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DC fast charging only at 55kw

7K views 44 replies 17 participants last post by  VW TECHNICIAN 
#1 ·
I've tried multiple EA stations now at varying levels of battery %. I've been under 20% and as high as 38% and the max charge I am pulling is 55kw. I have been attempting this after a good hour or more of highway driving thinking it might be cold gating. Anyone else experiencing this? Is there potentially a BMS issue? I'll be taking this car in to the dealer in December for one of the open TSBs (washer heater) so I wanted to ask them about this but wanted to know what to ask for.
 
#2 ·
I saw another thread talking about EA doing firmware updates to the stations and then this is happening. I believe they were talking the Chicago area. Where are you located? I had 55Kw charging a few weeks ago and called EA about it. The lady rebooted the pumps but it didn’t change anything, so she put in a ticket. I went back a few days later and was back to 125Kw. I’m in Denver.
 
#6 ·
The 35 kW one that I used was the second one that I tried. The one the Bolt was using was actually listed on the app as not working. That leaves the combo station which I avoid for sake of any Leafs. One thing that I have noticed is that the cables don’t have to be cooled at 35kW. Maybe all of the necessary parts are stuck on one of the hundreds of ships that can’t get unloaded in California.
 
#7 ·
My guess is the cold temperature… I just got my Id.4 and went to an EA outside of Seattle on Sunday am. I consistently got 100 kw+ and I was super impressed with the speed. I went from 8% to 90% in around 40 mins.

Fast forward to tonight. I went back to the same EA station and the first unit was giving me 35 kWh. Switched to the unit I used last time and still maxedout around 57 kWh. Very frustrating. I got rid of my ipace because of the slow level 3 charging (50 kWh was lightening fast for the ipace…). This kink needs to get worked out.
 
#9 ·
I have had this issue as well. Multiple different chargers in multiple different locations in multiple states. All get around 55kwh and won't go higher. The other thing I have noticed is that it normally says "charging speed requested by your vehicle" in the bottom left of the screen- it has not recently and I have done a lot of traveling recently
 
#10 ·
I can see it on the app with the phone which charging locations have been "nerfed." Turn on the filter for Minimum Charger Power (kW) & set it to 150. Poof! I see stations in IL, OH, IN, TN, AL & WA disappear. You would think that Electrify America would have learned their lesson of initiating a software update prior to a major holiday weekend (& not say anything about it). Kinda like last year when the I-95 corridor was entirely offline due to a code issue for an update.
 
#12 ·
I noticed the same thing in the mobile app. No explanation at all for what they are doing. Is this a workaround for some other problem? Part of a planned upgrade? No word. There communications team seems rather useless. The busiest corridors are east/west coast - so far this nerfing has only been in the midwest, but is this going to expand? Nobody knows.

At least one can still get 50kW, which isn't great, but if you can get a charge of some sort you can go on your way. But we are in the busiest travel day of the year, and I can only wonder what we will see by the end of the day.

As for myself, we are going to my sister-in-laws, and we can get there and back without stopping to charge.
 
#11 ·
Here is some new data posted by @VW TECHNICIAN I wish VW had a battery temp display available since this will be a limit for most of us in the Northern half of the US. It may make more people get a dongle to see this. Translated to F:

At 54F (12°C) battery it will max out 65Kw
63F (17°C) it will go up to 100+Kw
68F (20°C) will deliver max output if EA is actually capable delivering rated power on the box
I will want to do some battery heating by driving it hard before DCFC, since the PTC battery heater stops heating at 46F and I would want at least 63F. It could partially explain the many complaints of slow DCFC lately.
 
#13 ·
I will want to do some battery heating by driving it hard before DCFC, since the PTC battery heater stops heating at 46F and I would want at least 63F. It could partially explain the many complaints of slow DCFC lately.
That's exactly the strategy I used when i had the Kona - charge right after driving, and not waiting for the battery to cool down. And that tends to be towards the end of the day when ambient temperatures are warmer, which also helps. If you want a truly horrible charging experience, let the battery cool down overnight and try charging 1st thing in the morning.

In my case, it was about a 3 hour drive from Delware back to DC - that was sufficient to warm the battery so it could accept a higher charge.

Yesterday I had my car on the L2 - the car was in the garage, and EVnotify said the battery temperature was 9 degrees C. After about 2 hours I needed to unplug and go out - the batteries had warmed to 13C.
 
