Disappointing charging rate

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Deleted User 490

Post by Deleted User 490 »

I know this has been mentioned in a few threads but we’ve been on lengthy trips last weekend and yesterday using rapid chargers from various networks so thought it was worth sharing.

State of charge will have been in the 20-40% range, ambient temp in the 5-10 degree range. The rate or speed of charge (not sure about the correct terminology) has been in the 30-50kw range for these sessions.

Yesterday at the impressive Gridserve Electric Forcourt near Braintree hooked up to a 350kw charger, 40% soc, 11 degrees and it peaked at 48kw. The place wasn’t busy and a nearby Mercedes EQA was pulling twice that (with a higher soc) which is what I was expecting on the Born.

Disappointed to say the least. We’ve been hanging around for the car to charge too many times, whereas if it charged at the rate we had hoped for it would be done in 20-30 mins and it wouldn’t have felt that way.

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un_born
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Post by un_born »

I was at a 50kw gridserve 1.30am today on the M4. Was in my mates ID5 GTX and we only peaked at 41kw from the 50kw station. We were at 8% when we charged and left at around 50% of charge.
Elea4
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Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2022 5:19 pm

Post by Elea4 »

If you look up most charging curve charts for the Born or ID.3, you'll see that the typical summer time charging rate at 40% SoC is 75-80kw.

The two main factors to consider are battery temperature and the charging station capacity at that moment. As for the latter it's kind of a wildcard. You never know if a charger is being limited for various reasons!

* From what I've seen and read, driving more, uhhh, aggressively in the 15 minutes or so prior to charging can help boost the battery temperature and increase charging speeds. Otherwise maintaining a modest highway cruising speed isn't going to bump up the battery temperature that much.

If you watch Bjorn Nyland's video on charging the Born in the winter, you'll see that he's able to charge 130kw at 15% SoC when the battery is at 29C (but -1.5C outside):

born-130kw.jpg

Prospector
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:52 pm

Post by Prospector »

I was using the Gridserve 50kW at Michaelwood services yesterday (after a re-park - hadn’t realised each unit only has one Tethered DC charger). Ambient 9C, starting from around 28% and it hit 45kW from the start.

I think the bigger the theoretical charge rate the bigger the variance and the greater the sensitivity to the temperature.

A friend has a Kia EV6 and on the big (100kW+) chargers has never hit more than about 80% of the
stated, and the EV6 has much higher max charging rate than the Born.
Cupra Born 58kWh 204ps V1 Vapor Grey
Deleted User 490

Post by Deleted User 490 »

Interesting video, yeah we were coming off motorway cruising at 70-75mph so maybe the battery wasn’t warm enough to see decent speeds, but the real hit was that Merc in the next bay, would have backed the Born to be a better all round EV.
Elea4
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Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2022 5:19 pm

Post by Elea4 »

The Mercedes EQA has a wicked charging curve compared to most EV's and is in a class of its own in that and many other respects:

mercedes-eqa-ladekurve.jpg

It's also costs roughly 50% more than the Born here in Germany. You get what you pay for?
Deleted User 490

Post by Deleted User 490 »

Wow, that’s a nice curve! Yeah they’re pricey, but had no idea they were so good at charging. Reviews aren’t overly impressed with other aspects of their EVism (eg 250 power, 300/350 range) and design compromises from being an ICE platform. Learn something everyday, being clued up on EV specs is one thing, but it's much more than the headline numbers.

The EQA has a heat pump as standard, maybe that has something to do with it. Anybody with a heat pump on their Born happen notice that they get rapid charging rates up in the 70-80 kw range even when it's cold?
davmatjo
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Joined: Thu May 05, 2022 2:08 pm

Post by davmatjo »

I charged from 20% last weekend when it was 10C at a Tesla Supercharger and the car peaked at 88kW IIRC, this was after 1.5 hours or so of driving. I also charged at a Gridserve 50kW charger more recently and pulled the maximum 50kW.
Deleted User 490

Post by Deleted User 490 »

See that Hyundai are providing a s/w update (dealer visit 🙄) that adds a rudimentary ability to pre-condition the battery for charging. You have to identify a suitable charger yourself and navigate to it using the native nav and the battery warms (or cools I guess), uses about 5kwh in the process. The example I saw had the updated car charging at over 200kw in cold conditions standing next to an another ionic 5 running at about 48kw at similar soc. Not as slick as Tesla but it’s a start. Any inherent reason the bms on a Born couldn’t have a similar conditioning ability via a s/w update?
Elea4
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Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2022 5:19 pm

Post by Elea4 »

Several times VW have discussed adding a battery pre-conditioning option in OS 3.4. I guess it's still up in the air.

Born Leccy wrote: Tue Feb 21, 2023 11:23 am See that Hyundai are providing a s/w update (dealer visit 🙄) that adds a rudimentary ability to pre-condition the battery for charging. You have to identify a suitable charger yourself and navigate to it using the native nav and the battery warms (or cools I guess), uses about 5kwh in the process. The example I saw had the updated car charging at over 200kw in cold conditions standing next to an another ionic 5 running at about 48kw at similar soc. Not as slick as Tesla but it’s a start. Any inherent reason the bms on a Born couldn’t have a similar conditioning ability via a s/w update?

Check my post here: viewtopic.php?p=3929#p3929

tldr; preconditioning the battery obviously takes more power before charging (therefore costing more) but also means you need to charge more as a result. You may end up saving only 5-10 minutes in exchange for using a couple bucks of power.


Also, I'm not so sure that Tesla can be manually set to pre-condition the battery when the destination isn't a Tesla charger. Not to mention there have been several bugs in Teslas which turn on battery preconditioning far too long in advance and wasting power.
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