AndysComputer
Well-Known Member
We have not had cause to fast charge either of our cars but being aware of people having issues fast charging but no problem home charging I decided to fast charge both this weekend.
I drove the Tesla to a fast charger some 40 minutes away, saw 6 units with two occupied, pulled into one, got out grabbed the handle of a a surprisingly light cable, plugged it in, within seconds the car was charging. Nice.
Drove the Mini down to 64% and pulled into an Electrify America at Walmart after checking the app which said 5 out of 6 chargers were available. When I arrived none were in use so I drove up to one, opened the charge flaps, walked up to the charger, pressed the buttons and the screen remained black… moved to another unit and saw it said “unavailable”. Moved to a third unit and this time the screen would light up only if I pushed the middle button which takes you to the help screen. The other buttons did nothing. So I plugged the car in anyway, then used the app to start the charge. The screen then lit up with “initializing charging” and I could hear the cooling system whir into life. But the screen just went blank so I had no idea if it was actually charging or not. The EA app said it was charging but after about a minute or so said 0kW charge rate and 0 kWh delivered. So I switched to the Mini app which said the car was charging and was now at 67%. The EA app then woke up and said the car was at 65% so it just has major lag…
Anyway…
The car went from 64% to 78% in 6 minutes at 48KW and held that speed up to 82% or so. By my math 10% to 80% would take 30 minutes. Very nice.
I unplugged at 87% which it reached in 11 minutes so I am very impressed with the charging speed of the Mini given it’s real world range which works out to the equivalent of charging at 175 mild weather interstate miles per hour below 80%.
So I’m impressed with the car, not so impressed with EA given it said only 1 out of 6 chargers were unavailable but I found 2 out of 3 that I tried unavailable and the third being usable via the app only. These were ABB units.
Given how little they get used the lack of reliability is a concern…
While I was there an ID4 owner showed up who said he had reported at least one of the failed units every week for several weeks but it was still broken…
The sad thing is that a gentleman walked over to me when I arrived as he was curious about the process having heard the Mini (which he described as sounding like a spaceship) drive past him in the parking lot. So I said it was my first time doing this so we’d have to figure it out together and he remarked the process wasn’t as straightforward as he’d assumed. If things had gone smoother it would have been a better showing for EV’s but at least once it worked he was impressed with the charging speed and was in fact worried the car was charging too fast for him to do his shopping while it did so…
That said, provided I go somewhere with at least 4 allegedly working units I feel confident to have a go at a road trip here in Texas…
I drove the Tesla to a fast charger some 40 minutes away, saw 6 units with two occupied, pulled into one, got out grabbed the handle of a a surprisingly light cable, plugged it in, within seconds the car was charging. Nice.
Drove the Mini down to 64% and pulled into an Electrify America at Walmart after checking the app which said 5 out of 6 chargers were available. When I arrived none were in use so I drove up to one, opened the charge flaps, walked up to the charger, pressed the buttons and the screen remained black… moved to another unit and saw it said “unavailable”. Moved to a third unit and this time the screen would light up only if I pushed the middle button which takes you to the help screen. The other buttons did nothing. So I plugged the car in anyway, then used the app to start the charge. The screen then lit up with “initializing charging” and I could hear the cooling system whir into life. But the screen just went blank so I had no idea if it was actually charging or not. The EA app said it was charging but after about a minute or so said 0kW charge rate and 0 kWh delivered. So I switched to the Mini app which said the car was charging and was now at 67%. The EA app then woke up and said the car was at 65% so it just has major lag…
Anyway…
The car went from 64% to 78% in 6 minutes at 48KW and held that speed up to 82% or so. By my math 10% to 80% would take 30 minutes. Very nice.
I unplugged at 87% which it reached in 11 minutes so I am very impressed with the charging speed of the Mini given it’s real world range which works out to the equivalent of charging at 175 mild weather interstate miles per hour below 80%.
So I’m impressed with the car, not so impressed with EA given it said only 1 out of 6 chargers were unavailable but I found 2 out of 3 that I tried unavailable and the third being usable via the app only. These were ABB units.
Given how little they get used the lack of reliability is a concern…
While I was there an ID4 owner showed up who said he had reported at least one of the failed units every week for several weeks but it was still broken…
The sad thing is that a gentleman walked over to me when I arrived as he was curious about the process having heard the Mini (which he described as sounding like a spaceship) drive past him in the parking lot. So I said it was my first time doing this so we’d have to figure it out together and he remarked the process wasn’t as straightforward as he’d assumed. If things had gone smoother it would have been a better showing for EV’s but at least once it worked he was impressed with the charging speed and was in fact worried the car was charging too fast for him to do his shopping while it did so…
That said, provided I go somewhere with at least 4 allegedly working units I feel confident to have a go at a road trip here in Texas…
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