EV charging in general as well as Electrify America in specific

[Ampere]

I pulled into the Rockford, IL Electrify America charger in a very cold rain Sunday (4/16). I got pretty wet just getting the plug into the car. That's when it dawned on me! When was the last time you got wet pumping gas into your ICE car? Nearly all gas stations cover their pump islands. I've seen a score of EV chargers of different brands, none of which are covered. At least some structure like a bus shelter would be appreciated. Besides the comfort of drivers, one would think that the companies providing these high voltage chargers with delicate electronics would want to shield them from precipitation as much as possible. To add insult to injury, there were 1-2-inch deep puddles around each island, and this was not from a torrential rain.

On Saturday, the preceding day, when it was warm and sunny with mild winds, I achieved good range with my Air Touring. I drove from the Champaign-area in central-Illinois to Chicago and probably could have made it round-trip without charging, but traffic was heavy, so I charged at the Lincolnwood Electrify America charger. It was a piece of cake. The charger recognized my car, I tapped the charger number on the Lucid app on my phone and was gulping electrons at 100kw. Wow, I thought they've finally solved the problem.

The next day in a cold (38 degree) rain with high wind I drove to Rockford, as mentioned above. At the EA hyper-charger, it recognized my car and started charging at about 130 kw, Great! Then after a few minutes the inevitable slowdown occurred, Soon it was down to 75 kw. I recalled reading somewhere (perhaps on this forum?) that unplugging and replugging could reinitiate the session and boost the speed. That was a bad mistake on my part. The charger no longer would recognize the car. We were meeting family for dinner, so we gave up following a few tries. After dinner, we went back to the same EA charger (different unit) and tried again. After six attempts of plugging and unplugging, the charger would not recognize the Lucid. So I called the "833" help number. This is the first time EA kept me on hold (for about seven minutes). Then a helpful and friendly person typed in the right code and the electrons began to flow, albeit at 75 kw. It slowed to 49 kw by the time we reached the 85 percent charge we needed to return home. I had preconditioned the battery before charging, but it was still a chilly 38 degrees with strong winds. I'm sure on a warm day with light wind we could have made the drive home with a 70 percent charge or less. As it was, we arrived home with 18 percent.

I have no issues with Lucid (or any other EV company) not meeting its advertised range, there are just too many variables. We all know that just as with ICE cars, promised range/or mileage greatly varies from reality. What irks me are the advertising charging speeds. If I recall, and please correct me, Lucid claimed you could charge as fast as (with the usual asterisk) from 40-80 (or was it 30-80?) percent in 20 minutes? Let me know if any of you achieve this.

 

[elusive7]

I largely agree with you; we should be getting 150kW on the 150kW chargers. However, specific to the Lucid advertised charging speed of 0-80% in 20 minutes (or whatever the figure is), I think that figure applies to GT+ trims and not Touring/Pure since we have the lower voltage battery pack (700V vs 900V). This means (to my understanding) that we can only get (up to) 200kW ish as compared to the full 300kW that the hyper-fast EA chargers can charge at. Still not an excuse for slow charging speeds, however.. I typically only ever get between 80 and 120 kW at the 150 kW EA stalls myself

 

[hydbob]

I pulled into the Rockford, IL Electrify America charger in a very cold rain Sunday (4/16). I got pretty wet just getting the plug into the car. That's when it dawned on me! When was the last time you got wet pumping gas into your ICE car? Nearly all gas stations cover their pump islands. I've seen a score of EV chargers of different brands, none of which are covered. At least some structure like a bus shelter would be appreciated. Besides the comfort of drivers, one would think that the companies providing these high voltage chargers with delicate electronics would want to shield them from precipitation as much as possible. To add insult to injury, there were 1-2-inch deep puddles around each island, and this was not from a torrential rain.

