Lucid Air charging rate on 350 KW fast charger

[tmilone103]

Fastest charge I have seen from any charger in NJ was 91kw. All the EA chargers I have come across from my state also max out at 150kw.

 

[Electrified]

I think it seems to be associated with the amount of time of preconditioning, the longer you precondition the faster the charging should be, but I have yet to experience anything above 150 kW despite trying to charge at different EA stations in both Rockford and Milwaukee area, I always get a response, The charging is limited by the station, but if there is no other vehicles, why would that be? I think the car is limiting the speed of charging at this point, and preconditioning I was once told has to be about 1 hr for proper fast charging. Not sure though.

If I precondition for 20 minutes I get some nice fast charging.

 

[Bobby]

If I precondition for 20 minutes I get some nice fast charging.

The Lucid hat is a nice touch.

 

[SDHacker]

I think it seems to be associated with the amount of time of preconditioning, the longer you precondition the faster the charging should be, but I have yet to experience anything above 150 kW despite trying to charge at different EA stations in both Rockford and Milwaukee area, I always get a response, The charging is limited by the station, but if there is no other vehicles, why would that be? I think the car is limiting the speed of charging at this point, and preconditioning I was once told has to be about 1 hr for proper fast charging. Not sure though.

Very recently, I've been getting over 150 on a 150 charger with only 5 minutes of pre-conditioning starting at 30 to 40% SOC. But there have been multiple times on the same charger that I have gotten the "power limited by station" message earlier - late summer/early fall. It's not just Lucid getting low charging rates. Others have complained about slow charging while waiting.

 

[HPetek]

On my first trip out of area. I stopped at several different Electrify America and EVGO charging station. Based on published charge rates and charts, expected to see close to 300 when the battery was below 20% and for the rate to start declining as it becomes more fully charged. The fastest charge rate I observed was about 168 KW. I had just gotten my Lucid back after they repaired the charge system. The car had bricked itself completely. Field support came out and opened a panel behind the left rear tire and hooked in and unbricked the car. They then put the car on the 240V charger and watched for a couple minutes, and then left. The car then before they could get a block started throwing messages and the charge indicator went red. The towed the car the next day to a service center. They found partially disconnected wiring in the charge circuit. Anyway, I got my car back and soon departed on a 1500 mile journey. I spent way m ore time at the charging stations than I had anticipated. I had been making mental notes on all the charge rates. Sometimes, I started charging at 40% and sometimes it was under 20%. This was 6 EA stations and 2 different EVGO stations, all at 350KW ratings.

I opened a ticket on my slow charging situation, and the field support forwarded it to the "Battery Team". The battery team made a claim they saw 220 KW/Hour which is well short of what I should have seen. I never saw 220 and had some screen shots of what the station registered and the car registered. Regardless, I ran the car down to 15% and then preconditioned the battery for 23 minutes. At the closest EVGO 350 KW station, with no one else drawing power from the many station / nozzles, I plugged in again. This time I watched very closeley and took screen shots and pictures of the consoles. For a few seconds, I did get almost 220, but it then dropped to 200 and fluctuated down to 180 and back up. By the time I got to 20% it was down to the 180 range and dropping. I stopped the test at 41%. So based on Lucid's claim of 300 Miles in 20 minutes and based of the published charge rates, I am getting about 60-66 % of what is expected. Since Lucid had been refusing service, I sent them all the screen shots. They said they would escalate it and someone from the team would contact me within a couple of days. A week later, I had not heard a peep, so I called them again. Same story, someone will get back to you.

Has anyone else had this issue? Did they fight addressing the issue? Did they finally resolve the issue? If they resolved it, how did they say they resolved it.

You are doing great. I get 69 kW at 350 kW outlet. This seems to be a problem that is not being addressed.

 

[Mawashi Geri]

I went to a 350 kw bay today and was getting 45 kW charge. Its always been low but never this low. Stopped this charge and went to the 150 kW bay. Was getting about 60kW. Long time for a small charge before a big day of driving. Batteries were preconditioned. The charging bays were EA.

 

[Bus Driver]

Maybe we should put in a feature request - have the car start preconditioning the battery if you’re navigating to an EA charging station. Again, a la Tesla.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

My understanding of charging is that is dependent on many factors other than state of charge and the charger kW.

I don’t understand why charging at 160 instead of >200 is a big deal. How much time does that add to the charge? Is it a lot?

This is the question.

= loaded x kWh in y minutes at (type) charger. also beginning SOC, temp, precon? hat....

 

[openball]

I've got just over 7500 miles on mine and have only ever charged at EA for all my charging. I've never seen higher than 170ish but have always felt the limitation was from the EA side. Sometimes I'd get the message that it was limited by the station.

I've charged from 10%-90% and every combination between those. I'm hoping with the newest machines EA is starting to install that it will increase.

There's been tests done showing the overall time difference averages out but it definitely takes longer 20-80 for me than "theoretical ideal" but nothing that has caused me to reach out to CS.

I truly feel it's more of an EA issue

I'm glad I saw this. I drive a lot and initially planned to only use EA for the first 3yrs. Although I'm installing a home charger, It's good to know that it's doable.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

The highest I’ve hit is 301kw last summer but that tapered relatively quickly, but did come close to following the charging curve. Occasionally I’ve gotten 220 and it’s held for awhile. Honestly I’ve had better luck on the 150kw EA not power sharing and getting a sustained 172kw for awhile. Lately on any EA the most I’ve got was like 128kw but I assumed that was because of the cold weather.