#14 ·
In my case the app itself said that the chargers had been neutered to 50kW. I probably had a cool battery and got 35kW but the neighboring Bolt (normally a slow charger) had Washington state plates. She was hooked to a 350 and posted on PlugShare “slow”.
The temperature was in the upper 60’s. PlugShare revues were all saying the same thing for at least a week when it was generally in the 70’s . The station is right next to I10 and few cars were local.
 
#24 ·
Battery temp and environment temp are not going to be the same if there is big swing between night and day time...to gain max output from DC charger you will need to be around 22% SOC or less and close to 20°C with battery temperature...starting from 36% SOC is bad choice for getting max DC charging speed. And there is also a lot of EA charging ports capable doing max 50 kw output...i have personally experienced across I80 ...I90...I70 going from east coast to west and back on journey 2800+ miles each way. Around this time of year best way is to keep destination for next charging within 140 miles and battery will always be at sweet spot for next charging.
 
#25 ·
Yes these are all valid points. I use this charger frequently and at 35% It should still be in the nineties i think. Other option would be VW tells me why it is lower on the Info system. They shod know best. Why let the user be puzzled about all these things. Not really my job. The forum is full of people being puzzled. VW could even display the charging graph. The charge time estimator in the car is typically off too. Why? Also not sure why EA does not display requested power anymore. None of these things makes our life easier. And it could be easily fixed.
So where can i find the charging curves for different battery temperatures?
 
#26 ·
I experienced this same slow 55kw charging about 2 weeks ago on 2 different days at Ooltewa TN which is a few miles from the Chattanooga factory. Couple of vw employees were there in id4 with manufacturers tag. They were new to charging and didn’t realize the slow charge problem, one had German accent. Said they were headed to the SKI battery plant near Atlanta where VW battery packs are built using LG lithium cells.
 
#28 ·
QUOTE="Erhard, post: 63478, member: 2865"]
Yes these are all valid points. I use this charger frequently and at 35% It should still be in the nineties i think. Other option would be VW tells me why it is lower on the Info system. They shod know best. Why let the user be puzzled about all these things. Not really my job. The forum is full of people being puzzled. VW could even display the charging graph. The charge time estimator in the car is typically off too. Why? Also not sure why EA does not display requested power anymore. None of these things makes our life easier. And it could be easily fixed.
So where can i find the charging curves for different battery temperatures?
[/QUOTE]
With appropriate obd2 tools you can see all of that you need....
For as long infotainment screen doesn't have telemetry screen it will be hard to pinpoint.
 
#34 ·
I would have thought, but without knowing the ambient and pack temps, I can't say much more.

When we drive home tonight, I can check and see how much warming we get after a 70 mile drive. My experience is based more on how things worked with the Kona, so ID4 might be a little different.
 
#37 ·
I drove 95 miles yesterday to a Thanksgiving dinner in Albany, NY. The temp was 33°F when we left and 39°F when we arrived. I preheated before leaving did the whole Berkshires hill climbing thing en route so I thought the battery would be adequately warmed by arrival. I stopped at an EA station in Albany and got...you guessed it...55 kw charging speed at 27% SOC.
 
#39 ·
I have had this problem with the max speeds being 55kw, this is not a battery not being warm enough issue. This is an EA issue specific to ID.4 I've seen other EV's getting their normal speeds, and every ID.4 I've seen in the Chicago area is reporting the same thing, on all the EA chargers they have tried. As others noted, the drop in max speed correlates with the "speed vehicle is requesting" notification is missing. So EA pushed out some sort of update that broke the communication link with the ID.4. As others have said, at least I'm getting 1/2 the expected speed, but this is totally unacceptable. I and others have reported this to EA, and all received the same response...the units are working fine.

I've owned other EV's and yes the battery temp does play a role, but not this bad, and not at moderate temps (>32f out) And when this first started, it was still in the 70's out.
 
#41 ·
This is an EA issue specific to ID.4 I've seen other EV's getting their normal speeds, and every ID.4 I've seen in the Chicago area is reporting the same thing, on all the EA chargers they have tried. As others noted, the drop in max speed correlates with the "speed vehicle is requesting" notification is missing. So EA pushed out some sort of update that broke the communication link with the ID.4.
This seems like a very plausible scenario. I also have been getting 55kw max charges for about 3-4 weeks now, and the temps were in the high 50's during one of them. That was after a 90 minute drive also, with pre-heating as well. The battery had to be at nominal temps by then since I was driving at Mass turnpike speeds. I know when I was charging in Albany there was a person in a Polestar next to me and he was getting a much higher charge level. I should have moved over to his charger when he left. That would have confirmed the discrepancy between the two cars on the same charger.
 
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