On Saturday, the preceding day, when it was warm and sunny with mild winds, I achieved good range with my Air Touring. I drove from the Champaign-area in central-Illinois to Chicago and probably could have made it round-trip without charging, but traffic was heavy, so I charged at the Lincolnwood Electrify America charger. It was a piece of cake. The charger recognized my car, I tapped the charger number on the Lucid app on my phone and was gulping electrons at 100kw. Wow, I thought they've finally solved the problem.

The next day in a cold (38 degree) rain with high wind I drove to Rockford, as mentioned above. At the EA hyper-charger, it recognized my car and started charging at about 130 kw, Great! Then after a few minutes the inevitable slowdown occurred, Soon it was down to 75 kw. I recalled reading somewhere (perhaps on this forum?) that unplugging and replugging could reinitiate the session and boost the speed. That was a bad mistake on my part. The charger no longer would recognize the car. We were meeting family for dinner, so we gave up following a few tries. After dinner, we went back to the same EA charger (different unit) and tried again. After six attempts of plugging and unplugging, the charger would not recognize the Lucid. So I called the "833" help number. This is the first time EA kept me on hold (for about seven minutes). Then a helpful and friendly person typed in the right code and the electrons began to flow, albeit at 75 kw. It slowed to 49 kw by the time we reached the 85 percent charge we needed to return home. I had preconditioned the battery before charging, but it was still a chilly 38 degrees with strong winds. I'm sure on a warm day with light wind we could have made the drive home with a 70 percent charge or less. As it was, we arrived home with 18 percent.

I have no issues with Lucid (or any other EV company) not meeting its advertised range, there are just too many variables. We all know that just as with ICE cars, promised range/or mileage greatly varies from reality. What irks me are the advertising charging speeds. If I recall, and please correct me, Lucid claimed you could charge as fast as (with the usual asterisk) from 40-80 (or was it 30-80?) percent in 20 minutes? Let me know if any of you achieve this.

It all depends just like the range, on the charger you are hooked into. Earlier i.e. last year when you found a working charger the speeds were better. Now it seems they work more consistently but the speed is down. It's not great, but it's also not on Lucid that these networks, namely Electrify America can't provide a stable juice flow at the speeds they are advertising. I'd still rather have a slower speed but more consistent and reliable uptime, but that might be the reason EA isn't giving us the speeds we desire.

 

[sk8ndad]

I pulled into the Rockford, IL Electrify America charger in a very cold rain Sunday (4/16). I got pretty wet just getting the plug into the car. That's when it dawned on me! When was the last time you got wet pumping gas into your ICE car? Nearly all gas stations cover their pump islands. I've seen a score of EV chargers of different brands, none of which are covered. At least some structure like a bus shelter would be appreciated. Besides the comfort of drivers, one would think that the companies providing these high voltage chargers with delicate electronics would want to shield them from precipitation as much as possible. To add insult to injury, there were 1-2-inch deep puddles around each island, and this was not from a torrential rain.

On Saturday, the preceding day, when it was warm and sunny with mild winds, I achieved good range with my Air Touring. I drove from the Champaign-area in central-Illinois to Chicago and probably could have made it round-trip without charging, but traffic was heavy, so I charged at the Lincolnwood Electrify America charger. It was a piece of cake. The charger recognized my car, I tapped the charger number on the Lucid app on my phone and was gulping electrons at 100kw. Wow, I thought they've finally solved the problem.

The next day in a cold (38 degree) rain with high wind I drove to Rockford, as mentioned above. At the EA hyper-charger, it recognized my car and started charging at about 130 kw, Great! Then after a few minutes the inevitable slowdown occurred, Soon it was down to 75 kw. I recalled reading somewhere (perhaps on this forum?) that unplugging and replugging could reinitiate the session and boost the speed. That was a bad mistake on my part. The charger no longer would recognize the car. We were meeting family for dinner, so we gave up following a few tries. After dinner, we went back to the same EA charger (different unit) and tried again. After six attempts of plugging and unplugging, the charger would not recognize the Lucid. So I called the "833" help number. This is the first time EA kept me on hold (for about seven minutes). Then a helpful and friendly person typed in the right code and the electrons began to flow, albeit at 75 kw. It slowed to 49 kw by the time we reached the 85 percent charge we needed to return home. I had preconditioned the battery before charging, but it was still a chilly 38 degrees with strong winds. I'm sure on a warm day with light wind we could have made the drive home with a 70 percent charge or less. As it was, we arrived home with 18 percent.

