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.
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.
