EA Megathread

[hellolucid]

He has a DE and lives in FL where it isn’t cold. I have driven Cupertino to San Diego on a single charge, which is 466mi; it just wasn’t fun to drive that way.

Sure technically you can achieve it but at what cost. I lose 5 miles just on the ramp

 

[borski]

I think we visited the same farm. All I remember is rows and rows of trellised tomatoes in greenhouses.

Home | Friðheimar

fridheimar.is

 

[DeaneG]

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fridheimar.is

That's the place!

 

[momo3605]

Not if I drive the way I like to. We average just over 3.0 mi/kWh on road trips, which would have required ~124 kWh. Plus it was raining part of the way, which reduces range a bit, and I got tied up in two prolonged traffic snarls due to accidents (one on Route 27 and one on I-4) with lots of stop-and-go driving.

Also, since this shortest route was on back roads through rural farmlands and small towns well past midnight (we got home at 3:48 a.m.) with no charging options at all, it was not a place I would have wanted to run out of battery charge.

Maybe the Tesla would’ve saved you time. If I was expecting to have to charge and the only station in the middle of a busy airport was a 4 stall unit with one stall broken, I absolutely would not take my Lucid haha

 

[hmp10]

I think we visited the same farm. All I remember is rows and rows of trellised tomatoes in greenhouses.

Yes, it was Fridheimer. However, there was a restaurant set up in the middle of the plants . . . last week, anyway.

And here's that tomato soup @borski is remembering:

 

[hmp10]

Maybe the Tesla would’ve saved you time. If I was expecting to have to charge and the only station in the middle of a busy airport was a 4 stall unit with one stall broken, I absolutely would not take my Lucid haha

Yeah, but I would have had to spend 11 hours driving and sitting in that Tesla instead of the Air. Not worth the possible time saving in my book.

 

[ViperSSD]

Day 1 of my road trip the bay area in Cali to Dallas and it went mostly uneventful except the last 2 stops. 1 we had to wait for only one working charger and the last was pretty strange.
All day I've had to authorize the stall in the app after attempting the plug and charge handshake, literally 0.auccess when this used to be common...
First question, is that the new normal process now?

Second, on the final stop I went through this whole process, plug in the car, see text in the car to authorize via the app. I open the app and select the matching charge stall number and failure/time-out of the stall. After about 5 retries, I realized the charging station being brought up for activation was the previous stop in Flagstaff. I tried rebooting the car and clearing cache and all data from the app and saw it come back....
Has anyone seen this before and know what to do?

 

[ViperSSD]

Day 1 of my road trip the bay area in Cali to Dallas and it went mostly uneventful except the last 2 stops. 1 we had to wait for only one working charger and the last was pretty strange.
All day I've had to authorize the stall in the app after attempting the plug and charge handshake, literally 0.auccess when this used to be common...
First question, is that the new normal process now?

Second, on the final stop I went through this whole process, plug in the car, see text in the car to authorize via the app. I open the app and select the matching charge stall number and failure/time-out of the stall. After about 5 retries, I realized the charging station being brought up for activation was the previous stop in Flagstaff. I tried rebooting the car and clearing cache and all data from the app and saw it come back....
Has anyone seen this before and know what to do?

I did message Lucid service so hopefully if there is something on their end, they can get to it tomorrow, if not hopefully someone here has a workaround

 

[ViperSSD]

Anyways, it worked just fine the next day, showing the correct updated station in the app though I still had to authorize via the app at every plug-in.

 

[Buffalo Bob]

Interesting observation (I think) charging at EA this morning. Six of eight chargers were operating, and all six were in use once I plugged in. Preconditioned and at a 350 kW charger, my 28% to 80% time estimate was (as almost always)... 35 minutes. Charging started at a respectable 177 kW, and actually completed in a little under the 35 minute estimate, but along the way, the charging rate was rising and falling all over the place. Sometimes dropping to around 50 kW before zooming back up to around 125 kW, and then a host of variations on that theme. I don't think it was due to other cars starting/stopping their charging, as there was at least one car waiting for a spot all the time. My car would be making the jet-like noises that I commonly hear as the BMS manages the charging process, but I couldn't tell if that was the cause of the result of the kW fluctuations.

 

[Buffalo Bob]

Here's another interesting one. I went to an eight stall place once at around 4:00 AM, and was surprised to see four white Chevy Bolts charging. There was a fifth white Bolt waiting, and the woman inside that Bolt was actively checking the other four. I got to chatting with her, and part of her job was to charge her company's fleet of Bolts every night. She starts at 1:00 AM, and tries to get done by around 4:00 AM, so as not to be too bothersome. I think she also adjusts the number of cars charging before others have to wait for a charger. I thought all of that was a pretty impressive effort on her part, but felt bad about her having to take on that role, given how incensed some people get when they see even one Bolt charging. So, if you run into that situation sometime, please give the poor lady a break. She's really trying! (BTW, she said the company is working to get charging stations approved for installation at their facility, but the process is backlogged for some reason.)

