Fast charging on a supercharger

[Chrisp44]

 Very disappointed today 250miles on the clock and went to use a fast charger with 50% battery… connected to 300kw charger ..  

speed was 38kw only and 8 hours to fill up.

Luckily I only need 40 miles to get me home…

I had driven 4 miles to the supermarket so the Battery would not have been to hot.

 

 

Edited March 16 by Chrisp44
Trying to add a picture

[bZ4X]

That's interesting. I've used rapid chargers a couple of times with my bz4X. The car charged quite fast—from 20% to 80% by the time I finished my cup of coffee.

[Cyker]

That's just how it is right now - The third-party charger network is all over the place; You'd think given we'd figured out electricity hundreds of years ago it would be fairly easy, but no they've somehow managed to bugger even that up.

It's quite a common for e.g. a car from one manufacturer to get full charge speed from a charger, but for one from another on the same charger to get restricted charge speed or fail the handshake completely and nobody seems to have been able to figure out why, or maybe the vendors and manufacturers just don't care.

All you can do is try a different charger or brand of charger. The people I know with EVs tend to use a small set of chargers, as those are the ones they've found to work well consistently; I'm told it's still a massive gamble when they venture outside known-good chargers.

It's a bit like how some petrol pumps click off in some cars if you squeeze the trigger fully, but will get full flow in others, except you can't hold the filler a bit further out to get around that with chargers  

 

[JonathanP]

I think part of it is the fact that the companies who own the chargers often don't care. I don't understand why they seem to wait for someone to report an issue with a charger.

I'm certain we have the technology available to remotely monitor the chargers and flag up to the company when there's something wrong.

[Chrisp44]

Thanks lads for the info… I try again on my next long journey.

[flash22]

I would check the app there are many reasons a charger will derate the most common on is the use of other chargers on that supply

https://www.zap-map.com/live/

click on the charger then click on the pop up for full details

[Parts-King]

I watched a video the other day of an RAC Patrol man who turned up at a motorway service station to a customer who ran out of charge altogether. The customer knew he was low on charge, checked his app, and directed him to a service station with a bank of chargers. The only trouble was the chargers had not actually been installed but were "live" on the app 🤦‍♂️ The Patrol man was able to put 30 mins charge in it for him, he only lived a few miles away. Good to know they can get you going again, bet he felt a bit of a t1t 

[Cyker]

On 3/17/2024 at 5:20 PM, JonathanP said:

I think part of it is the fact that the companies who own the chargers often don't care. I don't understand why they seem to wait for someone to report an issue with a charger.

I'm certain we have the technology available to remotely monitor the chargers and flag up to the company when there's something wrong.

I think you're very close to the mark - Part of the problem is the government is throwing stacks of money in grants at companies to *install* chargers everywhere, but *none* for *maintaining* them, so these companies are raking in loads of tax-payer money to install new chargers everywhere, but they have no incentive to invest any significant amount in maintaining them.

That's why despite so many new ones being installed every month, the number of working ones is going up much more slowly, as they are failing almost as fast as they put them in!

There are a handful of companies that seem to be taking it more seriously, but it does feel like it's the exception rather than the rule at the moment, and I fear they will not survive in the long term as they go bankrupt or get eaten by other companies, as they can't keep up with the ones that are just sucking up our money to install chargers at little cost to themselves.

 

[flash22]

Had a look locally, plenty of chargers most of the 7kw but run by 9 different companies so 9 apps and methods of payments to handle, anywhere from 45p to 98p a Kwh

 

I will say the BZ does seem popular, leased and pcp seems the way letting the dealer take the hit EV's seem to have a short shelf life

[TonyHSD]

Charging an ev issues are mainly caused by the chargers themselves rather than the car. Usually ev owners should try to avoid any charging outside their own charger at home and only use public network occasionally.
If you plan a longer journey, holiday weekend for example, then note your stops and avoid service stations. Use hotel chargers located on the outskirts of towns and you can use Google maps to locate these, in many cases it is the more reliable source of information and no need apps to activate charging., just plug and pay. 

[coolknight99]

That seems more like a charger issue than anything imo. I just did the same charge yesterday. I went from 47% to 83% in about 25 minutes. Started at 68kw and eventually slowed down to about 39kw. That's slower than i would have wanted to go, but it wasn't horrible. I've seen that some charging stations are just crappy. I'd play around with the chargers in your area until you figure out which brands are more reliable. That beings aid this car doesn't charge very fast regardless, so don't expect to fill up in 5-10 minutes either.