I have no issues with Lucid (or any other EV company) not meeting its advertised range, there are just too many variables. We all know that just as with ICE cars, promised range/or mileage greatly varies from reality. What irks me are the advertising charging speeds. If I recall, and please correct me, Lucid claimed you could charge as fast as (with the usual asterisk) from 40-80 (or was it 30-80?) percent in 20 minutes? Let me know if any of you achieve this.

I was very happy with 38 -> 80 in just over 30 minutes. This was 43.2731 kWh from 5:31:51 PM - 6:02:23 PM There was a flaky period of time where delivery was low, but it jumped back to 90%. Highest was 137 kWh on a 150 unit. They are also getting some chargers here that are covered.

 

[Halodde]

I largely agree with you; we should be getting 150kW on the 150kW chargers. However, specific to the Lucid advertised charging speed of 0-80% in 20 minutes (or whatever the figure is), I think that figure applies to GT+ trims and not Touring/Pure since we have the lower voltage battery pack (700V vs 900V). This means (to my understanding) that we can only get (up to) 200kW ish as compared to the full 300kW that the hyper-fast EA chargers can charge at. Still not an excuse for slow charging speeds, however.. I typically only ever get between 80 and 120 kW at the 150 kW EA stalls myself

I've gotten over 250kw briefly as I was charging my Touring although then it started to slow

 

[level]

Couldn't agree more! They should at least have a covered structure for users to shelter the bad weather and get shade from the sun.

 

[sk8ndad]

 

[Negan1000]

I pulled into the Rockford, IL Electrify America charger in a very cold rain Sunday (4/16). I got pretty wet just getting the plug into the car. That's when it dawned on me! When was the last time you got wet pumping gas into your ICE car? Nearly all gas stations cover their pump islands. I've seen a score of EV chargers of different brands, none of which are covered. At least some structure like a bus shelter would be appreciated. Besides the comfort of drivers, one would think that the companies providing these high voltage chargers with delicate electronics would want to shield them from precipitation as much as possible. To add insult to injury, there were 1-2-inch deep puddles around each island, and this was not from a torrential rain.

On Saturday, the preceding day, when it was warm and sunny with mild winds, I achieved good range with my Air Touring. I drove from the Champaign-area in central-Illinois to Chicago and probably could have made it round-trip without charging, but traffic was heavy, so I charged at the Lincolnwood Electrify America charger. It was a piece of cake. The charger recognized my car, I tapped the charger number on the Lucid app on my phone and was gulping electrons at 100kw. Wow, I thought they've finally solved the problem.

The next day in a cold (38 degree) rain with high wind I drove to Rockford, as mentioned above. At the EA hyper-charger, it recognized my car and started charging at about 130 kw, Great! Then after a few minutes the inevitable slowdown occurred, Soon it was down to 75 kw. I recalled reading somewhere (perhaps on this forum?) that unplugging and replugging could reinitiate the session and boost the speed. That was a bad mistake on my part. The charger no longer would recognize the car. We were meeting family for dinner, so we gave up following a few tries. After dinner, we went back to the same EA charger (different unit) and tried again. After six attempts of plugging and unplugging, the charger would not recognize the Lucid. So I called the "833" help number. This is the first time EA kept me on hold (for about seven minutes). Then a helpful and friendly person typed in the right code and the electrons began to flow, albeit at 75 kw. It slowed to 49 kw by the time we reached the 85 percent charge we needed to return home. I had preconditioned the battery before charging, but it was still a chilly 38 degrees with strong winds. I'm sure on a warm day with light wind we could have made the drive home with a 70 percent charge or less. As it was, we arrived home with 18 percent.

