had better luck with these types of EA stations…single cord - newer - it's what they are replacing - their older stations with and they have been much better at least for me - can you comment on if you've been having problems with these types of stations…

Electric Macan EV My first, absolutely freezing, road trip IMG_4353


the "two cord" stations shown below have been the worst for me personally - all sorts of problem and reliablilty issues…I think EA is working to replace them nationawide, but I'm not sure.

Electric Macan EV My first, absolutely freezing, road trip IMG_4371
 

PanameraFrank

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There is no (commercially available) EV in existence that's getting significant range at 80mph in sub 20 degree weather with wind. It's just not a combination that current battery tech can handle.

Just FWIW.

About the same with charging speed. At those temperatures most EVs are never seeing triple digits.

EA is always an adventure but, as Dave mentions, the new single cord chargers seem to be an improvement if you ever see one.
 
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Duke95

Duke95

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These were single cord chargers. Yup I have had the car for about 6-7 weeks, don't have home (condo) charging but my company has dedicated level 2 stalls and they are free! That (chargers are by Zeal) has been working flawlessly.
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