EA Megathread

[SDHacker]

Stopped in Anaheim. 3 of the EA chargers were not working - a screen with boot errors displaying. The fourth one I tried gave me a connection error with the first plug but finally worked with the second. It actually charged at 176 kW on the 150 kw charger, so was happy after the struggles. While I was charging, I had EA reboot the other three a few times and they finally came online after about 15’ on the phone. Those who came later can thank me, but it really should not be like this.

When I'm in that area, I always go to the Walmart on Euclid off the 5. I think it has 10 chargers. They do that odd thing that Walmart does with the bigger stations, 2 next to the store and the rest farther away.

 

[bhramabull]

Range decreases exponentially with velocity, because the force of drag (which is the primary resistance to a vehicle moving at high speeds) is proportional to the square of velocity.

At low speeds, the main limitations are electrical needs to keep the vehicle running (heat, cooling, etc) and different kinds of energy loss due to friction (drivetrain, tires).

EPA highway efficiency is rated at 55mph, so manufacturers generally try to maximize efficiency at that speed.

Here's an old table comparing Tesla's various tire options for the Model 3, but also includes efficiency at various speeds: View attachment 7474

55mph is much better than 65mph, which is much better than 75mph. The sweet spot would probably be about 15-20mph; you could probably go at 15-20mph for almost double the EPA rated range, I'd bet! But if you did that you'd get murdered by other drivers.

If you're on a long road trip, I'd stick to 65-70; you won't be in the leftmost lane, and you'll occasionally be getting passed, but hey, you'll have the range you want (although I have to stop every few hours to pee/walk around anyway, so why not just coincide that with charging stops). Otherwise, enjoy going 75, 80, 85, whatever... just know that with each increase in velocity you lose range by the difference in that velocity squared (simplifying, of course, but all other things being equal).

This is also why the extremely low Cd of the Lucid Air is so important; it is by far the biggest impact on range.

Beautifully written. I always wonder what to do on long road trips. If I typically like 85mph but then want to optimize range as well, so what or how should I think about driving slower (70mph for instance)? How much extra driving time would that account for?
Would this be a better way of thinking at least on shorter road trips for instance (PHX to LAS which is like 291 miles) with a EA charger available in Kingman, AZ on route that I would plough through at high speeds but on longer road trips to slow down?
Thoughts?

 

[Volund]

Beautifully written. I always wonder what to do on long road trips. If I typically like 85mph but then want to optimize range as well, so what or how should I think about driving slower (70mph for instance)? How much extra driving time would that account for?
Would this be a better way of thinking at least on shorter road trips for instance (PHX to LAS which is like 291 miles) with a EA charger available in Kingman, AZ on route that I would plough through at high speeds but on longer road trips to slow down?
Thoughts?

I never had range anxiety and if I knew there was plenty of chargers in whatever city, efficiency wasn't even a second thought, I was blasting at 80-98 mph

 

[borski]

Beautifully written. I always wonder what to do on long road trips. If I typically like 85mph but then want to optimize range as well, so what or how should I think about driving slower (70mph for instance)? How much extra driving time would that account for?
Would this be a better way of thinking at least on shorter road trips for instance (PHX to LAS which is like 291 miles) with a EA charger available in Kingman, AZ on route that I would plough through at high speeds but on longer road trips to slow down?
Thoughts?

Just depends on how frequently you want to stop. If you need to be somewhere on time, slow down - it’s counterintuitive, but you’ll be able to charge less frequently.

If you have no deadline, drive as fast as you want, and just charge more frequently.

 

[Sandvinsd]

When I'm in that area, I always go to the Walmart on Euclid off the 5. I think it has 10 chargers. They do that odd thing that Walmart does with the bigger stations, 2 next to the store and the rest farther away.

Yeah. That was the one I was at.

 

[SDHacker]

Yeah. That was the one I was at.

Well that’s disappointing. I’ve been lucky there - always had chargers available and the ones I used always worked. Thanks for getting the chargers rebooted

 

[sansonoma]

At the new 350kW EA station, I note that it now says (and maybe did before) whether the car or the station is limiting the charge. Am I correct in thinking, as in the picture, the station may want to deliver more than my Lucid is willing to take? At places where we have reports of low kW, is the car limiting that? Just curious.

 

[borski]

At the new 350kW EA station, I note that it now says (and maybe did before) whether the car or the station is limiting the charge. Am I correct in thinking, as in the picture, the station may want to deliver more than my Lucid is willing to take? At places where we have reports of low kW, is the car limiting that? Just curious.

View attachment 7554

Most of the time it is limited by the EA station, but the car can limit it if you didn’t precondition, battery temperature, or based on where you are on the charging curve.