I have no issues with Lucid (or any other EV company) not meeting its advertised range, there are just too many variables. We all know that just as with ICE cars, promised range/or mileage greatly varies from reality. What irks me are the advertising charging speeds. If I recall, and please correct me, Lucid claimed you could charge as fast as (with the usual asterisk) from 40-80 (or was it 30-80?) percent in 20 minutes? Let me know if any of you achieve this.

Is your software updated with 2.0.56? You need that for plug and charge to work. Also does the car say your charging is limited by the station? Are you preconditioning?

 

[Snafu]

Is your software updated with 2.0.56? You need that for plug and charge to work. Also does the car say your charging is limited by the station? Are you preconditioning?

The plug and charge for EA has worked for me since I got my car in September, even on the v.1.x software. The only EA charger which has never worked is a very old model, and many other cars also have problems using it. I have only ever gotten over 120 kW on an EA 140kW charger once. (Preconditioning doesn't always help on EA chargers for me).

Today I stopped for some free charging on the way home and watched someone in a Chevy Bolt struggling for almost 20 minutes, changing stations, and calling for help (apparently) before it finally seemed to work for him.

Something to keep in mind, especially with everyone's snark about Tesla owners being unhappy about the future opening of the Supercharger Network to other EVs, is that there needs to be a very public and functioning increase in CCS charging stations too. The increase in demand as more and more people are buying EVs could really harm a smooth adoption curve and sabotage the entire process if more convenient, available and reliable charging infrastructure is not rolled out quickly for apartment dwellers, road trip aficionados, rural, suburban, urban users, and errand-runners.

 

[hydbob]

Couldn't agree more! They should at least have a covered structure for users to shelter the bad weather and get shade from the sun.

Up until recently, and even maybe now, the covered structures were at the discretion of the Landlord from whom EA was leasing the land.

 

[Ampere]

Is your software updated with 2.0.56? You need that for plug and charge to work. Also does the car say your charging is limited by the station? Are you preconditioning?

As mentioned in the post, the battery was pre-conditioned. The car was updated to .59 software before this occurred. Actually, Lucid tech informed me that the .56 update was for specific cars and not all Lucids. Mine was not one of those cars that needed .56.

 

[Negan1000]

As mentioned in the post, the battery was pre-conditioned. The car was updated to .59 software before this occurred. Actually, Lucid tech informed me that the .56 update was for specific cars and not all Lucids. Mine was not one of those cars that needed .56.

.56 resolved Plug and charge issues for me. If you continue to have plug and charge problems, talk to CC about the updated.

 

[Shuasha]

Interestingly, on the stations in my area where I've had weirdness charging, EA just downgraded the listing for them to 50kw for 3 of the 4 stations. Ironically, the ChaDeMo station is still listed at 150kw. Woodridge, Aurora, and Hodgkins are all like this, with one station getting 150 and the rest limited to 50. I guess it's good that they're honest so people don't get the wrong expectation.

Electrify America: U.S. EV public charging network | Electrify America

The leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging. Electrify America offers the most public fast charging stations in the U.S., plus home and commercial products.

www.electrifyamerica.com

 

[elusive7]

Interestingly, on the stations in my area where I've had weirdness charging, EA just downgraded the listing for them to 50kw for 3 of the 4 stations. Ironically, the ChaDeMo station is still listed at 150kw. Woodridge, Aurora, and Hodgkins are all like this, with one station getting 150 and the rest limited to 50. I guess it's good that they're honest so people don't get the wrong expectation.

Electrify America: U.S. EV public charging network | Electrify America

The leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging. Electrify America offers the most public fast charging stations in the U.S., plus home and commercial products.

www.electrifyamerica.com

I noticed this too -- I typically charge at the Aurora Meijer but only one 150 there now like you said..

