Free Electrify America charging for Earth Day

Recently discovered some electrify America charging stations that were recently installed in my city. First time charging at one and it would only give me about 24 kwh throughput. I know the Kona is capable of much faster. Any idea why this would be the case? Outside temperature is about 50°F

 

I was only at 64%. The weird thing is that it started at a speed of 41kw but that only lasted for about a minute or two. Then it dropped to the mid 20 kw and stayed there for the remainder of the charge.

 

I just hope one of the recent battery software updates didn’t limit the charge rate because of the battery issues.

 

I have a free DC fast charger 20 mins from my house.. Closest Electrify is 30 mins away... so I passed on the free charge.. For the last week, I only charged on free level 2 chargers, usually during my lunch break.. I'm at 76% now after a week of driving.. Will charge to 80% at home tonight as I'm driving to the Florida East coast to watch SpaceX/Nasa Crew-2 launch.. Kennedy Space Center is 100 miles from my home.. Leaving 3:30 AM...

 

I've been in Florida for 24 years and I have been to Kennedy Space Center 5 or 6 times but I NEVER saw a launch.. It's about time.. I took a day off work tomorrow.. I'm sure that I'll have a blast but hopefully no RUD. Falcon 9's have been extremely reliable, so no worries.. Keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well!

 

Curious about DC fast charging after all the updates, so we stopped at an EA station yesterday with SOC about 22% (62 miles). Here are the results:
End state of charge: 79%, 216 miles
Energy delivered: 38 kWh
Max charging rate: 78 kW
Charging time: 00:41:55
Total cost: $6.71 ($0.16/min.) + .42 tax, = $7.13, $0.188/ kWh

Cheaper than my home electricity rate of $0.22/kWh (which I know is high).

 

I've only used fast chargers with my Kona a couple of times so not much experience. What was the chargers output level? 100 or 350 kV? I've never gotten a 100kV fast charger to work at more than 42kV.

 

I have to confess in the year and a half I've leased the Kona this is my first experience with a DC.
This site had 8 chargers, 4 at 150 and 4 at 350. I opted for 150 since that was more than enough for this car. I only expected to pull around 50 kW but it consistently took 77-78 kW, levelling down to 35 for the last 5 minutes.

 

JimCT, coincidentally I did a similar EA charge here near Portland Maine today, charging from 30 SOC to 80 on a 150kW unit. Unfortunately I didn't see the high charge rates you did. Mine began at 40 kW and ramped up suddenly at 60 SOC to 60kW, then dropped to 35 kW at 70 SOC and ended at 24 kW from 75 to final 80 percent SOC. Time was 46 minutes, cost around $16. Charging at home on my L2 would have been around $4 at most. Our electricity rate is $0.0644/kWh. I'm tempted to do a similar charge at the adjacent 350 kW charger at this same Wal-mart; I'd like to know if it is max charger rate dependent (although I kinda doubt it).

 

If you check the EA website, their pricing structure depends on the state you're charging in. For example, Maine, Connecticut, New York New Jersey and others are charged per kWh, $0.43 per. In Mass. and NH it's by the minute, @ $0.16. From what I read, they're converting to all per kWh charging eventually. Many claim that's the fairer way to charge, but it seems to me far more expensive. For you, 46 minutes in NH would have been $7.36, not $16. I pulled 38 kWh in Mass. the other day for $7.13, in Maine or CT that would have been $16.34. Something's wrong here. I think I'll call them later for an explanation.

BTW the station you used in Scarborough is the one we plan to use this Summer on our way to visit relatives in ME. It's the only EA station in the state right now.

 

The max charge rate you get highly depends on the battery pack temperature!
If the battery is below 35°Celsius, you will not get 75kW! However with the latest software updates it seems that the maximum temperature it allows is about 35°C. If it gets higher the charge rate drops again. The SOC (state of charge) of the battery also plays a factor.
I also experienced differences in chargers. The 350kW Electrify America Chargers seem to be slower than the 150kW units. It doesn't make sense, but maybe there is differences in the software of the chargers.

It is hard to tell what is actually going to happen. I always monitor my car with an OBD2 dongle to know the exact battery pack temperature. That way I can at least rule that out as a limiting factor. It also helps to know the cars charge curve.

I made a video about testing the charging speed just lately (concidentally on Earth day) after all software updates for preparation of the battery recall had been made: