"State of Charge" Charging Drag Race between Gravity and new Porsche Taycan

[hmp10]

 

[Ughwhy]

Interesting video. I wonder how those two different charging strategies impact battery life. Is Porsche sacrificing longevity?

 

[9point81]

Interesting video. I wonder how those two different charging strategies impact battery life. Is Porsche sacrificing longevity?

My 2020 Taycan has a pretty awesome curve, tho "only" tops out at 270kw but with almost 70k miles and lots of road trips and high speed charging on it, it does indeed hold up really well for battery life.

 

[hmp10]

Interesting video. I wonder how those two different charging strategies impact battery life. Is Porsche sacrificing longevity?

Maybe not. It probably comes down to the cell chemistry Porsche chose to get such fast charging. Tom Moloughney, Kyle Conner, and Emad Dlala (Lucid's SVP of Powertrain) have discussed this in other videos.

They explained that there is an inherent compromise in cell chemistry between power density and being able to accept fast charging. The faster a cell will charge, the less power dense it will be. Porsche opted for the newest "power cells", which means cells which sacrifice power density to get higher charging rates. It's one of the reasons for Porsche's relatively short EPA range ratings. Lucid took the other path, leaning more toward power density to get range and then working hard on other factors such as high voltage architecture, pack cooling, and the battery management system to maximize charging speeds safely.

I think both companies know enough about what they're doing to keep both battery packs robust throughout vehicle service life. If I had to guess, however, whether one is closer to the edge of the envelope in risking longevity, I think it might be Lucid, as more of the Porsche's protection is inherent in the cell chemistry instead of external systems.

 

[Ughwhy]

My personal limiting factor is ~210 miles (3 hours of driving) which is bladder limited. Regardless of what car I am in, between me and my wife, one of us needs to use the bathroom no less frequently than once every three hours. So, the key to me is how much range can I get for a 10-15min bathroom break stop every three hours. Both these vehicles do well in this metric because I can make it another three hours of driving (or further) with only a 10-15min stop.

 

[hmp10]

My personal limiting factor is ~210 miles (3 hours of driving) which is bladder limited. Regardless of what car I am in, between me and my wife, one of us needs to use the bathroom no less frequently than once every three hours. So, the key to me is how much range can I get for a 10-15min bathroom break stop every three hours. Both these vehicles do well in this metric because I can make it another three hours of driving (or further) with only a 10-15min stop.

Same for us, although I set the goal at about 240 miles (3 hrs x 80mph).

I'm assuming the Gravity Dream will get about 80% of its 370-mile EPA rating in real-world road tripping (our Air does about 78%). That means using about 80% of the battery pack to get 240 miles between charging stops.

In Electrify America charging days with the Air, I wanted to keep a 20% margin in the pack to hedge the risk of a non-working charging station. With Superchargers now open to the Gravity, I'm willing to cut things closer. That still means charging up to 90% at charging stops instead of the 80% Moloughney recommends, but the Gravity races through the top end of the charging curve fast enough to make the extra 10% of charging at the low end of the curve tolerable.

 

[Leftlane]

My personal limiting factor is ~210 miles (3 hours of driving) which is bladder limited. Regardless of what car I am in, between me and my wife, one of us needs to use the bathroom no less frequently than once every three hours. So, the key to me is how much range can I get for a 10-15min bathroom break stop every three hours. Both these vehicles do well in this metric because I can make it another three hours of driving (or further) with only a 10-15min stop.

Your personal limiting factor (love it) is at least 3x more efficient than mine. After several bouts of kidney stones, I don’t push it at all - this is the main reason why NOBODY wants to road trip with me - and that is totally fine by me.

 

[WeighingGravity]

fascinating video, thank you for bringing it to my attention.