 

[Shuasha]

I always charge at home, but wanted to see what kind of speed I could get from the single 150 in Woodridge. I pulled up and the one marked at 150 was out of order, of course.

So I decided to try the brand new EVGO station on 75th street. Not a person on site, 8 charging connectors, 350kW shared across 2 connectors. I was at a 15% SOC, battery preconditioned, and hit 270kW out of the gate which slowed down to 200ish after 5 mins. I stopped charging at that point to finish tonight at home, but if traveling I would be super happy to use those over any EA stop.

 

[DRJRC]

I have experienced literally all of the EA failures and problems discussed in this thread and they all have been significantly aggravated by Lucids lack of sufficient infrastructure including charging, service and maintenance, sales and customer service. Charging, among 11 other significant issues went virtually unaddressed from October 22 when I bought the car until April of 23 despite 16 calls and complaints to customer service, then the "local" service rep, and then the regional service rep. The story was that due to the cutbacks and layoffs as well as facilities space issues in the local service center they just did not have enough available personnel, facilities and equipment get to my car. The car was eventually shipped back to the Michigan service facility for 3 weeks during which time I had no loaner. Both the local service rep as well as the regional manager were good people, did what they could, and were certainly well spoken about the situation. However, the variation in KW flow rate continues on my car at EA chargers. I have been back and forth with EA and Lucid customer service about this many times and it is always the other company's problem. - Even today! , So talk of a "problem resolved" on this thread might be a little premature. Range anxiety- directly related to charging availability and reliability is not going to get better until Lucid steps up to own and fix the problem itself which means that charging becomes as reliable and ubiquitous as at least all the other cars owner's drive. I will be addressing both the good and bad news of the 11 other significant issues in their more appropriate threads. There are some good things to say about the good people at Lucid and I intend to do so. Because until they get more corporate and public infrastructure in place and functioning customer expectations are likely to be frustrated.

 

[DeaneG]

The problem with variation in charging power at EA's older Signet charging stalls has been identified and EA is working on a fix to their software. The same problem affects 800-1000V cars of all makes, a much larger population than just Lucid. It is Lucid's problem to deal with because it affects their customers, but not to solve. In my opinion EA did not sufficiently test their software across a range of vehicles.

 

[xponents]

The problem with variation in charging power at EA's older Signet charging stalls has been identified and EA is working on a fix to their software. The same problem affects 800-1000V cars of all makes, a much larger population than just Lucid. It is Lucid's problem to deal with because it affects their customers, but not to solve. In my opinion EA did not sufficiently test their software across a range of vehicles.

Which is the best one? ABB?

Also for others reference i'd like to post this:
(from left to right: SIGNET, efacec, BTCPower, ABB)

 

[borski]

The problem with variation in charging power at EA's older Signet charging stalls has been identified and EA is working on a fix to their software. The same problem affects 800-1000V cars of all makes, a much larger population than just Lucid. It is Lucid's problem to deal with because it affects their customers, but not to solve. In my opinion EA did not sufficiently test their software across a range of vehicles.

Lucid actually spent a few weeks at an EA lab with an Air and left them a car to test with as a “representative sample,” but you’re right; it’s an EA issue that Lucid couldn’t fix even if they wanted to (which they obviously do) and affects much more than Lucid. My wife’s Ioniq 5 has the same issue.

As another point in favor of this being an EA issue, the same issue does not present on Signet chargers at EVGo.

(Also I heard it directly from a source that will remain nameless but you’ve definitely seen)

 

[xponents]

Lucid actually spent a few weeks at an EA lab with an Air and left them a car to test with as a “representative sample,” but you’re right; it’s an EA issue that Lucid couldn’t fix even if they wanted to (which they obviously do) and affects much more than Lucid. My wife’s Ioniq 5 has the same issue.

As another point in favor of this being an EA issue, the same issue does not present on Signet chargers at EVGo.

(Also I heard it directly from a source that will remain nameless but you’ve definitely seen)

Peter rawlinson im guessing