Possible heat-related charging issue?

[Shane_SLC]

Hello forum friends,

I've been seeing some new/worrisome fast charging behavior a handful of times with my car over the past week. While charging at a few different 150 kW or 350 kW Electify America stations speeds would sharply drop from 125-150 kW down to less than 10 kW around 40-50% SoC. In each instance temperatures were about 105F or higher. Charging speeds did not seem to recover even after waiting for a few minutes and/or shutting off the air conditioning.

Has anyone else encountered this kind of charging behavior in extreme heat? I did not encounter anything like this last summer, that I recall. My theory is that the battery pack is overheating and the BMS is throttling the charging speed to protect itself. Perhaps something in the software has changed? Or perhaps it is and issue isolated to my own car, or even an issue with these specific chargers?

I've not seen any error messages or prompts that charging speed is limited by the station during these occurrences. I have not currently reached out to Lucid about the situation. Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and all the best!

 

[DeaneG]

It could also be EA's charging handle overheating, causing the charging station to throttle back. You could try a different stall.

 

[Shane_SLC]

It could also be EA's charging handle overheating, causing the charging station to throttle back. You could try a different stall.

Great suggestion. Unfortunately I was at a full station each time, but I could have at least swapped handles to see if that made any difference. If it happens again I'll be sure to try that before moving or leaving.

 

[HC_79]

I would lean more to an EA issue than Lucid. The local EA down the road is notoriously bad in summer. Can always ask Lucid though if you give them the timestamp.

Those temps though, it’s always going to be hit and miss because if it’s 105 outside you know those cables, connectors etc are going to be way hotter than 105.

 

[Shane_SLC]

Overheating cables or handles definitely sounds like a possible culprit. I've heard of Tesla chargers having this issue, but I don't recall hearing of similar issues with other chargers. This scenario seems at least somewhat repeatable, so if/when it happens again I'll hopefully be able to take more time to troubleshoot. I'll even make sure to keep water and towels on hand to try the wet rag trick.

 

[Rogue]

I saw this in the GT-P in Atlanta when it was at least 100 on the dash and well over that from the asphalt. Swapped handles to try to fix the issue when charging rates dropped to about 80kwh from the normal 150-155kwh.

The handle was hot enough to burn, so I juggled it to the amusement and entertainment of other miserably hot owners. Second handle did not increase speeds. I thought about swapping chargers, but I had only a short wait to make it home. Station could have been heat soaked, but the car wasn't saying the station was at fault.

I have only seen it once thankfully.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

never thought I'd see the term " heat soaked " once I left turbos behind. some kind of weird connection thing with heat and power

 

[ZimZim]

Hello forum friends,

I've been seeing some new/worrisome fast charging behavior a handful of times with my car over the past week. While charging at a few different 150 kW or 350 kW Electify America stations speeds would sharply drop from 125-150 kW down to less than 10 kW around 40-50% SoC. In each instance temperatures were about 105F or higher. Charging speeds did not seem to recover even after waiting for a few minutes and/or shutting off the air conditioning.

Has anyone else encountered this kind of charging behavior in extreme heat? I did not encounter anything like this last summer, that I recall. My theory is that the battery pack is overheating and the BMS is throttling the charging speed to protect itself. Perhaps something in the software has changed? Or perhaps it is and issue isolated to my own car, or even an issue with these specific chargers?

I've not seen any error messages or prompts that charging speed is limited by the station during these occurrences. I have not currently reached out to Lucid about the situation. Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and all the best!

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The same thing happened to me this week in Columbus, Texas on a road trip. On Monday it happened at station #4, so I waited a few minutes and moved to #3 with the same result. On the way home yesterday, I had to use the 150KW station #1 because, of course, a Bolt was at the 350KW station! Same thing happened on 3 different chargers at that location. It was sunny about about 95. My GT has 21" wheels so 80% charge is about 370 miles. I wasn't able to get past 320-330 miles before it went down to less than 100 miles/hour charging rate. Since it happened at 3 different locations on different days, I was thinking it was the car. But EA certainly has enough problems that they could also be causing this. Good to know it's not just my car.

 

[DeaneG]

The same thing happened to me this week in Columbus, Texas on a road trip. On Monday it happened at station #4, so I waited a few minutes and moved to #3 with the same result. On the way home yesterday, I had to use the 150KW station #1 because, of course, a Bolt was at the 350KW station! Same thing happened on 3 different chargers at that location. It was sunny about about 95. My GT has 21" wheels so 80% charge is about 370 miles. I wasn't able to get past 320-330 miles before it went down to less than 100 miles/hour charging rate. Since it happened at 3 different locations on different days, I was thinking it was the car. But EA certainly has enough problems that they could also be causing this. Good to know it's not just my car.

Look up the charging curve for your car. All EVs have one. Think in terms of kW input and battery state-of-charge percentage, not miles.