Lucid Announces Fastest Charging EV Ever!

The news /specs keep getting better. Looking very promising.
 
One thing leaves me perplexed/worried about today's news release. At one point Lucid said it had joined with Samsung in developing a proprietary cell chemistry. It later said the same thing when it announced the agreement to source cells from LG Chem. Peter Rawlinson has stated that the Lucid would be able to fast charge and take fuller charges with less battery degradation (probably meaning dendrite formation) than has been the case thus far.

Yet today's release, while it did mention "custom" cells and touted fast charging, said nothing about less battery degradation either from fast charging or from charging nearer to 100% capacity. I see no reason why they would not have mentioned that if it were the case, as it is a very big deal for people who already own an EV and are aware of the penalty exacted by too much fast charging or full charging.

So that leaves a big question: will the batteries degrade faster, as they do in other EVs, if you take advantage of the fast charging capability?
 
One thing leaves me perplexed/worried about today's news release. At one point Lucid said it had joined with Samsung in developing a proprietary cell chemistry. It later said the same thing when it announced the agreement to source cells from LG Chem. Peter Rawlinson has stated that the Lucid would be able to fast charge and take fuller charges with less battery degradation (probably meaning dendrite formation) than has been the case thus far.

Yet today's release, while it did mention "custom" cells and touted fast charging, said nothing about less battery degradation either from fast charging or from charging nearer to 100% capacity. I see no reason why they would not have mentioned that if it were the case, as it is a very big deal for people who already own an EV and are aware of the penalty exacted by too much fast charging or full charging.

So that leaves a big question: will the batteries degrade faster, as they do in other EVs, if you take advantage of the fast charging capability?

Excellent point. I have a scheduled call tomorrow morning with my newly assigned Sales Associate who is supposedly very knowledgeable and experienced. I will raise this issue with him and report back if I learn anything. Otherwise, we may have to wait until the Sept 9th reveal or thereafter to get an answer.
 
The current Porsche Taycan automatically takes the maximum power a roadside charger puts out, up to the car's limit of 270 kW. However, Porsche just announced that it is adding a feature that allows the owner to throttle back the charging speed to 200 kW. This has caused speculation that Porsche has found that the higher charging rate might be degrading the battery pack prematurely.

I hope the Lucid reveal will clarify whether their battery pack design and/or cell chemistry protects against enhanced degradation at the high charging rate of which the car is capable. I still find it worrisome that its news release touting the fast charging said nothing about protection from battery degradation during fast charging.
 
Sounds like the speculation may be a little bit of FUD against Porsche. The Model 3's 75 kWh pack seems to be fine at 250kW. The Taycan's pack is 25% larger at 93kWh, but the peak charge power is only 8% higher than the 3.
 
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The speculation about the purpose of the new Porsche feature was in a Transport Evolved video. The host of that show has test driven the Taycan and thinks it's the most amazing EV on the road. I don't think there was any agenda to impugn Porsche.

The 250kW is what the Tesla V3 supercharger is nominally capable of putting out. It is not what a car is necessarily getting. At a V3 supercharger, the Model 3 does not actually draw 250kW. A Car & Driver test in April of this year found that a Model 3 Long Range pulled 201kW for less than a second before settling in around 198kW for another two minutes. After that, the charge rate began to taper off as the battery filled.


This tapering occurs with all EVs and will be the case with the Lucid. This can be concluded from Lucid's statement that the car will gain 20 miles of range per minute at peak and will gain 300 miles of range in 20 minutes (which means an average over the charging cycle of 15 miles per minute). At a 350kW charger, the Lucid's peak draw is "over 300kW" -- whatever that means.

Even when Porsche is charging at its peak rate of 270kW, it does not remain at that level for the entire charging cycle. (I don't know what its taper curve is.) The fact that Porsche enables the user to keep the car from reaching peak rate even momentarily almost certainly relates to the risk of battery degradation. I cannot imagine any other reason that Porsche or an owner might want to slow down charging at a roadside station.
 
I just heard back from Lucid Sales about this issue. The salespeople haven't been given any information about protection from battery degradation, nor are they sure it will be covered in any depth at the 9/9 reveal. I was assured, however, that Lucid will be "very transparent and open" about how different owner behaviors will affect battery life by the time they get their cars.
 
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