 

[ViperSSD]

Interesting observation (I think) charging at EA this morning. Six of eight chargers were operating, and all six were in use once I plugged in. Preconditioned and at a 350 kW charger, my 28% to 80% time estimate was (as almost always)... 35 minutes. Charging started at a respectable 177 kW, and actually completed in a little under the 35 minute estimate, but along the way, the charging rate was rising and falling all over the place. Sometimes dropping to around 50 kW before zooming back up to around 125 kW, and then a host of variations on that theme. I don't think it was due to other cars starting/stopping their charging, as there was at least one car waiting for a spot all the time. My car would be making the jet-like noises that I commonly hear as the BMS manages the charging process, but I couldn't tell if that was the cause of the result of the kW fluctuations.

I remember this was an issue with the new Gen stations and seeing power fluctuating

 

[Blue Lectroid]

There was no feasible way to make this trip without a charging stop. The route along interstates which have numerous charging options was 246 miles each way.

The backroads route I took had no charging options outside the Orlando area, and I was traveling in the wee hours of the morning through small farm towns part of the time with no help available if anything went amiss. I was simply not willing to cut it so close that any weather or other traffic issues could have left us stranded. And we actually did encounter rain.

And if you think driving on Florida highways anywhere at 55 mph for sustained periods wouldn't be absolutely frightening, then you haven't driven in Florida. If I had to drive an EV that way to go long distances, I wouldn't own one.

The Lucid does its job of providing more real-world range for the way I like to drive than any other EV. But the charging infrastructure in this country sucks for people who don't live along the Pacific seaboard.

My partner sent me pictures during his trip of the charging situation in Iceland. Almost every gas station also had DC fast chargers, and they are scattered along the roads (although these appear to be Level 2 chargers):

View attachment 25234

And he found them in some truly weird places, one being a greenhouse tomato farm on a gravel road:

View attachment 25235

It's the main reason that, even in Iceland's cold climate, you see EVs everywhere. And they aren't just Teslas. When I was there two years ago, I saw more Hyundai, Kia, and Ford EVs than I've seen anywhere in the U.S.

And what fledging attempts we were seeing at government encouragement of EV charging infrastructure in the U.S. will soon be shut down. We are an oil-burning society and intend to stay one as long as possible.

Yup, every time I travel abroad to places like Iceland, Japan, China, many countries in Europe, I shake my head at just how far behind we are with 21st century infrastructure (and thinking!). The general public seems hell bent on making decisions that ensure we become less and less competitive as time goes by. Very strange.

 

[Blue Lectroid]

Home | Friðheimar

fridheimar.is

Was there this past Summer!! Great food!!

 

[ViperSSD]

I just drove from the west coast to Dallas and the stretch from Amarillo to Dallas would have been pretty hairy in any other car or you have to go the long route through Oklahoma. It was very surprising to see Wichita Falls basically have nothing except dealer chargers. In addition, around the DFW area, the lack of fast chargers was surprising in and around the city, here if you don't have a Tesla or access to the Supercharger network, you would get stuck.

 

[tonybot]

I just drove from the west coast to Dallas and the stretch from Amarillo to Dallas would have been pretty hairy in any other car or you have to go the long route through Oklahoma. It was very surprising to see Wichita Falls basically have nothing except dealer chargers. In addition, around the DFW area, the lack of fast chargers was surprising in and around the city, here if you don't have a Tesla or access to the Supercharger network, you would get stuck.

Agree. Living here, it is very true. Dallas to Houston is well covered by EA with 5 charging locations and 2 for Dallas to Austin. But limited options outside of major highways, especially towards the northern suburbs. Lucid offers me great peace if mind and I have been able to do Frisco to Houston on Air Pure (260 some miles at 77-85 mph usually ) on warm days using about 70% charge on a full charge.

 

[TakeDuo]

This is the best thing I’ve seen yet. Bedford, PA

 

[momo3605]

This is the best thing I’ve seen yet. Bedford, PAView attachment 25654

They need to do this at all the urban EAs in SF/Bay Area. Especially the ones in malls. People just leave them till 100% and go enjoy a leisurely shopping spree

 

[ViperSSD]

I'm a bit mixed about this...I'm about to road trip back home from Texas to the Bay area and need to literally get to 100% to make this first leg

I think the better policy is and idle fee TBH but yeah, people charging their leased cars to 100% for no reason everytime while it's free will not be resoled by this

 

[momo3605]

I'm a bit mixed about this...I'm about to road trip back home from Texas to the Bay area and need to literally get to 100% to make this first leg

I think the better policy is and idle fee TBH but yeah, people charging their leased cars to 100% for no reason everytime while it's free will not be resoled by this

That’s why I think they should have 85% limit at urban chargers where people are more likely to waste time. When you’re road tripping, you’re more likely to want to get going asap.