Unsteady charge rate - known problem? Car or charger or both?

[AltadenaAir]

I charged at several EA chargers on a 700mi road trip. Of course, many chargers didn't work at all, or were finicky. But on the way home, several chargers exhibited the same behavior: charging would start, climb to a (modest) rate around 100kW for a while, then start bouncing around wildly. Starting SOC was about 15%. The behavior was a little different each time I tried, but generally would swing between 30kW and 90kW every couple of seconds. In one case, after a few minutes the "bouncing" stopped and I got a steady ~110kW. But then it happened again at the next charger.

I am leaning slightly toward this being a car problem rather than a charger problem (or any interface/protocol problem), because the car was also yielding very poor mileage. At 77mph I was getting only 2.1mi/kWhr.

Before I try to get Lucid to investigate, I figured it would be good to gather data. Has anyone else seen this? (Please point me to an existing thread if one exists.)

 

[HariK]

I charged at several EA chargers on a 700mi road trip. Of course, many chargers didn't work at all, or were finicky. But on the way home, several chargers exhibited the same behavior: charging would start, climb to a (modest) rate around 100kW for a while, then start bouncing around wildly. Starting SOC was about 15%. The behavior was a little different each time I tried, but generally would swing between 30kW and 90kW every couple of seconds. In one case, after a few minutes the "bouncing" stopped and I got a steady ~110kW. But then it happened again at the next charger.

I am leaning slightly toward this being a car problem rather than a charger problem (or any interface/protocol problem), because the car was also yielding very poor mileage. At 77mph I was getting only 2.1mi/kWhr.

Before I try to get Lucid to investigate, I figured it would be good to gather data. Has anyone else seen this? (Please point me to an existing thread if one exists.)

Same thing happened to me at EA at Walmart Fremont. 20% SOC pre conditioned. 150KW charger. No other car and 2 of the 3 stations were up. MIne toggled between 80KW and 40KW and averaged 60KW to get to 80% in 55min. 1kWh per minute on the Pure.

 

[AltadenaAir]

Oh, yeah - didn't mention: my car is a GT. I thought about the fact that I had not preconditioned, so glad to hear that is apparently not an absolute relationship with this problem.

 

[Shuasha]

I've absolutely seen this happen, but only at one EA station so I assume it's their crappy charger.

 

[DeaneG]

I've seen youtube videos of this happening on other EVs as well. I'm assuming it's a hardware or software issue with the charger.

 

[AltadenaAir]

I heard back from Lucid on this issue. They said I should contact EA. As has been discussed in other threads, that is, of course, BS - Lucid sold me a car with three years of EA charging, and if the charging doesn't work, that's Lucid's problem to fix. I will be surprised if EA says, "Oh, yeah, that's definitely our problem and we'll fix it." So we are back to finger-pointing. I'll give it a try, but I have zero hope of this getting addressed by EA.

On the more humorous side, Lucid Customer Care also suggested that maybe the problem is that the utility connection was limiting the available power. As an engineer who has worked on connecting big datacenters to the grid, I can tell you that this is simple deflection. The grid might limit the power available to the charger, but that limit isn't going to jump around by 40kW every two seconds. I'm sure that suggestion didn't come from the Lucid charging engineers, who would know better, but must have come from someone in Customer Care "making stuff up". They need better training.

 

[nevadagame]

I've absolutely seen this happen, but only at one EA station so I assume it's their crappy charger.

It’s not EA’s chargers, it’s a Lucid problem. I say this with some degree of certainty because I have three electric cars in my family. The Lucid GT of Cours are used two different EA chargers in town. They both do the same thing with the Lucid the charge jumps between 30 and 100 back-and-forth like everyone is describing for at least five minutes before settling down, my BMW I X, on the very same charger never does this and my daughters ionic five on the same chargers, never experiences this anomaly only the Lucid. In addition to this anomaly, I get a fairly loud and severe thumping sound sometimes while charging that’s severe enough to shake the car, so far, Lucid has no information for me about why that’s happening.

 

[Adnillien]

It’s not EA’s chargers, it’s a Lucid problem. I say this with some degree of certainty because I have three electric cars in my family. The Lucid GT of Cours are used two different EA chargers in town. They both do the same thing with the Lucid the charge jumps between 30 and 100 back-and-forth like everyone is describing for at least five minutes before settling down, my BMW I X, on the very same charger never does this and my daughters ionic five on the same chargers, never experiences this anomaly only the Lucid. In addition to this anomaly, I get a fairly loud and severe thumping sound sometimes while charging that’s severe enough to shake the car, so far, Lucid has no information for me about why that’s happening.