 

[Bobby]

The highest I’ve hit is 301kw last summer but that tapered relatively quickly, but did come close to following the charging curve. Occasionally I’ve gotten 220 and it’s held for awhile. Honestly I’ve had better luck on the 150kw EA not power sharing and getting a sustained 172kw for awhile. Lately on any EA the most I’ve got was like 128kw but I assumed that was because of the cold weather.

I was getting spoiled by routinely seeing 150+ on the 150 chargers. I did once get over 230 on a 350 charger. Now however, things aren't as happy… I feel fortunate if I can get 80 on any charger. I'd like to lay the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of EA, but frankly, I am not convinced that Lucid software plays no role. I have recently charged at chargers where other vehicles (MB, Kia, Hyundai) were getting much higher speeds than my car can get. This worries me that EA is not solely to blame.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Yeah to be fair the last time I DC fast charged on EA, while I got 128kw it did the yo-yo a lot, finally settled on 128 but then did drop to 88kw after about 5 min. That was preconditioned 28% SOC. But it was also 40F out so I assumed temps played a role. Maybe not and EA software and Lucid software hate eachother. I think it’s a two way street where maybe both need to implement fixes.

 

[Lucken]

You know how gasoline companies change their blends depending upon season? You’re getting the winter blend of electricity, it’s thicker and doesn’t flow as well as the summer blend.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

You know how gasoline companies change their blends depending upon season? You’re getting the winter blend of electricity, it’s thicker and doesn’t flow as well as the summer blend.

Yeah those jerk physics companies slow down the electrons in the winter.

 

[HPetek]

You know how gasoline companies change their blends depending upon season? You’re getting the winter blend of electricity, it’s thicker and doesn’t flow as well as the summer blend.

Do not blame the physics. Electrons move faster when it is cold. My electrons move on attosecond time scale (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3030-1). I think one problem is EA miss advertising, and the other is Lucid promoting this misadvertising. I am trying to get a response from Lucid on how one can get the advertised 350 kW charging. So far no luck.

 

[Halodde]

EXACTLY!!! Can I get an AMEN?!?!

No one has any business getting an EV if they have no provision for charging at home. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Facebook Marketplace is replete with listings of Tesla Model 3s For Sale because the inexperienced, and almost always young buyers who bought them. Didn’t take long for them to discover that wasting about an hour and a half of your time every week at your local superchargers was not a such a great way to “live your best life”.

“Living Your Best Life” and “You Do You” are two post-millenial aphorisms that really should be locked up in a padded, underground cell, guarded by four rottweilers, with the key thrown away. But I digress.

I got an EV and can't charge at home. And I drive a LOT. That's part of why I got an EV and Lucid in particular. And the free charging is part of the reason that I am hopefully able to make the finances work. I get reimbursed for mileage through work. So, no money on gas, no money (or very little $ only as needed) for electricity to charge and reimbursement for mileage means that I can put my entire mileage reimbursement into paying for the car for the first 3 years. I obviously realize the huge benefit of charging at home and will eventually get there. But, for now, where I live and due to the current electrical situation in the house, it would cost me $2k to install a NEMA 14-50 in the garage. Since I am not planning on living here much longer, I don't want to sink that $ into something that is only going to benefit me briefly and have it just be for convenience. So, for the time being, I'm going to roll with as much of the free EA charging as possible.

 

[Lucken]

Do not blame the physics. Electrons move faster when it is cold. My electrons move on attosecond time scale (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3030-1). I think one problem is EA miss advertising, and the other is Lucid promoting this misadvertising. I am trying to get a response from Lucid on how one can get the advertised 350 kW charging. So far no luck.

I hope everyone knows that was a joke. I did put the winky in to illustrate my post was in jest.

 

[Halodde]

I hope everyone knows that was a joke. I did put the winky in to illustrate my post was in jest.

My electrons are faster than your electrons

 

[HariK]

If I precondition for 20 minutes I get some nice fast charging.

However, we really do not want to drain the battery to 7%. The most I drained was to 13%. On a 20gal tank in my Lexus LS430 with a capacity of 22gal the max I recall filling was 20gal or 10%. That was extremely rare. 18 gal was most common. That is 20%.

In any case, it would be fantastic feedback we can provide to both EA and Lucid by going to the same charging station with the same SOC at about the same ambient temp with pre conditioning to isolate the problem and help in a solution to the low charge rate most of us get, the ping pong, the sudden stopping to charge. I plan to do that and hopefully the tracker

Lucid public charging database

A place for owners to collect public charging data

docs.google.com

data can also help in pin pointing the problem if we add comments.

I tried to summarize the data collected on the tracker as of now. I deleted in the summary where kWh dispensed was not recorded or it did not charge.
Where the time elapsed was not recorded, I used a place holder number of 1min per kWh. I deleted 1 extreme case of 5kWh / min. I deleted a non DC FC.

My observations. See the averages. On the best 150kW station, the average was 153kW and 2.54kwh/min. On the best 350kW station the average was 157kW and 2.6kWh/min.
On the worst 150kW station the average was 40kW and 0.63kWh/min. On the worst 350kW station the average was 20kW and 0.3kWh/min.

 

[Canyonero!]

My electrons are faster than your electrons

I only use electrons with a negative spin.

Gives you a bit more oomph!