"Charging power limited by station" explained by CS

IMO experience on older EA stations, 350kW stalls never really work for me on Lucid, so I generally don’t bother and go straight to 150kW. But when I road tripping find newer generation EA stalls and SOC does go below 20%, I would love to see that marvelous speed at 350kW, most of time it’s N/A to my use case. For Rivian, I’ve pulled fastest at 206kW at EA 350kW stalls, Lucid at 300+kW ONLY for brief moment.
I like to keep my options open so I am usually starting from 30-40%. The few times I have been down to single digits, the best I’ve gotten is 276.
Starting at 30% or more I use 175s as my experience is the 175s are more likely to be working and able to deliver their max power or close to it.
Pulling into a 350 and trying a couple time to get it going, then moving the car to a different charger, you’ve killed any time benefit the 350 would have, and frustration is higher because you added another unsuccessful charging session, which gets old fast.
 
And here I thought I was home free when I saw the chargers, just a few minutes from my house, were Signets. You can’t win. :(
Here is my first charging experience with this beauty since I got it Tuesday. As one can see, this was an Electrify America station with four chargers; 3 Hyper-Fast up to 350 kw and the other being used was a 150. Glad I was in no hurry! Also, I never stopped charger, it just happened on its own
 

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Here is my first charging experience with this beauty since I got it Tuesday. As one can see, this was an Electrify America station with four chargers; 3 Hyper-Fast up to 350 kw and the other being used was a 150. Glad I was in no hurry! Also, I never stopped charger, it just happened on its own
You might get better charging speed at 150kW than those Hyper Fast 350kW stall. My personal rule of thumb, if it goes to 60kW speed, I either change stall or stop charging and get back to the road.
 
Halodde, the EA chargers near me do have the 2 cables on either side. :(
I had my very first charging experience at EA this past weekend on Long Island. I found a 350kW charger and turned on battery preconditioning when I was about 25-30 minutes away. When I pulled into the station, my battery had not yet completed preconditioning (I thought this would take 20 minutes?) and I was at 47% SOC. Ambient temp around 42 F and raining. The charger type was a dual-plug model as described (photo attached). A quick rundown of my charging experience:
  • Plug and Charge worked - recognized my car and got going right away, initially at about 110kW
  • Speed reduced to about 95kW, then 90kW over the course of ~5 minutes
  • Speed suddenly fell, jumped around pretty wildly and rapidly between 30kW and 60kW, accompanied by "charging power limited by station" notification
  • Seemed to fix itself after maybe 5 minutes, resumed at about 90kW, steadily declined to about 79kW by the time I unplugged another ~5 minutes later
Overall, I charged for 17 minutes and added 23kWh. Sample size of one, but certainly not what was hoped for! While all this was occurring, a GV60 parked at the 350kW charger next to me was pulling down 135kW, and a Kia Niro at a 150kW was pulling down 43kW.
 

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The battery preconditioning never will say it is complete as it will continue to condition until you turn it off or the charging has been completed. If you turn it on for 20’ prior to charging, the battery will be in good shape to take full power.
 
The battery preconditioning never will say it is complete as it will continue to condition until you turn it off or the charging has been completed. If you turn it on for 20’ prior to charging, the battery will be in good shape to take full power.
Appreciate you clarifying that, good to know.
 
While all this was occurring, a GV60 parked at the 350kW charger next to me was pulling down 135kW, and a Kia Niro at a 150kW was pulling down 43kW.
This isn’t enough info unfortunately - state of charge matters a lot here.
 