 

[HC_79]

At the new 350kW EA station, I note that it now says (and maybe did before) whether the car or the station is limiting the charge. Am I correct in thinking, as in the picture, the station may want to deliver more than my Lucid is willing to take? At places where we have reports of low kW, is the car limiting that? Just curious.

View attachment 7554

Don't trust the "charge requested by vehicle". It's almost identical to what the charger is delivering and I think it was implemented by EA to use as an argument that it's your vehicle and not the charger that's the problem. When I had my e-Tron it charges 150Kw flat to 80%, I pulled into a charger at about 25% or so and was getting 19Kw and according to the EA charger it was "what my vehicle was requesting". II contacted them and said "wtf is going on" and they instantly blamed the car and said there was nothing they could do. In the meantime another charger became available so I unplug and move the car to the that charger and surprise, surprise I was getting 148Kw and my vehicle was requesting 148Kw.

Someone else pulled up to the charger I was having issues with and it was doing the same thing. giving 19Kw to the car and making out it was the car that was requesting that speed. In other words, don't believe anything that comes out of an EA reps mouth or what the charger is displaying.

 

[HC_79]

If I’m reading this right, if looks like EA is basically asking CA to not base charger uptime as part of reliability but instead the whole site. So, if EA has a 10 station location with 8 chargers broken and 2 remained working the entire month then they’d have 100% reliability.

They know if it’s based on charger uptime they’re screwed!

 

[DeaneG]

Love that "equipment redundancy" assumption. Like it's fine if there is a long line of vehicles waiting to charge because two of four chargers are broken. Meanwhile a Supercharger nearby with 20 stalls has all but one station working.

 

[CapHillDC]

I drove from DC to Cleveland earlier today. This (see pics) is what I would like to see EA doing at service plazas on turnpikes like PA or Ohio.
This is from the first travel plaza in Ohio after crossing over from PA.

 

[Babyrocko1908]

I drove from DC to Cleveland earlier today. This (see pics) is what I would like to see EA doing at service plazas on turnpikes like PA or Ohio.
This is from the first travel plaza in Ohio after crossing over from PA.

PA resident here. The Turnpike has a contract with another company and there are chargers at several plazas but none of them are EA.

 

[CapHillDC]

I stopped at the New Stanton travel plaza in PA and there were two Blink chargers...

 

[HC_79]

The saga continues. Just skip to the charging stops to see how many issues he has with EA even on the NEW chargers

 

[HC_79]

LOL..... Now the new chargers don't even work in the cold!

 

[Bunnylebowski]

LOL..... Now the new chargers don't even work in the cold!

Interesting, that’s exactly what happens on the ABB unit at my local EA, charging start error after authorization 100% of the time. I haven’t had a chance to try 2.0.45 OTA to see if that fixed it. I’m hoping Kyle will branch out and try and do road trips using only EVGo or only ChargePoint or EVConnect because I haven’t had nearly the number of failures on those that I’ve had on EA. Even though they’re slower than EA, speed doesn’t matter if you can’t charge.

 

[HC_79]

Interesting, that’s exactly what happens on the ABB unit at my local EA, charging start error after authorization 100% of the time. I haven’t had a chance to try 2.0.45 OTA to see if that fixed it. I’m hoping Kyle will branch out and try and do road trips using only EVGo or only ChargePoint or EVConnect because I haven’t had nearly the number of failures on those that I’ve had on EA. Even though they’re slower than EA, speed doesn’t matter if you can’t charge.

I think it would be next to near impossible to do a road trip on EVGo or ChargePoint and if you can the charging times would be horrendous given the speed of the chargers they have.

I agree with you that I’ve had much better success with EVGo and ChargePoint to a point that I was using the local 350 EVGo over summer and paying because the local EA chargers were just so unreliable. I just wish Lucid would extend plug n charge to more networks.

The free EA charging is worthless to me and would gladly pay at other networks if they had better coverage.

 

[Drendino]

I’m curious, when I get to an EA station and it asks for a card, does Lucid expect me to call EAcustomer support and spend 1/2 hour+ getting them to remote start a charge? Or, am I expected to put in a credit and send Lucid the bill for reimbursement? EA/Lucid charging rage is a real thing.

 

[DeaneG]

I’m curious, when I get to an EA station and it asks for a card, does Lucid expect me to call EAcustomer support and spend 1/2 hour+ getting them to remote start a charge? Or, am I expected to put in a credit and send Lucid the bill for reimbursement? EA/Lucid charging rage is a real thing.

I believe in this case, you hit the lighting bolt on Lucid's phone app, and start charging from there.