There are other 800V cars that have the same issue on Signet chargers so it is not just limited to Lucid. The EA chargers are not correctly tracking the cars battery voltage.

 

[DeaneG]

It's a known problem with the software on older EA-branded Signet dispensers when connected to 800-1000v cars. This includes all the E-GMP cars, Taycan, Lucid, and others. A fix is in the works - presumably a software update on that specific type of charging station.

 

[AltadenaAir]

In addition to this anomaly, I get a fairly loud and severe thumping sound sometimes while charging that’s severe enough to shake the car, so far, Lucid has no information for me about why that’s happening.

I have some information on the thumping sound. I experienced that "thump" at the same time as the "sudden changes" in charging, and so I also agree that the two seem to be related. But according to my LA Service Center contact, that noise is a cooling system valve opening and closing. I've got some experience with cooling systems, and his description is consistent with what I heard/felt.

If I had to guess, the problem is that the control loop for the valve is not well tuned. As the charging power fluctuates, the signal to the cooling system also fluctuates. While the control loop should probably "damp out" that fluctuation, it does not. So the valve is cycling excessively. I don't have any inside knowledge, but I've worked on many such cooling systems in the past and this behavior is common, although it can eventually be fixed by proper control parameters.

I also have found the rapid changes in charging rate to be a less frequent problem as various EA chargers seem to be getting better software.

 

[nevadagame]

There are other 800V cars that have the same issue on Signet chargers so it is not just limited to Lucid. The EA chargers are not correctly tracking the cars battery voltage.

I have recently spoken to Lucid service tech and I indeed understand the problem Now. you are correct in that my other cars do not use the same 800 V charging system. It seems that there is an incompatibility caused by EA charger software, not being able to handle Lucid, 8-900 volt system. I am also told by Lucid that there will be a software update coming for us that will likely solve this problem and in the meantime, the problem does not pose a risk or threat to Lucid’s systems, which is very good news to me.

 

[xponents]

I have recently spoken to Lucid service tech and I indeed understand the problem Now. you are correct in that my other cars do not use the same 800 V charging system. It seems that there is an incompatibility caused by EA charger software, not being able to handle Lucid, 8-900 volt system. I am also told by Lucid that there will be a software update coming for us that will likely solve this problem and in the meantime, the problem does not pose a risk or threat to Lucid’s systems, which is very good news to me.

So basically, to answer this threads title its both?

 

[nevadagame]

Yes, but to my understanding it’s mostly EA that doesn’t understand 8–900 V car systems other electric cars don’t have this problem because most don’t use the eight 900 V system so most are fine but the EA electronics in many, but not all of their chargers, can’t handle it, so either Lucid and EV could potentially solve this problem. Lucid says it’s working on a software patch and will likely have it done soon. No future dates or promises of course.

 

[xponents]

Yes, but to my understanding it’s mostly EA that doesn’t understand 8–900 V car systems other electric cars don’t have this problem because most don’t use the eight 900 V system so most are fine but the EA electronics in many, but not all of their chargers, can’t handle it, so either Lucid and EV could potentially solve this problem. Lucid says it’s working on a software patch and will likely have it done soon. No future dates or promises of course.

Lucid does have the tendency to surprise us with updates, i'd expect it anytime now!

 

[Shuasha]

The release being pushed now says it provides "a more robust charging experience", whatever that means.

 

[hydbob]

The release being pushed now says it provides "a more robust charging experience", whatever that means.

The electrons are more robust, obviously.

 

[1stEV]

The release being pushed now says it provides "a more robust charging experience", whatever that means.

It states they are changing the DC charging algorithms. Hopefully that means that they are going to change the charge curve so that we get higher power over a wider SoC. I have definitely been very underwhelmed by my Touring's charging curve.

 

[Bobby]

It states they are changing the DC charging algorithms. Hopefully that means that they are going to change the charge curve so that we get higher power over a wider SoC. I have definitely been very underwhelmed by my Touring's charging curve.

Don’t get too excited. Some testing has shown only minor changes, if any.

 

[xponents]

Don’t get too excited. Some testing has shown only minor changes, if any.

Like an inside ev test?

 

[DeaneG]

Maybe the changes were related to handshaking. For a while there was an issue where plugging in sometimes gave a "please unplug" message from the car.