I had my very first charging experience at EA this past weekend on Long Island. I found a 350kW charger and turned on battery preconditioning when I was about 25-30 minutes away. When I pulled into the station, my battery had not yet completed preconditioning (I thought this would take 20 minutes?) and I was at 47% SOC. Ambient temp around 42 F and raining. The charger type was a dual-plug model as described (photo attached). A quick rundown of my charging experience:
  • Plug and Charge worked - recognized my car and got going right away, initially at about 110kW
  • Speed reduced to about 95kW, then 90kW over the course of ~5 minutes
  • Speed suddenly fell, jumped around pretty wildly and rapidly between 30kW and 60kW, accompanied by "charging power limited by station" notification
  • Seemed to fix itself after maybe 5 minutes, resumed at about 90kW, steadily declined to about 79kW by the time I unplugged another ~5 minutes later
Overall, I charged for 17 minutes and added 23kWh. Sample size of one, but certainly not what was hoped for! While all this was occurring, a GV60 parked at the 350kW charger next to me was pulling down 135kW, and a Kia Niro at a 150kW was pulling down 43kW.
Next time try the other plug. The plugs operate on their own circuit so if one is slow the try the other. Today one plug gave me 50 kw and the one started me out at 138 kW.
 
You might get better charging speed at 150kW than those Hyper Fast 350kW stall. My personal rule of thumb, if it goes to 60kW speed, I either change stall or stop charging and get back to the road.
When I called EA about this the young lady made the same comment . I'll keep that in mind the next time I charge at that location.
 
I have noticed that I routinely get better speeds on the 150kW than the 350kW stations. It is to the point where I just don’t look for the hyper fast stations.
 
Got this dreaded message at the 2 chargers in Victor that I got to work at all so I called EA and Lucid. Lucid CS says that they are aware that some EA chargers don't know how to handle the higher voltage of Lucid cars and therefore limit the power to avoid a problem. EA said they are aware of problems with Lucid charging and Signet chargers. I don't know what to believe anymore. I thought Signets were the 'good' chargers. Yet here I sit charging at a pathetic 25 kW.
Don't think it's the Signet hardware. I have charged at several locations, for the past 3 months, all on Signet hardware with reasonable charging speeds (100-150kW) which is the most I would expect at my recharging SOC.

My Touring came very quickly and so didn't have home charging for almost 3 months, so lived off EA.

Sounds like a local issue with that particular EA station you were at.
 
Don't think it's the Signet hardware. I have charged at several locations, for the past 3 months, all on Signet hardware with reasonable charging speeds (100-150kW) which is the most I would expect at my recharging SOC.

My Touring came very quickly and so didn't have home charging for almost 3 months, so lived off EA.

Sounds like a local issue with that particular EA station you were at.
I agree. I have had success with other signet chargers. These were the style with 2 cables on each charger. I've had success with the (newer?) ones that only have one cable/charger.
 
This isn’t enough info unfortunately - state of charge matters a lot here.
Also, the charge curves for others cars are different.
 
The EA station near me was just upgraded from 150 to 350kW, shiny new stands. It was down for 3 weeks or so for the upgrade. Now instead of 130+ I bounce between 20 and 90 with the “limited by station” message on the dash. ☹️
 
The EA station near me was just upgraded from 150 to 350kW, shiny new stands. It was down for 3 weeks or so for the upgrade. Now instead of 130+ I bounce between 20 and 90 with the “limited by station” message on the dash. ☹️

The notorious Signet surge
 
The EA station near me was just upgraded from 150 to 350kW, shiny new stands. It was down for 3 weeks or so for the upgrade. Now instead of 130+ I bounce between 20 and 90 with the “limited by station” message on the dash. ☹️
Stupid EA... The only bad deal with Lucid Motors.
 
We stopped at the EA charger in Bridgehampton this evening. There were 4 chargers although two are reserved for electrify New York in some kind of joint venture with the state. Of the two open to a lucid one was down and the other was limited to 72 miles charge per hour or about double what I get on a 220 charger. So two hours later I have what I need to drive home plus about a50 mile range buffer. EA is really a slow motion train wreak. I can’t stress that enough.
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I thought you could charge at those electrify NY stations. Don’t they all have an EA logo on them?
 
Charging limited by station at EA. I've been on hold for 24 minutes to speak with an agent. Out of 3 chargers here one is down and this one is slow. Down the street about 6 miles away all 4 EA chargers are down.
 

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